The greatest merit of the scheme consists in the fact that it is intended to supersede that irregular and unsatisfactory system of banking which is based on a similar pledge of the credit of the several States. It is said to be hostile to the existing banks; but it is only so in so far as it requires a change of the basis of their credit from State to National securities. The measure was not conceived in any unfriendly spirit toward those institutions. It was necessary for the National Government to assert its own superiority, and thus to strengthen itself, at the same time that it sought to protect the people by securing them a uniform currency and equable exchanges.
Some murmurs of opposition have been heard from a quarter well understood; but the good sense of the people, and, we hope, of the holders of State bonds themselves, seems to have quickly suppressed these complaints. A war of the State banks on the Government, at this time and on this ground, might well be deplored; but the issue would not be doubtful. Mr. Chase occupies the vantage ground, and he would be victorious over these, as the country is destined to be over all other enemies.
At no other time could so fundamental a change in our system of currency have been proposed with the slightest chance of success; and, upon the whole, it was a grand and happy conception, in the midst of this tremendous war, to make its gigantic fiscal necessities contribute to the permanent uniformity of the currency and of the domestic exchanges. For this great measure is no temporary expedient. Its success is bound up with the stability of the Government; and if this endures, the good effects of the new system will be felt and appreciated in future years, long after the unhappy convulsion which gave it birth shall have passed away. It will serve to smooth the path from horrid war to peace, and to hasten the return of national prosperity; and when experience shall have fully perfected its organization, it may well be expected, by the generality of its operation and its great momentum, to act as the great natural regulator of enterprise and business in our country.
If these grand achievements in finance have had so important an influence in sustaining the war for the Union, it is not likely they will fail to constitute a large element in controlling the political events of the immediate future. Their author is well known to entertain the soundest views in reference to the thoroughness of the measures necessary to restore harmony in the Union, without being of that extreme and impracticable school whose policy would render union uncertain or impossible; and if a ripe experience in public affairs and the most brilliant success in transactions of great delicacy and difficulty, as well as of the most vital importance to the triumph of our arms, are of any value, they cannot be without their due and proper weight in the crisis which is fast approaching.