Identifier: archive.org/details/autobiographype00butl
Title: Autobiography and personal reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler; Butler's book, p. 949.
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Butler, Benjamin F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1818-1893
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, A.M. Thayer
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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acurrency that stands at par there, and for what they want from us theymust send the greenbacks. Every one knows that the business of thiscountry is done twice or thrice as much in cash as it was before the war;and therefore I think this country will bear from eight hundred to athousand million dollars of circulation without redundancy as soon asbusiness revives, and that will make it revive. But my friends say thatmay be too much. Perhaps it may be ; but it is very easy, it seems tome, for us to have that amount of circulation without redundancy; andas each legal-tender note is, as we have seen, a part of the debt securedby mortgage of the whole property of the United States, without depre-ciation. Our debt now is $2,500,000,000, about $2,200,000,000 of it interest-bearing. Suppose we issue our legal-tender greenbacks, as I will callthem for convenience, and buy up or redeem our interest-bearing debtthat is due to the amount of $1,000,000,000. Then our debt stands, BUTLERS BOOK. 949
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BUTLERS BOOK. 951 $1,000,000,000 of non-interest-bearing debt, and $1,500,000,000 ofinterest-bearing debt. Now, if that $1,000,000,000 of circulation istoo much, i. e., more than is needed for currency, I agree withthe gentleman from Maine that it will be depreciated. But what istoo much ? Too much is more than will be absorbed as currency in thebusiness of the country. That is to say, if because of an over-issue bythe government there is an accumulation of non-interest-bearing notes,greenbacks, in the hands of any man, they are not productive, and he willdispose of them at a discount, if he can do no better, for something thatis productive. The only question as to redundancy, therefore, is whetherthe notes in his hands are worth more for use in his business as currencythan they would be to him if invested in a loan to the government. Now,then, I propose that for $300,000,000 of this non-interest-bearing debt weshall issue an interest-bearing loan at once which shall be that exact loa

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