There can be no doubt that . . .

. . . the best and safest currency the people of Iowa can have is that furnished by the State Bank.  The New England banks must sink or swim with the people of New England.  That section has suffered severely by the rebellion, much more so than the west.  The same remark applies to those of New York.  There is no propriety in our people keeping in circulation and thus lending to these distant banks, of the soundness of which we know nothing, the large amount now afloat, especially while Eastern Brokers are skinning our banks, which alone pay specie.  Iowa Banks should fortify themselves with Treasury notes with which to take up their paper in the hands of these carpet sack men, send them home the foreign currency which floods our State and supply its place with their own notes.  This is what should be done and what the people of Iowa will sustain them in doing.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 1