 This is Classics of Liberty from Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. Today's episode is the autobiography of Ferret Snap Newcraft, Part 1, narrated by Anthony Comegna. The Young America Movement, flourished 1830s to 1840s, transformed life in the United States by applying curiously American values, motifs, style, and ideas to the literary and visual arts. John L. O'Sullivan's United States Magazine and Democratic Review stood at the vanguard of the Jacksonian culture wars, directing and developing the literary canon while it advanced a radical Republican or loco-foco political philosophy. During time of vexing depression, Jacksonians fought tooth and nail to divorce the forces of bank and state while their Whig opponents easily assumed political advantages. In early 1838, little more than a year after widespread bank suspensions of specie payments and even flower riots in New York City, the review published a full exposition and exemplification of the credit system in the form of a satirical autobiography. In this sly and amusing commentary on the emerging American monetary system, one Ferret Snap Newcraft describes his upbringing as a young captain of finance. Through his youth, he travels the countryside with his swindler father, learning the methods and ideology of graft. As a young man, Newcraft joins a ring of near-criminal stockbrokers where he is taught the fineries of speculation. Ferret remains captivated throughout his life by the idea of hatching the perfect pyramid scheme, establishing an unending stream of paper money and bank credit. By the end of his first two selections, Newcraft determines that the fate of his grand project, for endless and laborless wealth, depended upon his ability to influence politics. He buys his way into the legislature where he pioneers the fine art of law-growing. My family, though poor, was of great antiquity and with all respectable, since I have often heard my father say not one of his ancestors degraded himself by following any regular occupation. The only tainted limb of the family tree was our grandfather, who was ignominiously bound apprentice to a cobbler. But thank heaven he ran away before he took a degree and became distinguished as all our race have been by living by their wits an expressive phrase which distinguishes the happy few from the miserable many, who are justly condemned to live by the sweat of the brow, seeing they cannot live by the sweat of the brain. As we rambled about from town to town, for my father seldom remained long in one place on account, he said, of the envy and ill will he excited by the superiority of his wits. He would stop and call my attention to a fall of water, a little murmuring river, a particular point of land or some other matter, and tell me what a capital speculation he could make out of it if only he had the money. In one place he would erect a great manufactory, in another he would make a river navigable, in a third found a city, in a fourth cut a canal that would enrich the whole country. So far as I could judge at that time his sole dependence was on these castles in the air which he never realized except in the way of now and then persuading some poor delt of a working man who had saved a little money to embark it in some one of his speculations, which I confess almost always failed for want, as my father said, of a proper credit system founded on paper money. But though they failed, my father always managed to take care of himself. My son said he, what do you suppose constitutes the superiority of man over all other animals? I mustered my scholarship and replied, his reason, sir. Good, you are right. It follows then that reason, being his great characteristic, it was the design of providence that he should live by his reasoning, in other words, by his wits. And that, therefore, it is his bounden duty to make the most of them. Do you understand? I think I do, sir, but he should not make use of his wits to deceive others. Justice, justice! Where did you get these queer notions, boy? From nature, I believe, sir. Nature is a son of a tanker, and the sooner we turn it out of doors, the better. This is the object of all education. The impulses of nature are the mere errors of ignorance and inexperience, and what philosophers call a knowledge of the world, which, by the way, is worth all other knowledge, consists solely in sharpening our wits and preparing us to take advantage of the dullness of others. It is not only justifiable, but obligatory, for not to make use of the faculties bestowed on us by nature, or acquired by experience, would be flying in the face of our maker, it would be a most criminal negligence. Is it not the great duty of man to turn a penny and make money as fast as he can? But, sir, I think he ought to make it honestly. Poo, you're a blockhead. This and various similar conversations taken together with the daily example of my father and his perpetual turmoil about speculations gave a radical turn to my mind and fixed my destiny for life. I saw very clearly that mankind were condemned to labor, not for their own benefit, but that of others, and that in as much as the wits of man were the noblest part of him, it was but just that they should live at the expense of those democratic, physical powers which were undoubtedly intended for that special purpose. One of the great resources of my father, who was a decided enemy to hard work, was the invention of labor-saving machines. I remember to have heard him boast that he had during his life