184 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



bonds a larger amount than their original investment, 

 measured by a gold standard. Upon this statement 

 of facts it would seem but just and equitable that the 

 six per cent, interest now paid by the Government 

 should be applied to the reduction of the principal in 

 semi-annual instalments, which in sixteen years and 

 eight months would liquidate the entire national 

 debt. Six per cent, in gold would at present rates be 

 equal to nine per cent, m currency, and equivalent to 

 the payment of the debt one and a halt time in a 

 fraction less than seventeen years. This in connec- 

 tion with all the other advantages derived from their 

 investment, would afford to the public creditors a 

 fair and liberal compensation for the use of their 

 capital and with this they should be satisfied. ^ The 

 lessons of the past admonish the lender that it is not 

 well to be over-anxious in exacting from the borrower 

 rigid compliance with the letter of the bond ; and, 

 whereas, such sentiments, if permitted to go to the 

 world without immediate protest, may be understood 

 to be the sentiments of the people of the United 

 States and their Representatives in Congress : There- 



Resolved, That all forms and degrees of repudiation 

 of national indebtedness are odious to the American 

 people. And that under no circumstances will their 

 Representatives consent to offer the public creditor, 

 as ftdl compensation, a less amount of money than 

 that which the Government contracted to pay him. 



The preamble and first clause of the resolu- 

 tion were agreed to by the following vote : 



YEAS Messrs. Allison, Ames, Arnell, James M. 

 Ashley, Axtell,Bailey, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Bar- 

 num, Beaman, Beatty, Benjamin, Benton, Bingham, 

 Blair. Boutwell. Bowen, Boyden. Boyer, Broomall, 

 Buckley, Roderick R. Butler, Calhs, Cary, Chandler, 

 Churchill, Reader W. Clarke, Sidney Clarke, Coburn, 

 Cook, Corley, Covode. Cullom, Dawes, Deweese, 

 Dickey, Dixon, Donnelly, Driggs, Eckley, Edwards, 

 Eggleston, Ela, Eliot, Farnsworth, Ferriss, Ferry, 

 Fields, French, Garfield, Getz, Glossbrenner, Goss, 

 Gove, Griswold, Haughey, Hawkins, Higby, Hooper, 

 Hopkins, Hotchkiss, Chester D. Hubbard, Richard 

 D. Hubbard, Hulburd, Hunter, Ingersoll, Jenckes, 

 Alexander H. Jones ? Judd, Julian, Kelley, Kellogg, 

 Kelsey, Ketcham, Kitchen, Koontz, Lash, George V. 

 Lawrence, "William Lawrence, Lincoln, Loan, Lough- 

 ridge, Lynch, Mallory, Marvin, McCarthy, McKee, 

 Mercur, Miller, Moore, Moorhead, Morrell, Morris- 

 Bey, Mullins, Myers, Newsham, Norris, O'Neill, Orth, 

 Paine, Perham, Peters, Pettis, Phelps, Pike, Pile, 

 Plants, Poland, Polsley .Price, Prince, Pruyn, Ran- 

 dall, Raum, Robertson, Robinson, Schenck, Scofield, 

 Shanks, Sitgreaves, Smith, Spalding, Starkweather, 

 Stevens, Stewart, Stokes, Stover, Sypher, Taber, 

 Taffe, Taylor, Thomas, Tift, Trowbridge, Twichell, 

 TJpson, Van Aernam, Burt Van Horn, Van Wyck, 

 Ward, Cadwalader C. Washburn,_ Elihu B. Wash- 

 burne, Henry D. Washburn, William B. Washburn, 

 Welker, Whittemore. William Williams. James F. 

 Wilson, John T. Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Win- 

 dom, Wood, Woodbridge, and Woodward 155. 



