First published 1840
A Treatise on Currency and Banking
A Treatise on Currency and Banking by Condy Raguet is available as a free PDF and EPUB download at freecapitalists.org.
- Condy Raguet
- First published
- 1840
- Format
- PDF and EPUB
- Pages
- 342
- ISBN
- 9781610161282
- Publisher
- Philadelphia: Grigg and Elliot, 1840 (2nd edition)
- License
- Believed to be in the public domain by publication date; not independently confirmed.
This remarkable hard-money treatise appeared in 1840. It is by Condy Raguet (1784-1842), a noted Pennsylvania politician and economist who worked as a merchant in several Latin American countries. He was wholly dedicated to free trade, the free market, and especially to sound money and banking. He documents how bank inflation causes booms and busts and articulates, with remarkable prescience, how those cycles in which government does nothing come and go, while those in which government tries to help last and last. His book is a great narrative to read in light of the current cycle of boom and bust.
He clearly distinguishes between sound and unsound banking practices, delineated based on their redemption practices. He shows that there is a big difference between good credit based on savings and bad credit based on monetary expansion. He clarifies the role that credit plays in the cause of economic growth: praiseworthy when extended based on good judgment but dangerous when extended with guarantees and recklessness.
Raguet has been celebrated by the American hard-money school as a great theorist and part of a group of thinkers who warned against the national bank and other schemes to guarantee the monetary system against failure. This book makes for a wonderful read as a text on banking and a look back to the best of 19th century American economic thought.
This book is a reprint of the second edition from 1840.
Questions
About this book and this copy
- Is A Treatise on Currency and Banking free to download?
- Yes. The complete 342-page PDF and EPUB downloads directly from this page (14.8 MB). There is no signup, no account and no paywall.
- How long is A Treatise on Currency and Banking?
- 342 pages, 37 chapters, and about 105,966 words in the edition this archive serves.
- Who wrote A Treatise on Currency and Banking?
- Condy Raguet (1784–1842) was an American politician, economist, and free trade advocate. He served as the first United States chargé d'affaires to Brazil.
What's in it
37 chapters · 105,966 words · free to read here
- Original Title Page and Dedication
- TABLE OF CONTENTS.
- Book the First: Of the Laws which Regulate a Currency Composed Entirely of the Precious Metals
- CHAPTER I. OF THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF THE PRECIOUS METALS, AND OF THEIR ADAPTATION TO THE PURPOSES OF A CIRCULATING MEDIUM.
- CHAPTER II. OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRECIOUS METALS THROUGHOUT THE COMMERCIAL WORLD.
- CHAPTER III. ON THE RELATIVE VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER.
- Chapter IV.—On the Balance of Trade, or the causes which Occasion the Transmission of the precious Metals from one Country to another
- CHAPTER V. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF EXCHANGE.
- CHAPTER VI. ON THE STEADINESS OF TRADE IN COUNTRIES EMPLOYING A METALLIC CURRENCY.
- CHAPTER VII. OF THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEPRECIATION TO WHICH A METALLIC CURRENCY IS LIABLE.
- CHAPTER VIII. ON THE “CREDIT SYSTEM,” OR THE INFLUENCE OF CREDIT IN PROMOTING NATIONAL WEALTH.
- CHAPTER IX. ON THE LAWS WHICH REGULATE THE HIRE OF CAPITAL, AND ON THE IMPOLICY OF USURY LAWS.
- CHAPTER X. EXAMINATION OF THE COMMON OPINION RESPECTING THE SINKING OF CAPITAL.
- BOOK THE SECOND. OF THE LAWS WHICH REGULATE A MIXED CURRENCY COMPOSED OF THE PRECIOUS METALS, AND OF PAPER CONVERTIBLE INTO COIN ON DEMAND.
- Chapter I.—Of Banks of Deposite, of Banks of Discount, and of Banks of Circulation
- Chapter II.—Of the Operation of Banks of Circulation
- CHAPTER III. OF THE PRINCIPLES BY WHICH THE PROFITS OF BANKS OF CIRCULATION ARE DETERMINED.
- CHAPTER IV. OF THE SAFEST AND MOST PROFITABLE MODE OF INVESTING THE CAPITALS OF BANKS OF CIRCULATION.
- CHAPTER V. OF THE LEGITIMATE OPERATIONS OF BANKS OF CIRCULATION.
- CHAPTER VI. EXAMINATION OF THE COMMON OPINION THAT BANKS CREATE CAPITAL.
- CHAPTER VII. ON THE STRICT CONVERTIBILITY OF BANK NOTES AND CREDITS.
- CHAPTER VIII. OF THE VARIOUS MODES RESORTED TO BY SOME BANKS TO AUGMENT THEIR DIVIDENDS.
- CHAPTER IX. OF THE CREATION OF BANKS WITHOUT CAPITALS, OR OF FRAUDULENT BANKS.
- Chapter X.—Of the Effects of Banks Dealing in Exchange
- CHAPTER XI. EXAMINATION OF THE COMMON OPINION THAT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BANKS IN THE WESTERN STATES, UPON EASTERN CAPITAL, IS BENEFICIAL TO THOSE STATES.
- CHAPTER XII. ON THE CIRCULATION OF SMALL BANK NOTES.
- BOOK THE THIRD. OF THE LAWS WHICH REGULATE A CURRENCY COMPOSED ENTIRELY OF INCONVERTIBLE BANK PAPER.
- Book the Fourth
- A. ON THE RELATIVE VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER,
- B. HISTORY OF THE GOLD COINAGE OF THE UNITED STATES.
- D. THE NEW YORK GENERAL BANKING LAW. AN ACT TO AUTHORISE THE BUSINESS OF BANKING PASSED APRIL 18, 1838.
- E.—Letter from the Author to J. W. Cowell, Esq
- F.—Table of Imports and Exports, from 1789 to 1839
- G.—Essay on Unlimited Liability, by James Cox, Esq
- H.—Report to the Senate of Pennsylvania on the Money Crisis of 1818
- I.—Prices of State Stocks in London at Two Different Periods
- J.—Extract from the Annual Report of the Comptroller of New York, of January, 1840, upon the General Banking Law, with Abstracts from Two Recents Laws
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