CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



191 



to you, with sorrow, that Congress has dono 

 no single uct tlio tendency of whirh has In n 



to u<l\:i!i,v the V.-illlO Of theSO HOte.S to ft p>M 



standard ; und I shall make that clearer ln-l'm-o 



through. l'niijrre.s inado this promise 



years ago. Tho pooplo believed it and 



business men believed it. Four years have 



I away since then, and your dollar in 



.Sacks is worth no more to-day than it was 



on the- 18th of March, 1870; and no act of 



yours has ever tended to advance the value of 



Hurt greenback to par in gold, while every 



atlirmtttive act of yours since that time has 



tended to depreciate its value and to violate 



your promise. 



" Mr. President, these are simple facts, al- 

 though it may be painful for us to discuss them. 

 I do not say that Congress, in this matter, dis- 

 regarded the will of the people, because there 

 was a public feeling against any measure which 

 tended to advance the value of the greenbacks 

 to the gold standard. I am not complaining 

 of Senators or Members who represent their 

 constituents, but I do say that the fact stands 

 out as clear as light, that the Congress of the 

 United States which made this promise has 

 done no single act the tendency of which even 

 leads one to suppose that it will ever redeem 

 its promise. 



" Sir, let us see what has been done. Wo 

 have paid $400,000,000 of the public debt, and 

 we boast of it .of debt not due for years. We 

 have paid to redeem that debt a premium of 

 $40,000,000. In other words, we have paid 

 $440,000,000 to redeem four hundred millions 

 of debt not yet due, and we have not redeemed 

 a single debt that was due in March, 1869 ; 

 but, on the contrary, we have increased the 

 kind of debts then due more in proportion than 

 the increase of our population. And, sir, while 

 our promise did advance the credit of our bonds 

 and of our notes alike, and while the execution 

 of that promise as to our bonds has advanced 

 our bonds to above par in gold, yet we have 

 dono nothing whatever to redeem the second 

 clause of that pledge ; but, on the other hand, 

 all we have done has been done with the in- 

 tention and with the effect of depreciating the 

 value of our notes. 



" Mr. President, I am not here to find fault 

 with individuals ; but I do say that the Con- 

 gress of the United States in the measures 

 which have been adopted has not done what it 

 ought to have done to redeem the pledge of 

 the public faith to pay these notes in coin ' at 

 the earliest practicable period.' Why, sir, at 

 this moment we are living in daily violation of 

 this pledge. I said a moment ago that instead 

 of adopting measures looking toward specie 

 payments we have increased the volume of our 

 currency in every branch of it. Now let us 

 see if this be true. I have here a statement, 

 taken from the official report of the Secretary 

 of the Treasury, of the amount of the currency 

 on the 30th of June, 1869. I cannot find a 



itement for the 1st of March, 1869, but it 



was the same, because it wan fixed by law. I 

 find on the 30th of June, 1600, we hud three 

 hundred and fifty-six million* of grvc-nbuclu, 

 the same amount that we had on the Htn day 

 of March. That was the maximum amount, 

 as it was supposed, fixed by law. When the 

 act of the 18th of March, 180'J, was passed, no 

 one dreamed that there existed a power to issue 

 forty-four millions more. 



"Our greenbacks were then $356,000,000. 

 On the 1st of January, 1874, according to the 

 last statement of the public debt, they were 

 $378,481,330. Wo had, then, increased this 

 form of our currency $22,481,000. And that 

 is not all. Since that time, and up to the 10th 

 of January, according to a New York news- 

 paper and I suppose it is correct I find that 

 the amount of legal-tender notes outstanding 

 was $381,801,000, or an increase-since the 1st 

 of January of something like $3,400,000, or at 

 the rate of $400,000 a day. Every dollar of 

 this new issue of paper-money directly tended 

 to depreciate that outstanding and was in vio- 

 lation of the spirit and the provision of the law 

 of 1869. I am not now speaking of the legal 

 power of the Secretary of the Treasury to make 

 this issue, because I have already given my opin- 

 ion fully on this subject in an official report, but 

 only call your attention to the fact that by our 

 acquiescence we have actually watered, de- 

 based, and depreciated by new issues the very 

 notes we promised to pay in coin at the earli- 

 est practicable period. 



"Nor is this all. Under authority clearly 

 conferred by law to the Secretary of the 

 Treasury, we have increased the fractional cur- 

 rency from $27,508,928, at which it stood on 

 the 30th of June, 1869, to $48,554,792, or an 

 increase of fractional currency of $21,036,000. 

 Again, sir, driven by a local demand which we 

 could not resist, founded upon a palpable injus- 

 tice growing out of the mistake of an officer of 

 the Government long ago in the distribution of 

 the national-bank circulation, we did authorize 

 by law an increase of the bank circulation to 

 the South and West to the amount of $54,000,- 

 000. The amount of bank-notes issued at the 

 time we made this pledge was $299,789,000 ; 

 and to-day the amount outstanding is $339,081,- 

 000, showing an increase in this kind of notes 

 of $39,800,000,or an increase of the currency 

 since the promise to pay it in coin at the 

 earliest practicable period, and all legal tender 

 in effect, of $82,817,000; and now this process 

 of inflation is going on daily first, by the issue 

 of the balance of the forty-four million re- 

 serve ; and, second, by the issue of new bank- 

 notes as banks are organized under the act of 

 July, 1870 ; and yet there is a cry for more, 

 more. 



" My honorable friend asked me a while ago 

 what was the nature of the pledge made by the 

 act of March, 1869, as to the time of payment 

 of United States notes in coin. If I was de- 

 fending a person charged as a criminal for vio- 

 lating this law, or one like it, I would claim, 