NAYS Messrs. Adams, Archer, Grover, Thomas 

 L. Jones, Mungen, and Lawrence S. Trimble 6. 



WOT VOTING Messrs. Anderson, Delos R. Ashley, 

 Barnes, Beck, Blackburn, Blaine, Boles, Bromwell, 

 Brooks, Buckland, Burr, Benjamin F. Butler, Cake, 

 Clift, Cobb, Cornell, Delano, Dockery, Dodge, El- 

 dridge. Fox, Golladay , Gravely, Haight, Halsey, Ham- 

 ilton, Harding, Heaton, Hill, Holrnan, Asahel W. 

 Hubbard, Humphrey, Johnson, Kerr, Knott, Laflin, 

 Logan, Marshall, Maynard, McCormick, McCullough, 

 Newcomb, Niblack, Nicholson, Nunn, Pierce, Pom- 

 eroy, Roots, Ross, Sawyer, Selye, Shellabarger, Stone, 

 John Trimble, Van Auken, Robert T. Van Horn, Van 

 Trump, Vidal, Thomas Williams, and Young 60. 



The remainder of the resolution was agreed 

 to without a count. 



In the House, on February 22d, Mr. Schenck, 

 of Ohio, called up the bill reported back from 

 the Committee of Ways and Means, with a rec- 

 ommendation that it be passed without amend- 

 ment, as follows : 



A bill to strengthen the public credit, and relating to con- 

 tracts for the payment of coin. 



Be it enacted ~by the. Senate and House of Representa- 

 tives of the United States of America in Congress as- 

 sembled, That in order to remove any doubt as to the 

 purpose of the Government to discharge all just ob- 

 ligations to the public creditors, and to settle con- 

 flicting questions and interpretations of the laws by 

 virtue of which such obligations have been contracted, 

 it is hereby provided and declared that the faith ot 

 the United States is solemnly pledged to the payment 

 in coin or its equivalent of all the interest-bearing 

 obligations of the United States, except in cases 

 where the law authorizing the issue of any such ob- 



interest-bearing obligations, not already due, shall 

 mature or be paid before maturity, the obligations 

 not bearing interest, known as United States notes, 

 shall be made convertible into coin at the option of 

 the holder. 



SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That any contract 

 hereafter made specifically payable in coin, and the 

 consideration of which may be a loan of coin, or a 

 sale of property, or the rendering of labor or service 

 of any kind, the price of which as carried into the con- 

 tract may have been adjusted on the basis of the 

 coin value thereof at the time of such sale or of the 

 rendering of such service or labor, shall be legal and 

 valid, and may be enforced according to its terms ; 

 and, on the trial of a suit brought for the enforcement 

 of any such contract, proof oi the real consideration 

 may be given. 



He said : " We have issued certain other 

 bonds under provisions of law which describe 

 the amounts of them as for so many 'dollars.' 

 In those authorizing laws it has not been ex- 

 pressed that the 'dollar ' was to mean or stand 

 for any thing else than what a dollar had been 

 held to be always since the beginning of the 

 Government a hundred cents, or its equiva- 

 lent in coin. We have had disputes among 

 ourselves as to the true meaning of these stat- 

 utes, and conflicting interpretations have been 

 given, depending on comparison and construc- 

 tion of their various sections and clauses, until 

 the heads of honest men have been made to 

 ache in the endeavor to hunt a clear meaning 

 through ambiguity. Honest men have remem- 

 bered, too, that the bonds were taken on the 

 faith of contemporaneous declarations by Con- 

 gress and the agents of the Government that 

 they were payable in gold. But there, in the 

 law, all the while, has stood out plainly the 

 promise to pay so many dollars to the public 

 creditor. Let us do it. Let us do it, remem- 

 bering that the most priceless property of a na- 

 tion is its credit, on the maintenance of which 

 untarnished its very power to preserve its ex- 

 istence may some time depend. Kemember- 

 ing, too, that, while dealings between individ- 

 uals of the same country may be presumed in 

 the absence of express agreement to be in 

 what is made the lawful currency of that coun- 

 try, a nation, on the contrary, is but as an in- 



