Gold and Federal credit.
The late intelligence from the
North shows that gold has begun the mad dance that indicates a panic-stricken public on the subject of the finances.
The credit of the
Government, Federal, is getting unsteady, and men who have amassed capital out of war contracts and otherwise, are inclined to put it in the safest and solidest security — gold; and the next thing after that, is to transfer the gold to the safest place: viz,
England.
Mr. Chase has had
Cisco selling gold certificates, to check the advance of gold.
He sold at 100 for 164 when
gold readily brought 169 in greenbrier.
The certificates were receivable in custom house dues; but that did not make them as good as gold.
Ordinarily in peace times, the certificate would have been better than gold; but not so now. People are not so sure that the
Government might not put off these certificates, and they do not answer the purpose of immediate and safe hiding away till after the war, or to be used in speculation abroad.
Nay, more than and above all this, they are but the promises of a Government whose national debt is already beyond its ability ever to pay, and therefore do not command public confidence.
The depreciation of Federal credit is already great, and it must continue to grow worse.
Lincoln's Government may attempt to frustrate the story told by gold.
For a time they may affect its oracles so that it may by its variations palter in a double sense.
But it will continue to point the alarming downward index, showing the way of a rapidly depreciating and really an irredeemable paper currency.
The very latest news, indeed, exhibits some efforts at improvement — gold goes down a little.
Yet it will not be kept down.
It will rise again and drive the
Government to new and fruitless expedients to check its startling developments.
We shall not be surprised to see the
Yankees resorting to many of the exploded measures for forcing people into a belief in its credit, for compelling confidence to fill her pockets with its promises to pay in preference to gold.
But the result will be the same that it always has been.
It is very probable that
Mr. Chase has a presentiment of the course his gold would take if he sent any more to Wall street, as he resorted to the gold certificates instead.
He no doubt foresaw that all the gold he might sell would likely be placed on special deposit in some foreign bank within thirty days.
Nothing can enable the
Yankee Government to pay its enormous debt.
If the
South were even subjugated it would be unable to do so out of all the property it might seize in the
Southern States.
Any one who will reflect upon the subject can see how utterly fallacious must be all hopes of realizing any considerable sum from the property of the
South amidst the rain — the hopeless desolation — that must prevail in the event of her subjugation by this war. The very officials who were charged with the duty of converting this property into money would combine with the hordes which would spread over the land to rob and defraud the
Government.
Its revenues from this source would dissolve into nothing.
The machinery for the
Government and the spoliation and confiscation of the
South would sweep all the income that it could extort from an irretrievably ruined land, and the
Northern States would be compelled to bear the terrible burthen of debt which the war will have left them.
They would never pay it. They, too, would rebel, and there would be another war to desolate the
North as well as the
South, and in which the cup of retribution would be drained to the dregs by the heartless people now waging war against these States.
But the
South will never be subjugated.--The war must continue to be a futile one.
It may continue some time yet. But the
South must triumph.
As time passes away the
Northern hopes of making us pay their debt must diminish, while the debt itself dwells in geometrical progression like a ball of snow.
The effect of this sort of sliding scale upon the
Yankee mind is already perceptible, and must go steadily on, as a few months will show.
The gold thermometer will exhibit it, notwithstanding the efforts to influence it to speak falsely.
These efforts are only partially successful at present.
After a time, however, there will be a breaking away from the power of the
Government, just as when a dam falls and there is no power to stop the water it enclosed, and it will be given up to take its course.
The debt of the
South is large, but small compared with that of the
North, while the resources of the
South are inferior to those of no nation on the globe.
If the war is not prolonged to a period greater than most people anticipate, the
South will be able fully to redeem her credit before the world.
The
North never can, in no possible event.
One or two victories in pitched battles gained by the
South will elicit a pretty clear expression even of the opinion of the
North on this subject.
Mr. Chase will be that time very likely have stood out of the way, and allowed the stone he has endeavored so earnestly to roll to the top of the mountain to take its way, crashing all before it to the very bottom.
