The reflector. (Milledgeville, Ga.) 1817-1819, June 16, 1818, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

THE REFLECTOR. MILLEDGEVILLE, G. TUESDAY, JUNE 16, m«. BANKING. om niles’ weekly register. E PAPER SYSTEM—NO. Ill EFFECTS ON THE FARMERS. bo cultivators of the earth consti- Aniericaii nation. The products of are its only real and substantial ,'licy furnish the food of man—they he merchant the staples of his trade manufacturer the materials of his ship—to the laborer his most whole* d virtuous occupation—and to the e his employment and his bread.— ure is the only lasting source of na- altli, because it is independent of itical changes that turn the course erce and manufactures into new ; and its history never presents such of short lived grandeur, founded by t decay, as are exhibited by Tyre, Genoa, and many other states. An ral people belong exclusively to country ; and are in a great de- of the reach of those regulations, lie pleasure of governments, ovei y have no control ; which exercise e influence on the well being of mer- and render those dependant on coin- Imost as much the subjects of every tc as of their own. Agriculture is. phatically, the employment becoming ican people, since*it introduces none tremendous inequalities of wealth erty, that create the materials of ty- ■nobles and beggars—oppressors and Its gains are moderate and sure ; it s by salutary degrees, and by the ex- f industry and frugality, the two illars o A virtuous state. Its invio leration is, in short, to produce a id system of equality—equally re frain the splendid, corrupting prodi f unbounded wealth, and the debasing edness of pinching poverty. It was ture that changed the earth from a less to a garden, and jnan from a i) a civilized being. Its virtuous la- lile they mellowed the soil, humani- manners, and turned him from war ider,hitherto his only occupations,to ;e social feelings, tp cherish social and that sacred good fellow ship irises from the influence of neighhor- the interchange of friendly offices, and le of mutual depcndunco. e, then, the face of the country is the rror in which to look for the expres- national happiness. The situation farmer is my criterion of national ity. Agricultural plenty makes n •ich and happy—commercial plenty, our’s, is the forerunner of national ition—for a great importation of if they are not paid for by an exchange iroducts of the land, make a nation of and a nation of debtors is a nation Let brokers and speculators per- he farmer preserves his sturdy inde- e ; for, so long as that is preserved, r honest classes of the community decay ; unless, as in the present state s, the country has been bloated, by 1 means, into a precocious expansion innot be either salutary or lasting, us free ourselves from the wretched cm, and, though we mny not see so -start brokers rolling in wealth, oi suffering laborers, who are swal- by the monopoly of speculators—or wretched paupers, reduced from iehes to real beggary—yet, sir, we what is much better : we shall see stead, a wholesome, widely diffused nee among all classes, equally re- om the extremes of splendor and on which the republican institutions ountry may rest iii security. :g then, to the welfare of theTarmer st, and the only, foundation of na- osperity, whenever I wool detest the r of any system, financial or com. I always study its effects on the interest; and if I find them injurious do not hesitate to pronounce the sys- iso and impolitic. The interests of vatorsof the land can never be sacri hose of any other class, or classes of iiuity, without the injury recoiling ir own heads. As well might we at- deepen a stream of water by drying rce—or to purify it by pullut.ug the from whence it Issues. Let me now 0 enquire into the efficiency of the tern, testing it by these plain pfinci- h I defy the most logical broker, or 1 speculator to overthrow, however scurc them, by quoting the jargon 1 economists, originally hired to he national debt of England, o boasted benefits which the far- baid to derive from the paper-rag re the facility of procuring money, banks, wherewith to improve their d the increased price of the land of its produce. As to the first, sir, I am one of those desperate unbelievers, who doubt whether the virtue, the happiness, or the prosperity of the people, are enhanced by the facility of running in debt. I believe that the only true and lasting basis of honorable, and salutary independence, to the laboring classes, is industry and frugality ; fur I know by experience, that a dependanre on any o- ther prop is sure to be followed by idleness, debauchery, exti avagaiirc and ruin. Whcm - verw state of public feeling is produced, where men are not ashamed of being in debt, the mind loses its proper sense ol manly inde pendence, and whenever the salutary obsta cles of borrowing money are removed, and men are invited to be become debtors