it was contrived to en- rich particular
individuals
at the public ex- pense" [71:35].
A-Companion-to-the-Cantos-of-Ezra-Pound-II
.
.
scourge and foe to all corruption .
.
.
had merely the same fate"
[ibid. }. Benton fails to mention his own case. After 30 years in the Senate, he was refused re-election by the legislature but ran for the House and was elected by a big popular majority.
36. An advantage: In the political struggles between President Jackson and Vice- President Calhoun, Van Buren, the secretary of state, became a pawn. After Van Buren led the resignation of the cabinet [37:1], Jackson nominated him to be ambassador to Great Britain. He took up his post before confirmation by the Senate. Vice-President Calhoun engineered the vote of confirmation to be a tie so that he could cast the dedding ballot against him and cause the most embar- rassment. Benton says: "[When} all the Lon- don newspapers heralded the rejection of the American minister, there was a great party at Prince Talleyrand's . . . Mr. Van Buren . . . was there, as if nothing had happened; and
received distinguished attentions, and com- plimentary allusions. Lord Aukland . . . said to him, It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage" [TYV, I, 218- 219; see Van Buren, Auto, 457-458 for his version}.
37. 2 buffer states . . . : [86: 10].
38. ea'our, tessitore: I, "Cavour, weaver. " Since Cavour [cf. 39 below}, was not liter- ally a weaver, the epithet probably has a metaphorical intent to suggest Cavour's po- litical adroitness in working his way through
89/592
517
the
42. "Borrowing , . , : Recurrent theme in Pound. Benton said: "it is incontestable, that the United States have been borrowing these undrawn balances [the government's own money on deposit} from the bank, and paying an interest upon their own money"
[TYV, 1,194].
43. Randolph: [87: 10}.
44. Tariff . . . : [88:93,95]. Benton saw the idea of protective tariff as the source of the doctrine of nullification, "from which a seri- ous division . . . between the North and the South" dated. He said: "The question of a protective tariff had now not only become political, but sectional" [TYV, I, 97}.
45. Excessive issues: [88: 18, 78}.
46. Treasury wd/pay . . . : Part of the bank's ploy to retire stock of a revolutionary war debt at 100% on the dollar when it had obtained it for less: "it was clear that the treasury would pay one hundred cents on the dollar on what could be then purchased for sixty-odd, losing in the mean time the interest on the money with which it could be paid" [TYV, I, 242}.
47. As Indian silver . . . : In "Gold and
tangled webs spun to snare him. In "A Vis- iting Card" Pound wrote: "The Rothschilds financed the armies against the Roman Re- public. Naturally. They tried to buy over Cavour. Naturally. Cavour accomplished the first stage towards Italian unity, allowing himself to be exploited according to the custom of his times, but he refused to be dominated by the exploiters" [SP,327}.
39. Cavour: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, 1810-1861, Italian statesman who became premier (1852-1859). Just as Jackson had to accept Van Buren's resignation as secretary of state, King Victor Emmanuel II was forced to accept a similar resignation by
Work," Pound, in discussing how "Usuro- cracy makes wars" one after the other [88:28}, wrote: " A t one period, in fact, silver fell to 23 cents per ounce, and was later bought by certain American idiots at 75 cents per ounce, in order to please their
masters and to 'save India'" [SP, 344].
48. Catron: John C. , ca. 1786-1865, Ameri- can jurist who went from chief justice of Tennessee to an appointment by Jackson as associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He was an early supporter of Jackson in the bank controversy. Says Marquis James: "Catron suggested a democratic substitute for Mr. Biddle's monopoly: all directors to be appointed by the President and Congress; branches to be set up only on petition of state legislatures . . . " [Jackson, 558}.
49. Ideogram: Pi [M5! 09}, "certainly, must,"
50. Andy Jackson: Upon vetoing the rechar- ter bill, Jackson listed a number of objec- tions to the practices of the bank as well as to the idea of the U. S, government creating exclusive monopolies: "If our government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value; and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years, let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign g'ov- ernment, nor upon a designated or favored class of men in our own country" [TYV, I,251}.