taken out patents for 137 contrivances of this sort, many of which he sold out to the country farmers and village mechanics, for he had a most slippery tongue and a keen wit. We lived comfortably three months on these new inventions, at the end of which time the ignorant country people began to be so jealous of the superiority of my father's wits that they threatened to tar and feather him and subject me to the new patent scalding machine. In short, the country was becoming rather warm for us, and my father determined to seek not only a wider sphere of action, but of impunity in the principal city of that section of country, which had hitherto been a scene of the triumph of his wits. Accordingly, we departed for the great city to seek our fortunes in a more enlarged sphere of action. As we proceeded along, my father wiled away the time by pointing out a variety of excellent speculations. There now, said he, as we passed the house of an honest farmer, there is a fellow who might double the value of his farm and live like a fighting cock. If he would only drain that great swamp, blow up that ledge of rocks, sprinkle a few hundred bushels of plaster over it, lay it down in grass, and stock it with the short horn breed. I've replied in the simplicity of my heart, I suppose, sir, he has not the means of doing this. Ah, ferret, there's the thing. The world is, as it were, standing still for want of means. There is not half enough money in the world to supply the new development of speculation, and the possibility of supplying this want so as to keep pace with the spirit of the age. Do you understand me, boy? Is what employs my mind day and night. The difficulty of getting money has always appeared to me a great defect in the scheme of providence. And were that only got over, man would be all but omnipotent. I believe this to be possible and have a sort of dim conception working its way in my brain, which, if I can only bring it to maturity, will produce the greatest revolution that has happened in the world since the deluge and relieve mankind from that cruel denunciation that he should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. This conversation set my thoughts in motion. I pondered almost without intermission on the subject. Shortly after arriving in Ragamuffinville, I was employed by an investment broker. I was told to look sharp, listen to everything, and say nothing. Here was a noble school to awaken the powers of my mind and the exercise of my wits. The head of the house, or rather the seller, was one of the most profound men of his time, as a proof of which it is only necessary to state that he began business with no capital but his wits, lived like a prince for several years, and without ever being worth a dollar, finally failed for some millions. Here was a sublime genius for you, the great Archimedes who can move a world by putting his lever upon nothing. By degrees he opened to me the mysteries of the shaving business and displayed to my mind all the wonders of an invisible world, appealing to the imagination instead of the senses. The glorious mysteries of kiting, race-horsing, and other occult matters connected with the sublime science of raising the wind, the manner in which the credit system is built up and sustained without anything but itself to stand upon. The masterly process by which any amount of ideal money may be conjured out of nothing, like the spirit from the cloud and made to represent ten times the amount of the same sum, if it were real. These and some other of the great principles which constitute the sublime of the new credit system he could not present to me, for as yet they had no existence except in the heated chaos of my mind, which from the period in which I received this first practical insight into the great money or rather credit kingdom, continued to boil and bubble with the fever heat of grand conceptions, fighting their way from a faint embryo to a glorious maturity. Suddenly there was a great and increasing demand for money, for all the world had become borrowers to invest in lots in order to take advantage of the great rise in value a hundred years hence. The precious metals not being of a ductile nature and incapable of expanding fast enough to suit these great agencies, it became indispensable that some substitute should be found, more suitable to the spirit of the age, and the newly discovered wants of the community. My master every day lamented to me the contracted sphere of operations to which his genius was confined, by what he called the infamous species humbug, meaning the stupid attachment mankind had inherited from the Dark Ages, to what they called a standard of value. If I could only make money out of nothing, would he exclaim in a paroxysm of enthusiasm? I would, in a short time, possess the world. I brooded on this idea from morning till night, and sometimes lay awake for hours, thinking on the glorious hope of its successful accomplishment. I often asked myself what was the basis of the value of everything in the world, and at length came to the conclusion that it was the general estimation of mankind. I then proceeded to investigate the possibility of substituting an imaginary for a real value and appealing to human credulity as its basis. Mankind thought I worship false gods, adopt false opinions, and arrive at false conclusions. Many believe the moon is made of green cheese. Is it not possible to make them believe that what is worth nothing intrinsically is just as good as a thing of inestimable