James Madison to Littleton Dennis Teackle, February 28, 1831.
Mentioned in this letter
- Business, Economy, and Travel
Banks- Historic Homes and Places
Montpelier- Home, Health, and Social Life
Health
Dear Sir, Montp, Feby 28-31
I received in due time, the copy of your "Report on a State's Bank," for which I offer my acknowledgements with the apology for the delay furnished by the unsettled state of my health. The Report certainly does justice to the plan of which it espouses. But I am not yet weaned from the opinion long entertained that the only adequate guaranty for the uniform and stable value of a paper currency, is its convertibility into specie1 the least fluctuating and the only universal currency.
I am sensible that a value equal to that of specie, and even beyond it, may be given to a paper of any medium, by making a limited amount necessary for necessary purposes and with special privileges not enjoyed by specie itself; but what is to ensure the inflexible adherence of the Legislation [illegible] to own these principles and purposes. Among such a number of independent States, the danger of aberrations is sufficiently suggested by experience; and to say nothing of the integral effects of the tendency of such examples of that sort to imitation or irritation among the co-States as they may be relatively debtor or creditor to each other, is a consideration also suggested by experience.