257 



This legislation was justified upon the ground that the government had 

 contracted to pay the face value of its notes, and tiiat justice required 

 that this obligation should be fulfilled. But, even if the performance of 

 ttiis obligation could not have been deferred, it mav be said, paradoxical 

 as the proposition may appear, that it was unjust for the government to 

 perform it, at least in the manner that it was performed. For the green- 

 back was not merely a contract of the government ; it was also the 

 money of the country, and could not be appreciated in value in any 

 way without levying an unjust subsidy upon all the private indebtedness 

 of the country ; so that, in fact, the government could not pay its notes 

 in specie, without also compelling the unjust payment of ten or twenty 

 times the amount; by private parlies. And it may be safely said that, 

 where the government can only pay its debts by taxing, to a tenfold, or 

 twentyfold amount, other parties, equity forbids it to pay. But, in this 

 case, the action of the government was entirely gratuitous ; for it could, 

 without violating the contract, have delayed the payment, or, even if it 

 had repudiated its contract by paying only the actual value of the cur- 

 rency, it could afterwards have compensated the parties injured. The 

 effect of this policy, so highly lauded, and pointed to with pride by many, 

 was to transfer, unjustly, from the debtor to the creditor class many bil- 

 lions of dollars. 



Another effect, less important, but still monstrous in proportion, was to 

 double the bonded indebtedness of the United States. And this was 

 aggravated first, by the legislation making the bonds payable in coin, and 

 then by the demonetization of silver — thus largely appreciating the value 

 of gold, and making them piyable in that metal. 



These conclusions, indeed, are warmly disputed, and those who affirm 

 them are characterized as cranks, or as debtors aiming to defraud their 

 creditors ; but in the main, the principles upon which they rest are not 

 contested by competent writers upon financial subjects, whether hi met- 

 alist or mono-metalist ; and they are too obvious to be intelligently dis- 

 puted. 



I touch here, contrary to my custom, upon matters of current politics, 

 and it is not be expected that what is said will be dispassionately consid- 

 ered ; but a few words on the other side of the question may perhaps 

 tend to set me right with some of my readers. It is proposed now to re- 

 form the currency by remonetizing silver at a ratio of 16 to 1. That the 

 demonetization of silver was one of the most disastrous mistakes that has 

 ever been made, I do not doubt ; nor do I pretend to deny that I am in 

 favor of its remonetizition ; but I readily perceive that to do this without 

 injustice is a difficult task. The principle underlying the whole subject 

 is the one already referred to — that a change in the value of the currency 

 is an injury, and generally a robberj% either to the creditor or the debtor. 

 The issue of legal tender greenbacks, and their final redemption, by means 

 of the demonetization of silver, in gold coin, was a palp ible robbery 

 equally of the debtor and of the government. But, as we have for years 



