The quantity of money wanted in a country, being in proportion to the amount of its exchanges, is affected by various circumstances. Thus, where land is a common subject of traffic, as it is in most parts of the United States, more money is required on that account than in countries where it seldom changes hands, as in most parts of Europe. In slaveholding countries, too, so large an addition to the exchangeable property requires an addition to their currency. This circumstance adds to the money required in the Southern States, but it is probably more than counterbalanced by the general practice of the agricultural class in dealing with their merchants on credit, and settling their accounts but once a year. It is not uncommon there for men whose annual expenses are from two to three thousand dollars, but who rarely have by them more than an hundred dollars in specie.

In the fluctuations to which the circulating money of a country is subject, it sometimes has an excess beyond what the exchanges of the community actually require, and sometimes a deficiency, both of which have their inconveniences. When there is a redundancy of money, its value naturally falls, and the prices of other commodities rise, which is injurious to the foreign trade. It is also detrimental to the class of creditors, and advantageous to the debtors. It does mischief, too, by presenting the delusive appearance of a rise in the value of property, which sometimes leads to an increased expenditure, and, what is worse, engenders a spirit of speculation. The natural corrective of the evil is the export of the excess of specie to foreign countries.

The deficiency of circulating medium produces for the time more sensible mischief. It checks all useful enterprise, and often suspends the operations of productive industry. The manufacturer, not meeting with the customary vents for his fabrics, is obliged to discharge his workmen, and to stop his purchases of raw materials. The wheels of commerce all move slowly and heavily, or stop altogether. Imports are discouraged, and it is only by the stimulus which low prices give to the export trade that this evil can be remedied by the import of specie. It greatly impedes, and sometimes totally arrests, the collection of debts, by making their pressure so much more heavy; and it is thus an evil both to debtors and creditors.

This evil is commonly, in the United States, the consequence of too heavy importations of foreign goods; which, when not attended or closely followed by an adequate amount of exports, the deficiency is paid in specie, which, being principally drawn from the banks, compels them either to suspend cash payments or to call in much of what they had previously lent; thus, in either case, occasioning embarrassments and difficulties that are felt by all classes.

It is not, however, correct to suppose, as has been done by those who reason in political economy as if it were a mathematical instead of a moral science, that the value of the circulating specie rises or falls in full proportion to its excess or deficiency. Thus, suppose the amount of such specie to be suddenly doubled, its value would not therefore sink to one-half. By the force of habit, a man would not soon give $200 for a horse, or an acre of land, which had previously sold for $100. A part of the excess would, indeed, be balanced by depreciation; but a part, also, would be inoperative, by reason of a larger amount of idle, unemployed money, and by many purchases being now made for cash which had before been made on credit. Individuals would carry in their pockets, and banks retain in their vaults, specie to a larger amount in value than before.

In like manner, if the circulating specie was reduced to one-half, the consequence would be, not a duplication of its value, but a part of the deficiency would be counterbalanced by an increase of sales on credit instead of for cash, together with a diminution of the deposits in the banks and in the hands of individuals, and the residue in the reduction of nominal prices, and the rise in the value of the precious metals. As to the prices of commodities, there would be, whether in the case of deficiency or of excess, a great difference in different articles. Of those com-modities which find their market in foreign countries, the prices at home would be governed by the prices abroad. But the principal effect of the change would be confined to the prices of land and of those domestic products which find their market at home.

The better to fit the precious metals to perform the offices of currency, governments have coined them into pieces adapted to popular use. They have with jealous rigor reserved to themselves the exclusive right of coining, which has ever been regarded as an appropriate and important function of sovereignty.

The following are the principal regulations of the United States mint. It, in the first place, determines the weight, varieties, and relations of the different coins. By way of securing the advantages of the decimal arithmetic in all reckonings of money, every coin is ten times the value of another below it. Thus, an eagle is equal in value to ten dollars, a dollar to ten dimes, a dime to ten cents, and a cent to ten mills. But it has been found, both in this country and in France, that mankind naturally prefer the binary divisions of halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths; and, though the monetary system of the United States has been in operation more than seventy years, the people have never adopted the prescribed currency farther than to keep their accounts in dollars and cents, - which, moreover, is not universal, - or been induced to dispense entirely with the use of the eighths and sixteenths of a dollar of the Mexican coinage. The Government has also deemed it expedient to accommodate the popular preference by coining halves and quarters of the dollar.

In all coins of silver or gold, some alloy of base metal is mingled, for two reasons: one is that the wear of the coin is thereby lessened - and the other is, that since those metals are scarcely ever found perfectly pure, the practice saves the necessity of refining them to extreme purity, which would be often an expensive as well as nice operation.