51. 70 million: Probank senators predicted that if the veto were sustained it would cause financial ruin on, a national scale. Ben- ton tried to show that the bank had engi- neered the conditions for panic in the West by increaSing its debts most in the West, from $40,216,000 in Dec. of 1829 to $70,428,000 in 1832, showing "an increase of thirty millions in the short space of two years and four months" [ibid. , 258}.
52. mehercule ventum! : P , "by Hercules' wind. " A Poundian oath [80:295].
53. with bowie knives: A reference to a barroom quarrel in 1813 between General
Cavour [61: 19]. Pound Cavourian [SP,312].
40. Auctor: L, "author. "
41. Borah: [84:6].
called
himself
a
? 518
89/592-593
89/593-594
519
Jackson and Benton's brother Jesse, while the Bentons were living in Tennessee [cf. 266 below]. Although relations had been cool between the Jacksons and the Bentons for a while, their beliefs and philosophy of government and democracy eventually made them strong mutual supporters. Nonetheless, Clay brought up the old quarrel by innuendo twenty years later ip his answer to Benton's defense of Jackson's veto of the bank rechar- ter bill. Said Clay: "I never had any personal rencontre with the President of the United States . . . I never published any bulletins respecting his private brawls . . . I never com- plained, that while a brother of mine was down on the ground, senseless or dead, he received another blow . . . 1 never declared my apprehension and belief, that if he [Jack- son] were elected, we should be obliged to legislate with pistols and dirks by our side;' Benton declared that the allegation going the rounds in the press that he said such things was "an atrocious calumny" [TYV, I, 263-264].
54. pre- not ex-officio: In contrast to the Clay-Randolph duel [88: 1-30], Pound no- tices that the Clay-Benton brawl took place before either were in office, not while in office.
55. Do our cottons: In arguing for tariff protection for cottons, Clay and his fol- lowers said that many u. s. products, "espe- cially the cotton, were going abroad . . . ; and sustaining themselves. _. against all competition;' Benton argued that if that were the case they didn't need any protec- tion: "Surely, sir, our tariff laws . . . are not in force in Bengal and China . . . if our cot- tons can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit without any protection at all, they can stay at home, and be sold to our citi- zens, without loss" [TYV, 1372].
56. Aurelian: Benton cites Emperor Aure- lian's order, "never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen! " The wealth of the West went down the river past New Orleans, but the money for those goods went to the Northeast. According to a Ben- ton note, a military station called "Aure-
lian" was later corrupted into "Orleans" [ibid. , 273].
57. Mr. Taney: Roger Brooke T. , 1777- 1864, was first attorney general in Jackson's cabinet and then (1833-1834) secretary of the treasury. A former secretary refused to carry out Jackson's order to deposit U. S. money not in the Bank of the United States-which would not have its charter renewed-but in selected state banks. Taney carried out the orders and stood firmly with Van Buren and Jackson against the financial interests [37:76].
58. Burr . . . late: Aaron B. , 1756-1836 [32: II]. Line is prob. a Pound opinion that if Burr had killed Hamilton in a duel in 1784 instead of 1804, he wouldn't have been able to get the first U. S. Bank, modeled on the
Bank of England, started.
59. Monsieur Vebbstair . . . : F, "Mr. Web- ster liked to lounge. " The line is prob. based on Van Buren's opinion that Webster, who may have worked hard when young, had reached the state that a lot of "weather beaten politicians" reach: "the enjoyment of public stations exempted . . . from the cares and sacrifices often inseparable from a punc- tilious discharge of the duties attached to them" [MVB,Auto, 706].
60. Ut moveat . . . dilectet: L, "To move, to instruct, to delight [delectet]. " Pound at- tributes the phrase, in a different order, to Rodolfo Agricola [ABeR, 66] .
61. J. Q. A. : During his final years as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, Adams fought steadily and at an increasing tempo against slavery [Pai, 6-2, 227-229], as op- posed to "Vebbstair," who liked to rest. Said JQA: "and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birthday, with a shak- ing hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain . . . what can I do for the cause of God and man . . . for the supression of the Afri-
stop debate which "hogswoggled" (prob. "tied up" or "prevented action by") the House. JQA labored to get the "gag-rule" repealed in the House and succeeded on Dec. 3, 1845. His diary account for that day ends: "The question was then put on the resolution to rescind the gag rule; and it was carried-! 08 to 80. Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God! " [ibid. , 573].