by the facility of borrowing money, the axe is laid to the root of national industry, which is the foundation of national virtue and prosperity. In no well organized state of society ought the generality of men to become borrowers ; and in no <"luss of any community can bor rowing become general, without ultimately ending in its ruin. A mart may sometimes be placed in a situation where a loan will be greatly advantageous ; but he who bottoms his prosperity on money belonging to others, and whi h may he reclaimed at any time, is worse ill.m the fool who built his house on a ; foundation of sand. There was a time—I speak in the melan choly past tense when recurring to tho days of agricultural prosperity—There was a time when it was disgraceful in a farmer to borrow money, and his respectability was seriously injured by becoming a dependant on banks, l hese honest people had a just and instinc tive abhorrence to those institutions, and, without exactly reasoning on the subject, they arrived at just conclusions. They sawthat the art of becoming rich without either capi tal or industry—the power of creating wealth from rags—must in the end, inevitably prove highly injurious to every man possessed of real property. It was plain, that if men could grow rich by such means, the value of indus try and land must continue to diminish insen sibly, because it is impossible (o give a ficti tious value to any imaginary and worthless commodity, without diminishing in ’he like proportion, the value of what is real. The firmer had earned dearly,-the money with which he purchased his land ; and when he saw the facility with which land could he ac quired without tabor, or silver, or geld, la could not. fail to he struck with the conviction of the truth. He saw and felt that the sys tem of rags must either be destroyed or that lie must become an accomplice or «v victim. These truths are every day coming home to the farmers, in proportion as the number of banks, without capital, is increased ; and we now every day see them, either selling their lands to invest the proceeds in banks, or to flee to some sequestered region where none are to bo found—or we see them driven to sa crifice their inheritance to pay their dis counts. Of all men living, the American farmer had the least occasion to borrow money. If he was horn to tlic inheritance of a farm, that farm would stippot t him as it did his father before him—if like him, he was frugal and industrious. If he had no land of his own lie could get it in his neighborhood ; he could buy it without money, and pay for it by his industry. The payments were always so pro portioned, as to give him a fair chance of meeting them from the profits of his lahd. and, being aware of this, he lost every other dependence but that of becoming a man—a ■lcpcndance on his own exertions. The differ ent periods of payment were distant and cer tain, and he knew the precise time that they would he demanded. He gave no security, but a mortgage on his farm, and he allowed no extraordinary premium on the score of the uncertainty of being able to pay. He could therefore pursue the even tenor of his indus try, without being drawn off every 60 days, to raise the ways and means for paying th,- sixty days’ bank accomodations; ami sel dom if ever did it happen, that he was forc ed, as now a-days, to sacrifice his farm and his produce at half price, to some hungry bank director, to pay a loan unexpectedly demanded on some frivolous pretence, if, in short, he was prudent and industrious— and without these, even bank loans will not enrich tile farmer—he soon became indepen dent ; for he did not rely on the conscience of brokers, or the good will of the petty di rectors of a petty village bank, thirsting for his land, because they were poor, and care less of the means of acquiring it—because they were unprincipled. Or if, sir, he found it difficult to procure a farm on these terms in his more immediate neighborhood, the fertile regions of the w6st and south, where land was cheap, and labor the source of wealth, were open to his enter prise and industry. Here ho was certain of independence, and sure to grow moderately rich, as rapidly as it is salutary for man to become so. He required not a shilling to buy a farm, for his labor was sure to make it his own, and his landlord knew his interest too I well not to render the situation ofhis settlers! as easy as possible. There was a contest for settlers, and not for lauds on which to settle. 