It is then perceived that the enhancement of the price of land
and labor produces a corresponding increase in the price of products
until these products do not sustain a competition with similar ones in
other countries, and thus both manufactured and agricultural productions
cease to bear exportation from the country of the spurious currency,
because they can not be sold for cost. This is the process by which
specie is banished by the paper of the banks. Their vaults are soon
exhausted to pay for foreign commodities. The next step is a stoppage
of specie payment--a total degradation of paper as a currency--unusual
depression of prices, the ruin of debtors, and the accumulation of
property in the hands of creditors and cautious capitalists.
It was in view of these evils, together with the dangerous power wielded
by the Bank of the United States and its repugnance to our Constitution,
that I was induced to exert the power conferred upon me by the American
people to prevent the continuance of that institution. But although
various dangers to our republican institutions have been obviated by
the failure of that bank to extort from the Government a renewal of
its charter, it is obvious that little has been accomplished except a
salutary change of public opinion toward restoring to the country the
sound currency provided for in the Constitution.
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