63. Old John: John Adams, JQA's father. On funding, he wrote: "Funds and banks I never approved, or was satisfied without fundings systems . -. .
it was contrived to en- rich particular individuals at the public ex- pense" [71:35]. John Adams was against paper currency because it depreciated. He wrote to his wife, Abigail, Feb. 8, 1794: "Borrowing of banks for trading capital is very unmercantile" [62: 126]. "Vide infra": L, "see below. "
64. Mr Jefferson: TJ wrote to William Craw- ford on June 20, 1816, the year before Crawford became Monroe's treasury secre- tary, a letter that contains statements Pound thinks are essential to any understanding of U. S. monetary history. TJ writes of three measures needed to insure lasting prosperity. The third measure "should insure resources of money by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace, and licensing that of the nation alone during war . . . and if the national bills issued, be bottomed. . . on pledges of specific taxes for their redemp- tion . . . no interest on them would be neces- sary" [GK,345;SP, 159].
65. our own mines: Benton believed that the mines of the United States could provide enough money in specie so that no paper need be circulated by private banks: "In the year 1824 the product was $5,000; in the last year [1833] the product, in coined gold was $868,000; in uncoined, as much more; and the product of the present year [1834] computed at two millions; with every pros- pect of continued and permanent in- crease . . . But the great source of supply, both for gold and silver, . . . was in our for- eign commerce" [TYV, I, 439].
66. Napoleon . . . : When Napoleon was only a consul, he ordered specie payments to be- gin on a certain day, and they did. Benton said: "and a hard money currency has been the sole currency of France from that day to this" [ibid. , 440].
67. Mr. Hamilton . . . : In 1792 AH fixed the gold-silver ratio at 15 to I, while Europe and South American held to a 16-to-1 ratio. The result was to drain gold from the U. S. Complete extinction was delayed for a time: "The trade to the lower Mississippi con- tinued to bring up from Natchez and New Orleans . . . a large supply of doubloons" [ibid. , 442]. But the end was inevitable: "Gold goes where it finds its value . . . In Mexico and South America the value of gold is 16 to 1 over silver. . . It is not to be supposed. " that our own gold will remain with us, when an exporter can gain a dollar upon every fifteen that he carries out"
[ibid. , 443].
68. 6 suspensions: Benton showed Hamil- ton's plan was the eventual elimination of foreign coins, which would be replaced by an American currency. Since that didn't hap- pen, and the law to exclude foreign coins didn't work, Congress suspended it for three years. Six further 3-year suspensions became necessary and they didn't end until 1819
[88:75].
69. au TIS: H, "No one" [74: 17]. Used here as an intensive.
70. Nothing . . . West: The prohibition of foreign coins had a devastating effect upon the West: "for the coinage of trade and exchanges, to carry money from the Atlantic States to the West" [TYV, I, 446].
71. Brooks: B. Adams, 1848-1927, son the Charles Francis A. and brother of Henry Adams, 1838-1918. Both were American his- torians. Pound said of B. Adams: "His cyclic version of the West shows us a consecutive struggle against four great rackets, namely the exploitation of the fear of the unknown (black magic, etc. ), the exploitation of vio- lence, the exploitation or the monopolisa-
can slave-trade? "
lQA,519].
[Nevins,
Diary o f
62. Roman law: Pound interpolation con- cerning the two-third's majority required to
? 520
tion of cultivable land, and the exploitation
of money" [SF, 307] ,
72. grandfather: John Quincy Adams
[34:passim].
73. old John: President John Adams [31:15]. Said Pound, "The tragedy of the U. S. A. over 160 years is the decline of Adarnses. More and more we cd. , if we ex- amined events, see that John Adams had the
corrective for Jefferson" [GK,254].