1 assert, therefore, that the farmers wanted no greater facilities in raising money than they possessed before the erection of a sin gle bank ; and I appeal to ilieir present de- (lining state, that the facilities they now pos sess, in "iHiseqd^nce of the multiplication of . Iicse mibchievouS and liYiprincipled institu tions, are the sources of their speedy and in- ‘ vitahie t! ay. Such however, was the sit uation of the agricultural interest, previous lo the grand conspiracy of desperate specula tors, against the laboring classes, and hold- decs of real property, in the United States. In this happy state of self dependence they lived, increased and flourished, until the grand discovery which lias immortalized the age, and will in the end make its fate an ex ample, and a warning to posterity. I mean the discovery of the magnum bonum of brok ers, beggars and speculators, the great chym- ical desideratum which hnfllcd the science of former ages, and eluded the researches of wicked wights, where ingenuity was suppos ed tq be quickened by unholy leagues with the prince of darkness—I mean, the true anil genuine philosopher’s stone, heretofore believ ed to reside in metals, hut now found to con sist in a mere transmutation of rags. We know not the name of the chosen genius win. first made this fortunate discovery, and cal culated so justly on the credulity of mankind. Rut as necessity is said to be the mother of invention, it is probable (he world is indebt ed fur this most valuable secret, to some beggarly itinerant, who having exhausted all methods of swindling by retail, luckily at last hit upon tins admirable expedient for carrying on business by wholesale. Since then the decline of the landed inte rest has been exactly in proportion to the in crease of the means of trading, speculating, monopolizing, and lending by the agency of paper banks—to the increase of the bank di vidends, and the rate of depreciation in the paper currency. The temptation of nine or 10 per cent, per ann. obtained by the invest mg money in (lie banks, no matter whether gained honestly or not, has caused all the ik-ating capital of the country to be embark ed in hunks, which arc now become tho nnlv loiih rs ui money, through discounts or thro’, the channel of usurers', broke-rs, and bank directors. To the hanks then the farmer is courteously incited to borrow money, whe ther he wants it or not. There is no difficul ty in his getting loans to the amount of near ly tho value ofhis farm. Nay, it appears by a report of a committee of the assembly of tin-state oi New York, that he is actually coaxed, seduced, into burrowing, by the cunning jackalis of the country banks. That this seduction is carried on, on a most exten sive scale, my own experience has demon strated. It is proved by the iiinumcrahh suits brought by the banks at every town a- gainst the holders of real property;—it i- proved by the te.-:liouiny of thousands of far mers, forced into tue sacrifice of their lands, to pay bank discounts ; and it is unanswera bly proved, by the notorious fact, that tin hanks arc gradually > quiring possession of a great portion of the real property in their respective neighborhoods. No wonder, sir— people who can manufacture rags at pleasure, which they never mean to redeem, and pass them off for money, A get real property pled ged, for the payment of debts thus incurred, must and ui!l, at no distant period, acquire virtual possession of nil the real property of the country. I, sir, live in a district where there arc sixteen or seventeen banks and corporations issuing paper money, within 10 miles square. Its population may. he, SO,000, and it.$ trade may amount to three, four or five millions annually. One would be puzzled to guess where all these banks find employment for their capital,—it really makes me sttlilewhen 1 apply the word capital to modern paper banks !—the riddle is easily read—they lend them out on chc security of lots bought, and houses built with rags borrowed of these banks, to whom almost every house and foot of land is tributary, and every man a slave. 1 have estimated on correct general data— that all the property, real and personal, land and live stock, two legged and four legged tfiiimals inclusive, if it were sold to-morrow, would not redeem the paper issued by these precious monied institutions. By a late ex position of the affairs of these banks, made to the secretary of the treasury .and inadvertant ly published, it appears that the amount of specie then in their vaults, was somewhere a- bout one fifteenth the amount of their debts to the. public ! What a glorious* state-of things ! and what a consoling reflection it is, to know that this state of things is not peculiar to the flourish ing district,I have the good fortune to inha bit, but is widely diffused, and every day be coming more extensive and diversified. South of the Connecticut river, we seldom find a state legislature, meeting without increasing these blessings ; and the first embryo act of ! legislation in the new states, is tho creation of a litter of banks, to enable a knot of spe culators to monopolize the land, and hold it at a fictitious value, which impose on the land holder an idle and erroneous persua sion, thatAic has all at once grown rich.