speech. The most sober and conservative of his modern opponents
speaks of its eloquence as "prodigious." In this the great orator
dwelt first on the political necessity involved, declaring that the
most pressing need was to get the government lands into the hands of
the people, and so to commit to the nation and against the old
privileged classes the class of landholders thus created.

Through the whole course of his arguments there is one leading point
enforced with all his eloquence and ingenuity--the excellence of the
proposed currency, its stability and its security. He declares that,
being based on the pledge of public lands and convertible into them,
the notes are better secured than if redeemable in specie; that the
precious metals are only employed in the secondary arts, while the
French paper money represents the first and most real of all property,
the source of all production, the land; that while other nations have
been obliged to emit paper money, none have ever been so fortunate as
the French nation, for the reason that none had ever before been able
to give this landed security; that whoever takes French paper money
has practically a mortgage to secure it,--and on landed property which
can easily be sold to satisfy his claims, while other nations have
been able only to give a vague claim on the entire nation. "And," he
ones, "I would rather have a mortgage on a garden than on a kingdom!"

Other arguments of his are more demagogical. He declares that the
only interests affected will be those of bankers and capitalists, but
that manufacturers will see prosperity restored to them. Some of his
arguments seem almost puerile, as when he says, "If gold has been
hoarded through timidity or malignity, the issue of paper will show
that gold is not necessary, and it will then come forth." But, as a
whole, the speech was brilliant; it was often interrupted by applause;