74. Under . . . four: The effect of the law
excluding foreign coinage even resulted in the export of U. S. -minted coins, which made the law "the curse and the nuisance of the country. . . . The custom? house returns showed the large exportation of domestic coins. . . . In the year 1832, it amounted to $2,058,474" [TYV, I, 447].
75. . . . the highest: Benton said that regu- lating the currency "was one of the highest and most delicate acts of sovereign power"
[ibid. , 449].
76. tho charter: The bank helped create the
coinage vacuum so it could float its own paper money: "Although forbid by her char- ter to deal in coin, she has employed her branches to gather $40,040,000 of coin from the states; a large part of which she admits that she has sold and transported to Europe" [ibid. , 448].
77. POWER . . . : The power to coin and regulate the currency is a constitutional question: "this power is vested in the federal government not in one department of it, but in the joint action of the three departments"
[ibid. , 449].
89/594 79. Gold . . . issue: In Del Mar's History of
Monetary Systems, we read, "The right to coin money has always been and still re- mains the surest mark and announcement of sovereignty" [HMS, 66]. Del Mar [96: 119] earlier said: "N0 language is more positive than that of Mommsen . . . in laying down the following institute: that Rome never per- mitted her vassals to strike gold. " He devel- ops in this chapter the use of other metals [ibid. , 34-35]. In the Bridson interviews Pound reiterated one of his long-held theses: "Gold was under the Pontifex or the Em- pire; silver was a wangle farmed out to sena- tors . . . an d the bronze, the small coinage, was under certain privileged municipalities. That is to say, enough local control to pre- vent the local economic order being ruined from the center [Bridson, "An Interview," 179].
80. Benton's . . . : These lines refer to the power to issue. The answer to the question "when? " was, according to Benton, when the national government used its sovereignty and when there was national, regulated met? al currency in circulation. "Why? " Because if the national government issued its own money it would not have to pay interest, as it did on the bank's paper money, and no public debt would build up and be owed to the bank [88:137, 139; and 26 above].
8! . Voltaire: [65:108]. He said: "I have a friend . . . who is a director in the Bank of France, who writes to me when they are going to make money plenty, and make stocks rise, and then I give orders to my broker to sell; and he writes to me when they are going to make money scarce . . . and then I write to my broker to buy; and
89/594-595
83. Del Mar: Alexander D. M. [96: 119].
84. "ratios . . . Orient. ": After Julius Caesar conquered Egypt (48 B. C. ), he found that the difference in the gold-silver ratio be- tween Rome and the Orient made it possible for Roman money men to work the system by demanding silver in payment from for- eign countries. Said Del Mar, "one reason was that the Roman government knew where to sell this silver at a usurer's profit"
[HMS, 86-87].
85. Government wanted: To the chorus of complaints that the secretary of the treasury acted illegally when he deposited federal funds in state banks rather than branches of the U. S. Bank, Benton said that the U. S. Bank was using the deposits to create its own currency, whereas, "The government wanted banks of deposit, not of circulation; and . . . the State banks [under the charter] are made just as much banks of deposit for the United States as the Bank of the United States is" [TYV, I, 457].
86. Ideogram: 14 [M3002], "right conduct" or "righteousness. "
87. black-out: A restatement of Pound's be- lief that munitions makers, usurers, and all their kind fostered war because it kept busi- ness and profits increasing, and that they could not get away with it if they did not keep their operations in the dark [GK, 30, 31,264].
88. Taney: Roger Brooke T. [cf. 57 above] from a Maryland slaveholding family, which eventually led to a stormy career as a SUM preme Court Justice. He was appointed to the court by Andrew Jackson as a reward for service in his cabinet in anumber of posts, first as attorney general and then, at a criti- cal moment in the struggle against the bank, as secretary of the treasury. Taney wrote most of Jackson's veto message on the reo chartering bill.
89. showed an increase: The U. S. Bank cre- . ated the panic of 1833-34 by curtailing all capital loans across the country. The Senate called upon Secretary Taney to report on
521
the government's finances, expecting the country was close to ruin. But the reverse was true. "Far from showing the financial decline. . . it showed an increase in every branch of the revenue! " [TYV , I, 462].
