nearly ten years, but the period of recovery lasted longer than the
generation which followed. It required fully forty years to bring
capital, industry, commerce and credit up to their condition when the
Revolution began, and demanded a "man on horseback," who established
monarchy on the ruins of the Republic and thew away millions of lives
for the Empire, to be added to the millions which had been sacrificed
by the Revolution.[83]

Such, briefly sketched in its leading features, is the history of the
most skillful, vigorous and persistent attempt ever made to substitute
for natural laws in finance the ability of legislative bodies, and,
for a standard of value recognized throughout the world, a national
standard devised by theorists and manipulated by schemers. Every
other attempt of the same kind in human history, under whatever
circumstances, has reached similar results in kind if not in degree;
all of them show the existence of financial laws as real in their
operation as those which hold the planets in their courses.[84]

I have now presented this history in its chronological order--the
order of events: let me, in conclusion, sum it up, briefly, in its
_logical_ order,--the order of cause and effect.

And, first, in the economic department. From the early reluctant and
careful issues of paper we saw, as an immediate result, improvement
and activity in business. Then arose the clamor for more paper money.
At first, new issues were made with great difficulty; but, the dyke
once broken, the current of irredeemable currency poured through; and,
the breach thus enlarging, this currency was soon swollen beyond
control. It was urged on by speculators for a rise in values; by
demagogues who persuaded the mob that a nation, by its simple fiat,