We remained but little affected in our money market, and our business
and industry were still prosperous and progressive.
During the present year nearly the whole continent of Europe has been
convulsed by civil war and revolutions, attended by numerous
bankruptcies, by an unprecedented fall in their public securities, and
an almost universal paralysis of commerce and industry; and yet,
although our trade and the prices of our products must have been
somewhat unfavorably affected by these causes, we have escaped a
revulsion, our money market is comparatively easy, and public and
private credit have advanced and improved.
It is confidently believed that we have been saved from their effect by
the salutary operation of the constitutional treasury. It is certain
that if the twenty-four millions of specie imported into the country
during the fiscal year ending on the 30th of June, 1847, had gone into
the banks, as to a great extent it must have done, it would in the
absence of this system have been made the basis of augmented bank paper
issues, probably to an amount not less than $60,000,000 or $70,000,000,
producing, as an inevitable consequence of an inflated currency,
extravagant prices for a time and wild speculation, which must have been
followed, on the reflux to Europe the succeeding year of so much of that
specie, by the prostration of the business of the country, the
suspension of the banks, and most extensive bankruptcies.
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