90.
[ibid. }. Benton fails to mention his own case. After 30 years in the Senate, he was refused re-election by the legislature but ran for the House and was elected by a big popular majority.
36. An advantage: In the political struggles between President Jackson and Vice- President Calhoun, Van Buren, the secretary of state, became a pawn. After Van Buren led the resignation of the cabinet [37:1], Jackson nominated him to be ambassador to Great Britain. He took up his post before confirmation by the Senate. Vice-President Calhoun engineered the vote of confirmation to be a tie so that he could cast the dedding ballot against him and cause the most embar- rassment. Benton says: "[When} all the Lon- don newspapers heralded the rejection of the American minister, there was a great party at Prince Talleyrand's . . . Mr. Van Buren . . . was there, as if nothing had happened; and
received distinguished attentions, and com- plimentary allusions. Lord Aukland . . . said to him, It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage" [TYV, I, 218- 219; see Van Buren, Auto, 457-458 for his version}.
37. 2 buffer states . . . : [86: 10].
38. ea'our, tessitore: I, "Cavour, weaver. " Since Cavour [cf. 39 below}, was not liter- ally a weaver, the epithet probably has a metaphorical intent to suggest Cavour's po- litical adroitness in working his way through
89/592
517
the
42. "Borrowing , . , : Recurrent theme in Pound. Benton said: "it is incontestable, that the United States have been borrowing these undrawn balances [the government's own money on deposit} from the bank, and paying an interest upon their own money"
[TYV, 1,194].
43. Randolph: [87: 10}.
44. Tariff . . . : [88:93,95]. Benton saw the idea of protective tariff as the source of the doctrine of nullification, "from which a seri- ous division . . . between the North and the South" dated. He said: "The question of a protective tariff had now not only become political, but sectional" [TYV, I, 97}.
45. Excessive issues: [88: 18, 78}.
46. Treasury wd/pay . . . : Part of the bank's ploy to retire stock of a revolutionary war debt at 100% on the dollar when it had obtained it for less: "it was clear that the treasury would pay one hundred cents on the dollar on what could be then purchased for sixty-odd, losing in the mean time the interest on the money with which it could be paid" [TYV, I, 242}.
47. As Indian silver . . . : In "Gold and
tangled webs spun to snare him. In "A Vis- iting Card" Pound wrote: "The Rothschilds financed the armies against the Roman Re- public. Naturally. They tried to buy over Cavour. Naturally. Cavour accomplished the first stage towards Italian unity, allowing himself to be exploited according to the custom of his times, but he refused to be dominated by the exploiters" [SP,327}.
39. Cavour: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, 1810-1861, Italian statesman who became premier (1852-1859). Just as Jackson had to accept Van Buren's resignation as secretary of state, King Victor Emmanuel II was forced to accept a similar resignation by
Work," Pound, in discussing how "Usuro- cracy makes wars" one after the other [88:28}, wrote: " A t one period, in fact, silver fell to 23 cents per ounce, and was later bought by certain American idiots at 75 cents per ounce, in order to please their
masters and to 'save India'" [SP, 344].
48. Catron: John C. , ca. 1786-1865, Ameri- can jurist who went from chief justice of Tennessee to an appointment by Jackson as associate justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. He was an early supporter of Jackson in the bank controversy. Says Marquis James: "Catron suggested a democratic substitute for Mr. Biddle's monopoly: all directors to be appointed by the President and Congress; branches to be set up only on petition of state legislatures . . . " [Jackson, 558}.
49. Ideogram: Pi [M5! 09}, "certainly, must,"
50. Andy Jackson: Upon vetoing the rechar- ter bill, Jackson listed a number of objec- tions to the practices of the bank as well as to the idea of the U. S, government creating exclusive monopolies: "If our government must sell monopolies, it would seem to be its duty to take nothing less than their full value; and if gratuities must be made once in fifteen or twenty years, let them not be bestowed on the subjects of a foreign g'ov- ernment, nor upon a designated or favored class of men in our own country" [TYV, I,251}.
