CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



185 



dividual member of the family of nations ; and 

 when it puts forth its obligations it offers them 

 not only to its own citizens, but in the market 

 of the world for the money of the world. And 

 the money of the world, it needs no argument 

 to show, is that universal standard of value 

 and medium of exchange which all govern- 

 ments have concurred in making of the pre- 

 cious metals. 



" So much for the first section of the bill. 



"The second section is not a provision for 

 the resumption of specie payments, but a prep- 

 aration for resumption. It leaves to the peo- 

 ple by their voluntary transactions to bring 

 about for themselves a change from the use 

 of depreciated paper to the representative of 

 actual values. And, while this is done by giv- 

 ing the power to enforce contracts for coin 

 and coin values, the provision is so carefully 

 guarded in terms as not to be subject to the 

 objection most frequently urged against such 

 an act of legislation. It cannot be made an 

 instrument in the hands of a hard creditor for 

 the oppression of an embarrassed debtor under 

 the specious pretext of renewal of a contract 

 made on a different basis. 



"I think there are few intelligent .persons 

 now who do not believe that a return to specie 

 payments is desirable. The common judgment 

 of the country is for only such paper substitute, 

 to be used for a circulating medium, as is con- 

 vertible at pleasure into that which is recog- 

 nized as a safer and more certain measure of 

 values all the world over. 



" Whether, in view of the decision just made 

 by the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 any provision of law for legalizing contracts 

 for the payment of coin be needed, may, per- 

 haps, be a question. But it is a question which 

 had better be resolved by positive enactment. 

 And in any event it is desirable to be moving 

 in the direction of judicial judgment. 



44 But how, or by what process, are we to 

 come back to the gold standard ? That is the 

 problem to be solved. 



" Return at once to specie payments is, from 

 the want of coin sufficient for such an occa- 

 sion, simply impossible. And, if such sudden 

 resumption were possible, it would be most 

 disastrous in its effects by the ruin it would 

 bring upon the debtor class, which controls 

 the productive industry of the country. 



"A scheme for resumption to take place at 

 any near certain date in the future, to be fixed 

 by law, would be productive, I believe, of em- 

 barrassment and disaster little less serious and 

 immediate. While the Government would be 

 hoarding or purchasing coin to prepare for the 

 given day, thus withdrawing that solid part 

 of our currency from any use as such, and so 

 enhancing its comparative value by an in- 

 creased demand, brokers and speculators, on 

 the other hand, stimulated and tempted by 

 the percentage of profit to be made by the 

 operation, would be taking the paper-money 

 of the Government out of circulation and lay- 



ing it up for conversion into gold when the 

 day of coin payments should arrive. Thus the 

 channels of trade would be drained of money 

 in two directions, and the country deprived 

 in a good degree of both kinds of currency. 

 Prices of all property and labor would go 

 down under this double exhaustion of the 

 present supply of a circulating medium until 

 the prescribed period for resumption ; and 

 then the hoarders of greenbacks, having con- 

 verted them into coin, would make accumu- 

 lated gain by purchasing every thing at the 

 ruinous rates to which market values would 

 be reduced; and a third profit would follow 

 from the subsequent gradual and natural rise 

 of prices to an ordinary specie standard. 



" To me it seems that every plan is a mis- 

 take which proposes resumption as the direct 

 object of legislation, or which at this time 

 would enforce specie payments at a fixed date. 

 Resumption, in my opinion, to be safe and 

 lasting, must come as a consequence of wise 

 and wholesome legislation, and of an economi- 

 cal and sagacious administration of our finan- 

 cial affairs." 



Mr. Pruyn, of New York, said : " What do 

 we mean by this legislation? Do we mean 

 any thing or nothing ? Is it a renewed dec- 

 laration of what former statutes provide, or 

 something else ? If the former, it is deceptive, 

 and so I look upon it; but if it is the latter, 

 then the gentleman undertakes by this law to 

 create a new obligation on the part of the Gov- 

 ernment to its creditors, such as the acts under 

 which the issue of bonds was made did not create. 



"Now, sir, this whole question will event- 

 ually be solved in one way. If the gentleman 

 is of the opinion that, in 1882, when the bonds 

 of 1862 will have matured, the Government 

 will then have resumed specie payment, the 

 whole question is then solved, for we will then 

 pay coin, of course. The labor, the industry, 

 and the toil of the country must work out this 

 problem ; but if, when that time arrives, we 

 cannot pay in coin, if we shall not have reached 

 coin value, then we must pay in new obliga- 

 tions, and the public creditor must wait until 

 the country is able to meet its obligations in 

 coin. We stated to the world that we meant 

 to carry on the war .not upon a specie basis, 

 that we were not able to carry on the war 

 with coin, but we intended to draw on pos- 

 terity and the labor of the future. We prom- 

 ised gold for interest, but that the public 

 creditors must take the result as to the prin- 

 cipal; that, if we put down the rebellion, if 

 we succeeded in that work, we should soon 

 resume specie payment, and then, of course, 

 every obligation of the Government would be 

 paid in coin. If we did not reach that point, 

 then it would be impossible for us to pay in 

 coin, and the public creditors must take new 

 obligations and wait until we could reach 

 specie payment. That was the proposition 

 we made in 1862 to the public creditors, and 

 under which they took those bonds. 