— Thus, instead of the country prospering by its pure and genuine sources of prosperity, these are in fact destroyed by the fictitious substitutes, that possess no other attribute of reality, than the means of scattering ru in around them. All suffer more or less by this substitution of idea), lor real wealth, but none so vitally as the gVcat landed interest, which is tho hack bone of the country. The means which formerly sufficed to make the farmer inde pendent, arc now no longer so, because the value of money is decreased, in a much greater ratio, than the rise in the price ofhis land and its produce ; and above all, be- i ause, a mode of living extravagant beyond all former example, is introduced, every where in this country, by the brokers, hank directors, and speculators, to which the re- tenues and the gains of every other class of people are entirely inadeq late. The natu ral, and therefore the inevitable consequence of this state of things, may lie readily an*i- i ipated. Either the, farmer is tempted to sell his land and invest it in some neighbor ing bank, lured by the irresistible argument of nine or ten per cent, or he : s tempted to borrow money which he does not w ioi, to speculate, and grow rich of a sudden, like his neighbor the bank director. If I. t.x.’s the first course—the stock of capital in •.••sl ed in the cultivation of the land, is dim iti ed in proporti ,n t6 the recruits thus ml from honest and permanen' in-1; pcudi-ncc, to take tiie chances of broking and spcnn.r.lio'i, and deposit their real rich 's in »tie same fate with the ideal wealth of penuvless ..((ventu rers. From a useful citizen adding i vy day to the wealth ofhis country and the happiness of his fellow beings, he sinks into a useless drone, nay, a mischievous tempi-a* —an animal who preys on tho unsuspecting, and grows rich on the distresses of his neighbors. If, on the contrary, the farmer is tempted, and coaxed to accept of a discount, and this is done continually by the country and vil lage hanks, which are of course ever on tiie alert to procure, the security of real property for their rags—what then is the rominoii ef fect of such imprudence ? He obtains a tem porary accommodation for sixty days, which cannot be useful to him in the slow progress of agricultural economy, and which tiie as surance of his friend, the bank director, that his note will be renewed forever if he wishes it, renders him careless in repaying. Nine times out of ten l e is not read/ to pay (lie. note—■.vlii- h is renewed a decent number of times, until the favorable period for it fusing all further accommodation arrives, Bruks never want a decent excuse for this—but the real reason generally is, that s line h.inirv bank director, had cast tim eyes of longing on ’he good man's farm, which in pro<\ ss of time, is sold at public vendue, am 1 .'ucriticed fur half or otic third i its value,—because the little country bank, having every body in debt, has only to draw in its discc its suddenly, to make money s.i scarce in tour neighborhood, that then is n > competition of purchasers, instances of this kind o> car so frequently ir. tin. vicinity of ibis'* pe>.*.» o- principlcd establishments, that the p.of land, so far fro.a being • .•c, • nbiine in the country, has srsta.ned u raol .i-pr.cia- iicn, on account of the n her of farms, that are. every where sacrificed in the man ner I have stated. There are. more f ,r..is for sale ; than fair and honest purchasers to buy them ; and though we find land nomi nally at a great price, we do not anil reauy purchasers at all for it, except bans di-. c- tors and speculators, w ho having a mam.fac tory of money of their own, don’t mind a few thousands one way or other To th se who never mean to redeem their rags, the e- mission of a few more or less is < f no earthly consequence. Hence it is that the most carelessly generous people in the world, arc for the most part those that never pay their debts. It is not they wbo give the money— but the laborious tradesman who is never paid for his work—and the honest farmer who is stinted in the enjoyment of his well earned independence, to supply the unprin cipled prodigality of gamhl'rs and spend thrifts. It is thus that laborers dwindle into paupers, and land pass away for paper mo ney—for an ideal equivalent—iinpuchntly professing to be what it is not; for a mire promise, that will not, and as I shall hereaf ter prove, cannot, aiid is not meant to he ful filled. It is thus that the agriculturalist, the proprietor of real estate, is impoverished by the diversion of the capital of the country, from the land to the bank ; from the bank to the broker’s shop—to be dealt out at usuri ous interests. It is this way that the r ,tl property is swallowed up by an idei I mon ster, having neither flesh, or substance, or soul, but voracious beyond the fabled appe tites of either giant or ogre.