51. 70 million: Probank senators predicted that if the veto were sustained it would cause financial ruin on, a national scale. Ben- ton tried to show that the bank had engi- neered the conditions for panic in the West by increaSing its debts most in the West, from $40,216,000 in Dec. of 1829 to $70,428,000 in 1832, showing "an increase of thirty millions in the short space of two years and four months" [ibid. , 258}.
52. mehercule ventum! : P , "by Hercules' wind. " A Poundian oath [80:295].
53. with bowie knives: A reference to a barroom quarrel in 1813 between General
Cavour [61: 19]. Pound Cavourian [SP,312].
40. Auctor: L, "author. "
41. Borah: [84:6].
called
himself
a
? 518
89/592-593
89/593-594
519
Jackson and Benton's brother Jesse, while the Bentons were living in Tennessee [cf. 266 below]. Although relations had been cool between the Jacksons and the Bentons for a while, their beliefs and philosophy of government and democracy eventually made them strong mutual supporters. Nonetheless, Clay brought up the old quarrel by innuendo twenty years later ip his answer to Benton's defense of Jackson's veto of the bank rechar- ter bill. Said Clay: "I never had any personal rencontre with the President of the United States . . . I never published any bulletins respecting his private brawls . . . I never com- plained, that while a brother of mine was down on the ground, senseless or dead, he received another blow . . . 1 never declared my apprehension and belief, that if he [Jack- son] were elected, we should be obliged to legislate with pistols and dirks by our side;' Benton declared that the allegation going the rounds in the press that he said such things was "an atrocious calumny" [TYV, I, 263-264].
54. pre- not ex-officio: In contrast to the Clay-Randolph duel [88: 1-30], Pound no- tices that the Clay-Benton brawl took place before either were in office, not while in office.
55. Do our cottons: In arguing for tariff protection for cottons, Clay and his fol- lowers said that many u. s. products, "espe- cially the cotton, were going abroad . . . ; and sustaining themselves. _. against all competition;' Benton argued that if that were the case they didn't need any protec- tion: "Surely, sir, our tariff laws . . . are not in force in Bengal and China . . . if our cot- tons can go to these countries, and be sold at a profit without any protection at all, they can stay at home, and be sold to our citi- zens, without loss" [TYV, 1372].
56. Aurelian: Benton cites Emperor Aure- lian's order, "never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen! " The wealth of the West went down the river past New Orleans, but the money for those goods went to the Northeast. According to a Ben- ton note, a military station called "Aure-
lian" was later corrupted into "Orleans" [ibid. , 273].
57. Mr. Taney: Roger Brooke T. , 1777- 1864, was first attorney general in Jackson's cabinet and then (1833-1834) secretary of the treasury. A former secretary refused to carry out Jackson's order to deposit U. S. money not in the Bank of the United States-which would not have its charter renewed-but in selected state banks. Taney carried out the orders and stood firmly with Van Buren and Jackson against the financial interests [37:76].
58. Burr . . . late: Aaron B. , 1756-1836 [32: II]. Line is prob. a Pound opinion that if Burr had killed Hamilton in a duel in 1784 instead of 1804, he wouldn't have been able to get the first U. S. Bank, modeled on the
Bank of England, started.
59. Monsieur Vebbstair . . . : F, "Mr. Web- ster liked to lounge. " The line is prob. based on Van Buren's opinion that Webster, who may have worked hard when young, had reached the state that a lot of "weather beaten politicians" reach: "the enjoyment of public stations exempted . . . from the cares and sacrifices often inseparable from a punc- tilious discharge of the duties attached to them" [MVB,Auto, 706].
60. Ut moveat . . . dilectet: L, "To move, to instruct, to delight [delectet]. " Pound at- tributes the phrase, in a different order, to Rodolfo Agricola [ABeR, 66] .
61. J. Q. A. : During his final years as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, Adams fought steadily and at an increasing tempo against slavery [Pai, 6-2, 227-229], as op- posed to "Vebbstair," who liked to rest. Said JQA: "and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birthday, with a shak- ing hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain . . . what can I do for the cause of God and man . . . for the supression of the Afri-
stop debate which "hogswoggled" (prob. "tied up" or "prevented action by") the House. JQA labored to get the "gag-rule" repealed in the House and succeeded on Dec. 3, 1845. His diary account for that day ends: "The question was then put on the resolution to rescind the gag rule; and it was carried-! 08 to 80. Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God! " [ibid. , 573].
