Richard Hildreth Quotes
It was formerly a common expedient with kings and states to debase the coin, that they might the easier pay their debts in a depreciated currency;
This is the first major history of banks written in the United States.
Richard Hildreth, 1807-1865, Historian, The History of Banks: To Which Is Added a Demonstration of the Advantages and Necessity of Free Competition In the Business of Banking, 1837
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The exact phrase has not been found in Gresham's writings but the idea appeared in a 1558 letter to Queen Elizabeth I. The expression has come to be known as Gresham's Law.
“Pegged” exchange rates are a country’s money where the Government sets the value of the money in terms of some other currency—usually American dollars. The advantage of a pegged currency is that it is stable and does not fluctuate day to day. The disadvantage is that people realize that the value is artificial and other countries will not accept the pegged currency. Worse natives try and get as many dollars as they can because the fear that the Government will devalue and change the rate of exchange of the pegged currency.
At the time the United States was on the Gold Standard and all our money was backed by gold. Root and others were afraid that a Federal Reserve Bank, a proposal that was being debated in Congress, would cause a large amount of paper money to be printed which other nations would obtain through trade and then exchange that for American gold—a process which would deplete the American gold supply. A few years before, William Jennings Bryan had argued that the Gold Standard did not allow America sufficient ability to increase the money supply to serve the growing population and economy. See {640992}.
President Richard Nixon, a conservative Republican did not agree with this view as it was he who led America to abandon the gold standard to back its money.
This is the first major history of banks written in the United States.
Conservatives are surprised to learn that their great economic nemesis was one of the early economists who saw the danger of paper money and government control over the minting of money which is one of their core concerns.
This is a very interesting quotation in that it is one of the first suggestions that money debasement can be caused by a lack of trust and confidence in the government rather than the percentage of precious metals in the coins.
Richard Hildreth, was an American journalist, author and historian. He is best known for writing his six-volume History of the United States of America covering 1497–1821 and published 1840-1853. Historians consider it a highly accurate political history of the early Republic, but with a strong bias in favor of the Federalist Party and the abolition of slavery.
