A Word to the Wise

CARBONDALE, 17 August 1837
MY DEAR FRIENDS: After waiting until spring before I wrote to you I find spring mellowing into autumn and the duty not performed. It is not that I am careless about you, for you occupy considerable portions of my waking thoughts, and it was rather the thought that something would occur that would stimulate me to write, than forgetfulness of you. The last accounts I had from you last year were flattering indeed, and you seemed to be pruning your wings, to take a still more prosperous flight; lead and iron both high in price, with an unlimited demand. One question of high importance now arises, where is prosperity gone, and what in a few months should have reversed the prospect so sadly on both sides of the Atlantic? We have had neither War, Famine, nor Pestilence, and yet we have suffered evils equivalent to those often inflicted upon the human race by these scourges; the world is at peace at least so far as Britain and America are concerned — how happens it that the business of both countries should have got into such inextricable confusion in the midst, too, of such an apparent flush of prosperity?
The whole of the evil may be traced to Overissues by Banks, and the substitution of paper and credit as a currency, to the exclusion of the precious metals. The existence of the Bank of England prevents in Britain those extravagant issues on the part of country banks that we have had in America, but if the Bank of England herself became a participator in the crime, which I am inclined to think she did last year, then instead of being a check, she was an example and high authority for the very crime which to check, and prevent, is the only plea for the continuance of her existence.
The temptation to the crime of overissuing on the part of banks is so great that they cannot be too narrowly watched on the part of the public. The disease of a redundant circulation, from its appearing to increase the value of property and the wages of labour, is unnoticed, in its progress, save by the intelligent few, until it have raised the nominal reward of labour so high that the results of home industry cannot be brought to the market of the world and sold for what they cost; the precious metals are then exported to pay for imports. Then comes sudden contraction, miserable depreciation in prices and consequent ruin upon all the holders of the results of human industry at former extravagant rates. The merchant and manufacturer becomes bankrupt. The operative is without employment and consequently without bread, until business reconstruct itself in accommodation with the new state of things.
I have been led into these remarks from the many and distressing accounts which I heard of the situation of business in Britain last spring, and early in summer in a more particular manner, as the business and interests of the two countries are so blended as to affect one another in the most vital manner. I am sorry likewise to make the admission that the people of the United States have done much hurt to their British correspondents, in the last seven years of their intercourse. The manner in which this has been managed has hitherto covered the eyes of the actual losers, to a degree surpassing belief. In the different states, railroad, canal, and banking companies have obtained charters from their respective Legislatures to construct these improvements. Which all, in their first commencement, receive a due share of newspaper and other puffing. Well, such a corporation is no sooner organized and chartered than an agent is despatched to London or Amsterdam to sell shares in the gainful enterprise; by these means we have succeeded in drawing over and embarking millions in works which will never pay five per cent per annum, during the life of the present generation.
So richly and unprincipled have some of these concerns been conducted that the manager’s study appeared to be to construct works that would involve at first a great expenditure of money simply for the purpose of an apparent, just claim upon the company for high salaries, for management, engineering, etc. It were too sweeping a charge to say that all had been so conducted. But I do the Americans no injustice when I say that they conduct such business more with the spirit of gamesters, than sound political economists. And more of the spirit of swindlers, than merchants. I can only say that the more that the spirit develops itself in action, the more I hate it, and where I see fitting opportunity denounce it freely.
The Americans make a great braggadocio about liberty and the love of it. The specimens of them that have come under my observation are too selfish a race to know what the love of liberty in the abstract means. They love their own liberty and are attached to their own property, but have respect for neither one nor the other, considered as an attribute of their neighbour, further than the law and the safety of the individual dictates. The majority yet are utterly regardless of the iniquity of slavery in the South, and all the arguments that can be addressed to their shallow heads, and callous hearts, are useless until they are aroused, by the paramount considerations, with them, of safety or interest!
Hard knocks, I think I hear you say, Archy? They are, but I have a greater respect for truth yet than for the vices or follies of any class of Adam’s family. You might imagine from the Diogeneslike turn of my epistle that I had suffered individually from the peculative propensity of my neighbours. I assure you it is not so. I touch the world at but few points and I have had enough of experience to put me on my guard. I have still the same employment and wages as when I last wrote to you, live in my own house and rent one half of it, and am what you would reckon in Scotland a thriving man.
I may relate a little circumstance illustrative of the difference between good fen and good fare. A Scotchman arrived at Carbondale, with his family, direct from Scotland, and as a rarity complimented my wife with as much good oatmeal as would make a meal of porridge for the children. The porridge was made, and plenty of milk as it came from the cow put over it — about a quantity sufficient for one meal was both their supper and their breakfast, and went very slowly down. I received Robert Stewart’s letter last summer and was glad to perceive the train that you had your mines in, for economical working. I hope they will continue paying productive, and allow you all to enjoy a reasonable and rational existence, for I candidly confess that to our natural position of unlimited sea room (whereby a man if he feels pressed in one place he can move off to another), more than to either the form of our government or the spirit of our people, we are far more indebted than anything else for the comparative comforts which the working classes here enjoy. Wealth here is equally rapacious without the halo of honour and ancient worth with which your British Aristocracy are surrounded. Utilitarian principles take the lead, and in the concerns both of communities and individuals put on the ugly form of barefaced selfishness. I hope when this comes to hand you will write and let me know how you are all and how you live and prosper at Wanlockhead, in particular my aged mother; time and distance only makes me more revere her worth. Tell Rt. Stewart that I wish him particularly to consider the banking system, the evils, and their remedies, as in the absence of war they may be called the plagues of peace, as it requires the confidence generated by peace to bring the evils of the system into full development. Write me a long letter and particularize every individual, Mr. Stewart, Dr. Halbert, my brothers-in-law, with their families, sister Elizabeth and her family. My wife joins me in love to you all, wishes to know of all your welfare. How are my nephews? They will soon be men. Will any of them have their Uncle Arch’s romance for liberty? Though I have not gained everything, I have gained what existence appeared unbearable without, a free field, and no favour. I could not suffer to see my children brought up to kiss the rod of their oppressors. I shall continue to teach them to denounce them, to the end of the chapter, and to regard the rights of others as well as to guard their own. In this spirit I have lived and it loses nothing by time. My father-in-law is gone upon a new farm and his son is left Carbondale and gone upon the one which his father was upon; he has it now all paid for — one hundred acres with forty of it clear. In a few years if his family have ordinary health he will be very comfortable; he is a very sober and economical man. The old man does past reputation; he is gone upon a place of about ninety acres, and as there is about sixty acres of it clear he will make a living and in a few years pay for it. His hopes are higher, though he is so old, than mine are, as I still feel the effects upon my head of the hurt I received about this time two years. It is not painful, but a kind of leaden dull sensation making even the attention and looking necessary to write this letter disagreeable. I enclose in the seal a five-cent piece from John Law to his Cousin William as a token of his kind remembrance of him. All the banks from Maine to Louisiana have suspended specie payments for the last three months; specie is in the commercial cities from ten to fifteen per cent more value than bank notes. You see we are in a bad box, and no immediate prospect of getting higher than the usual average; wheat flour one half, as it has sold at eight and will soon be lower, as we have an excellent crop now securing. Write to me soon, dear friends. Yours, etc., ARCHIBALD LAW