value, provided it will exchange for just as much? What was the intrinsic value of a fathom of Wampum? And yet, in old times, you could purchase a farm with it from the Indians. I forgot, at that time, that this Wampum was the product of labor, and therefore represented the value of all the labor bestowed upon it. I learned the art of evading the laws against usury, without subjecting myself to the penalty of their violation. I mastered all the mysteries of the business in which I was engaged, and in good time, became such an adept that I could practically define to a hair the precise line which separated a lucky speculation from an act of downright swindling. I could tell to the utmost nicety how far it was lawful to play on credulity and ignorance, and the extent to which deception might be carried without constituting a fraud. In short, I could see my way clear in the darkest transaction and split a hair with my eyes shut. I was gradually admitted sometimes to a share in the profits when I had made a good hit and soon found myself in possession of a snug little sum. With this, I commenced business on my own account and considered my fortune as good as made when, by his influence, I was admitted a member of the Board of Brokers, which enjoys a monopoly of gambling. In truth, it was carried on upon a great scale. Not a day passed that some one of us who perhaps was not worth one-fiftieth part of the money did not play stakes for thousands and buy or sell what neither possessed or what, in fact, had no existence. But everything was done in the most gentlemanly manner, and all the members were strictly governed by the point of honor, which consisted in taking every possible advantage of each other. Being now in a prosperous and honorable situation, I began to sigh for the enjoyment of domestic felicity as I could now afford myself that expensive luxury. I accordingly sought a partner in being guided by prudence as well as inclination, married a lady of a certain age who had a great family interest. Her father was president of a bank and three of her uncle's bank directors. This at once initiated me into the mysteries of the credit system as it existed at that time. I at once saw its defects in my mind again reverted with increasing force and vigor to the question of a currency founded exclusively on public credulity. I reflected and believed in the possibility of perfecting the credit system so that it should consist solely of credit without being adulterated. I reflected and believed in the possibility of perfecting the credit system so that it should consist solely of credit without being adulterated by a single particle of real value. The period was now come for realizing this long cherished vision of my imagination. I was rich in credit and paper money. I had also bank influence and now set about acquiring political distinction as indispensable to my purposes. I turned a furious Democrat, that party being then uppermost, attended every ward meeting and made speeches in favor of equal rights until by degrees I rose to be a member of the general committee for nominating members of assembly. When this measure came up there were so many candidates and so great a diversity of opinions that we settled the matter by nominating ourselves and were triumphantly elected. It was now that I grasped the reality of what I had so long anticipated before proceeding to the seat of government. I had projected a scheme for a bank founded on the great principle of making money out of nothing. A self-constituted, self-existent, perpetual motion bank machine entirely independent of any representative of real value and which like a spider would spin its web for catching flies out of its own bowels. On opening my scheme to several of my confidential friends who had submitted to the disgrace of being called Democrats for a time in order that they might make use of their support in the attainment of their object, they were delighted with it, most especially when they found that my bank required not a dollar for its species basis. They eagerly joined me in a memorial to the legislature stating that there was a great necessity for an increase of capital in the great city of Ragamuffinville and to request a charter conferring on them certain privileges which though the people were prohibited from exercising were exclusively for their benefit. On my arrival I found that almost every member of that honorable body had some scheme or other on the anvil for the public good. I made it my first object to become acquainted with the individual interests of every member and set about reconciling them all if possible or unite them all and thus produce perfect harmony. This plan was accordingly adopted and produced the most beneficial consequences. Each member proceeded on the great and only just principle of reciprocity and thus the whole batch was carried triumphantly through our honorable body with only three dissenting voices consisting of three members who had been guilty of the unpardonable negligence of coming thither without a single project for the public good. This was the origin of that great modern improvement in legislation called log rolling of which I flatter myself I am the sole inventor. That was the autobiography of ferret snap new craft part one. This episode was written and narrated by anthony comegna and produced by mark mcdaniel. If you liked the podcast you have heard today please rate it and review it on itunes and of course find more classics of liberty at libertarianism.org