63. Old John: John Adams, JQA's father. On funding, he wrote: "Funds and banks I never approved, or was satisfied without fundings systems . -. .
it was contrived to en- rich particular individuals at the public ex- pense" [71:35]. John Adams was against paper currency because it depreciated. He wrote to his wife, Abigail, Feb. 8, 1794: "Borrowing of banks for trading capital is very unmercantile" [62: 126]. "Vide infra": L, "see below. "
64. Mr Jefferson: TJ wrote to William Craw- ford on June 20, 1816, the year before Crawford became Monroe's treasury secre- tary, a letter that contains statements Pound thinks are essential to any understanding of U. S. monetary history. TJ writes of three measures needed to insure lasting prosperity. The third measure "should insure resources of money by the suppression of all paper circulation during peace, and licensing that of the nation alone during war . . . and if the national bills issued, be bottomed. . . on pledges of specific taxes for their redemp- tion . . . no interest on them would be neces- sary" [GK,345;SP, 159].
65. our own mines: Benton believed that the mines of the United States could provide enough money in specie so that no paper need be circulated by private banks: "In the year 1824 the product was $5,000; in the last year [1833] the product, in coined gold was $868,000; in uncoined, as much more; and the product of the present year [1834] computed at two millions; with every pros- pect of continued and permanent in- crease . . . But the great source of supply, both for gold and silver, . . . was in our for- eign commerce" [TYV, I, 439].
66. Napoleon . . . : When Napoleon was only a consul, he ordered specie payments to be- gin on a certain day, and they did. Benton said: "and a hard money currency has been the sole currency of France from that day to this" [ibid. , 440].
67. Mr. Hamilton . . . : In 1792 AH fixed the gold-silver ratio at 15 to I, while Europe and South American held to a 16-to-1 ratio. The result was to drain gold from the U. S. Complete extinction was delayed for a time: "The trade to the lower Mississippi con- tinued to bring up from Natchez and New Orleans . . . a large supply of doubloons" [ibid. , 442]. But the end was inevitable: "Gold goes where it finds its value . . . In Mexico and South America the value of gold is 16 to 1 over silver. . . It is not to be supposed. " that our own gold will remain with us, when an exporter can gain a dollar upon every fifteen that he carries out"
[ibid. , 443].
68. 6 suspensions: Benton showed Hamil- ton's plan was the eventual elimination of foreign coins, which would be replaced by an American currency. Since that didn't hap- pen, and the law to exclude foreign coins didn't work, Congress suspended it for three years. Six further 3-year suspensions became necessary and they didn't end until 1819
[88:75].
69. au TIS: H, "No one" [74: 17]. Used here as an intensive.
70. Nothing . . . West: The prohibition of foreign coins had a devastating effect upon the West: "for the coinage of trade and exchanges, to carry money from the Atlantic States to the West" [TYV, I, 446].
71. Brooks: B. Adams, 1848-1927, son the Charles Francis A. and brother of Henry Adams, 1838-1918. Both were American his- torians. Pound said of B. Adams: "His cyclic version of the West shows us a consecutive struggle against four great rackets, namely the exploitation of the fear of the unknown (black magic, etc. ), the exploitation of vio- lence, the exploitation or the monopolisa-
can slave-trade? "
lQA,519].
[Nevins,
Diary o f
62. Roman law: Pound interpolation con- cerning the two-third's majority required to
? 520
tion of cultivable land, and the exploitation
of money" [SF, 307] ,
72. grandfather: John Quincy Adams
[34:passim].
73. old John: President John Adams [31:15]. Said Pound, "The tragedy of the U. S. A. over 160 years is the decline of Adarnses. More and more we cd. , if we ex- amined events, see that John Adams had the
corrective for Jefferson" [GK,254].
