authorized to be issued will be taken up quite as rapidly as the bonds
can be prepared or as the money may be required.

Not without good reason does the Secretary attribute the 'faith' thus
shown by the people 'in the securities of the Government,' to his
national banking law and the prospective establishment of a currency
'secured by a pledge of national bonds,' and destined at no distant day
to 'take the place of the heterogeneous corporate currency which has
hitherto filled the channels of circulation.' The idea of thus making
tributary to the Government in its present emergency the whole banking
capital of the country, or at least so much of it as may be employed in
furnishing a paper circulation for commercial transactions, was as bold
and magnificent as it has proved successful. Nothing less than the
national credit is sufficiently solid and enduring to be the basis of a
paper currency throughout the vast extent of our country. It is
eminently fit that this perfect solidarity of the central government
with those who furnish paper money for the people of every locality,
should be required and maintained on a proper basis. But the currency
thus provided is not liable to any of the objections properly urged
against a paper circulation issued by the Government itself; it is
issued by individuals or companies, and secured only by such national
stocks as have been created in the necessary operations of the nation
itself. The system does not constitute a national bank or banks in the
sense of that term as heretofore used in our history. It does nothing
more than assume that indispensable control over the long-neglected
currency of the country which is at once the privilege and the duty of
the National Government. It has authority to pronounce the supreme law
among all the States; and if there be any subject of legislation
requiring the unity to be derived from the exercise of such authority,
it is, above everything else, that common medium of exchange which