Martinsburg Gazette

"The silver currency doubled in a year: four millions of gold coined in half a year; exchange reduced to the lowest and most uniform rates; the whole expenses of Congress paid in gold; working people receiving gold and silver for their ordinary wages—such are the results that have confounded the prophets of woe, silenced the tongues of lamentation." &c. &c.

The above is from the speech of the Hon. Thomas H. (Humbug?) Benton, in reply to the Report on executive patronage, and furnishes a striking specimen of one of the peculiarities of that distinguished gentleman. "The power of delivering absurd notions or incredible tales in the most authentic, honest, direct terms that have been used for the communication of truth and reason—of making the most absurd and unfounded statements, in a sort of composed calm unconscious way, as if they were plain undeniable common-place truths, which no person could dispute—and an entire absence of the faculty of blushing—make the Missouri Senator a study for the philosopher."

"Working people receiving gold and silver for their ordinary wages!!! Where are these working people? Who are the happy lucky dogs whose toil-hardened palms have been soothed by the touch of the yellow shiners—the eagles, half-eagles, and quarter-eagles? For our part, although it has so happened that three or four thousand dollars have passed through our hands within the last twelve months, (a very uncommon thing with us, by the bye,) we have not seen above twenty dollars worth of gold in the time, and that in foreign coin, and in a bank. We do remember that in the spring of 1831, in Richmond, we saw divers half and quarter eagles, apparently fresh from the mint. Very pretty looking articles they were too, and our fingers itched to touch them. We understood at the time, that the aforesaid shiners had been received in payment of per diem and mileage by certain Jackson members of Congress, and lost in Richmond at a gaming table. Since that time the sight of whole, half, or quarter eagles, has been as rare with us as that of black swans; and when we find Jackson presses and Jackson orators speaking of gold coins in circulation, "paid out to working people for their ordinary wages," as if they were "plenty as black berries," we marvel greatly at the perversity of our luck, or the hardihood of their impudence. Now nobody knows better than Senator Benton, that the actual circulating medium of the country is paper, with the exception, in some places, of a little silver for change—that he and his party have done nothing—absolutely nothing, to increase the relative proportion of metallic money—but on the contrary have broken down and destroyed the only institution whose paper rests securely on a metallic basis—he knows perfectly well that paper money and coins of the same value never have circulated, never can, and never will circulate together. When, therefore, in a public debate in the Senate of the United States, he reckoned among the peculiar benefits conferred upon the country by this administration—the fact that "working people were receiving gold and silver for their ordinary wages"—he placed himself in a position, which, to most men would have been extremely painful, but which, from some peculiarity of his physical organization or mental structure, he does not seem to mind at all.

As the session of Congress has just closed, and as its honorable members are the sort of "working people" that really are paid in "gold," we should not be the least surprised to find in a short time the Jackson shiners—the Benton yellow-jackets—again making their appearance in small numbers as a "premonitory symptom" of an approaching election. The humbug had a very happy effect, we understood upon some "weak vessels" before, and might be worth trying again. In certain localities not a thousand miles from Old Virginia, where retrenchment and small-bone-bacon are the order of the day, it is the custom, we hear, to fasten a string to a good fat piece of real flitch, and to let the poor "working people" swallow it one after the other, (drawing it back with the string,) by way of greasing their throats, and giving them an idea of the felicity they would enjoy, if their "ordinary wages" were paid in real bacon instead of that unsubstantial mockery—lean red herring. In the same way an honorable Member of Congress, who gets five or six hundred quarter eagles for his "ordinary wages" can well afford to reserve a few dozen to show to the "working people," to tickle their palms, to animate their faith in the humbug, and to secure their votes.