74. Under . . . four: The effect of the law
excluding foreign coinage even resulted in the export of U. S. -minted coins, which made the law "the curse and the nuisance of the country. . . . The custom? house returns showed the large exportation of domestic coins. . . . In the year 1832, it amounted to $2,058,474" [TYV, I, 447].
75. . . . the highest: Benton said that regu- lating the currency "was one of the highest and most delicate acts of sovereign power"
[ibid. , 449].
76. tho charter: The bank helped create the
coinage vacuum so it could float its own paper money: "Although forbid by her char- ter to deal in coin, she has employed her branches to gather $40,040,000 of coin from the states; a large part of which she admits that she has sold and transported to Europe" [ibid. , 448].
77. POWER . . . : The power to coin and regulate the currency is a constitutional question: "this power is vested in the federal government not in one department of it, but in the joint action of the three departments"
[ibid. , 449].
89/594 79. Gold . . . issue: In Del Mar's History of
Monetary Systems, we read, "The right to coin money has always been and still re- mains the surest mark and announcement of sovereignty" [HMS, 66]. Del Mar [96: 119] earlier said: "N0 language is more positive than that of Mommsen . . . in laying down the following institute: that Rome never per- mitted her vassals to strike gold. " He devel- ops in this chapter the use of other metals [ibid. , 34-35]. In the Bridson interviews Pound reiterated one of his long-held theses: "Gold was under the Pontifex or the Em- pire; silver was a wangle farmed out to sena- tors . . . an d the bronze, the small coinage, was under certain privileged municipalities. That is to say, enough local control to pre- vent the local economic order being ruined from the center [Bridson, "An Interview," 179].
80. Benton's . . . : These lines refer to the power to issue. The answer to the question "when? " was, according to Benton, when the national government used its sovereignty and when there was national, regulated met? al currency in circulation. "Why? " Because if the national government issued its own money it would not have to pay interest, as it did on the bank's paper money, and no public debt would build up and be owed to the bank [88:137, 139; and 26 above].
8! . Voltaire: [65:108]. He said: "I have a friend . . . who is a director in the Bank of France, who writes to me when they are going to make money plenty, and make stocks rise, and then I give orders to my broker to sell; and he writes to me when they are going to make money scarce . . . and then I write to my broker to buy; and
89/594-595
83. Del Mar: Alexander D. M. [96: 119].
84. "ratios . . . Orient. ": After Julius Caesar conquered Egypt (48 B. C. ), he found that the difference in the gold-silver ratio be- tween Rome and the Orient made it possible for Roman money men to work the system by demanding silver in payment from for- eign countries. Said Del Mar, "one reason was that the Roman government knew where to sell this silver at a usurer's profit"
[HMS, 86-87].
85. Government wanted: To the chorus of complaints that the secretary of the treasury acted illegally when he deposited federal funds in state banks rather than branches of the U. S. Bank, Benton said that the U. S. Bank was using the deposits to create its own currency, whereas, "The government wanted banks of deposit, not of circulation; and . . . the State banks [under the charter] are made just as much banks of deposit for the United States as the Bank of the United States is" [TYV, I, 457].
86. Ideogram: 14 [M3002], "right conduct" or "righteousness. "
87. black-out: A restatement of Pound's be- lief that munitions makers, usurers, and all their kind fostered war because it kept busi- ness and profits increasing, and that they could not get away with it if they did not keep their operations in the dark [GK, 30, 31,264].
88. Taney: Roger Brooke T. [cf. 57 above] from a Maryland slaveholding family, which eventually led to a stormy career as a SUM preme Court Justice. He was appointed to the court by Andrew Jackson as a reward for service in his cabinet in anumber of posts, first as attorney general and then, at a criti- cal moment in the struggle against the bank, as secretary of the treasury. Taney wrote most of Jackson's veto message on the reo chartering bill.
89. showed an increase: The U. S. Bank cre- . ated the panic of 1833-34 by curtailing all capital loans across the country. The Senate called upon Secretary Taney to report on
521
the government's finances, expecting the country was close to ruin. But the reverse was true. "Far from showing the financial decline. . . it showed an increase in every branch of the revenue! " [TYV , I, 462].
90.
