MONEY SHOULD BE REDEEMABLE IN ALL THINGS.
Money should be redeemed in all things; not in one thing alone. The peculiar characteristic of true money, that which distinguishes it from all other things whatsoever and constitutes it a prime factor in civilization, is that it is at all times redeemable in any thing that is on sale. Being an order for property, it should be redeemed in any form of disposable property which the holder may desire.
may be considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries and conveniences upon all the tradesmen in the neighborhood.
Any form of money, the condition of whose existence depends on redeemability in one thing alone, can not be money in the full sense, and whenever an urgent demand for real money springs up the other ceases altogether to be money.
The redemption of money should be reciprocal between the Government and the people and between and among all individuals in the community. It should not only be redeemable by the Government by acceptance for taxes but also redeemable by and among the people for all property for sale and services for hire. Its quantity should be so regulated as that its unit (the dollar) should neither increase nor diminish in value, and it should be kept constantly in circulation, and not be permitted to lie uselessly in the Treasury. Any other money than this is to a certain extent counterfeit; it is false money, because when most needed it fails to be money and has to be "redeemed" in something else (gold) which can not be got except at ruinous sacrifice.
It is of the very essence of money--its pith and marrow and protoplasm--that it should be a legal tender, a universal solvent, the ultimate of payment, and redeemable, at the prices ruling, in everything that is on sale. If the volume of such money be properly regulated, while there may from time to time be variations in the prices of particular articles, the general range of prices will be maintained practically undisturbed.
What an absurdity it is for the Government to put its stamp on one thing in order to make it redeemable in another thing imprinted with the same stamp, but which nobody wants except for the purpose of getting a third thing that could have been got just as well without the intervention of the second. As well might he who, wanting water, is given a silver cup wherewith to get it, but on going to the spring is forbidden to drink until he exchanges his silver cup for a gold one.