144 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



is less, he must have a greater rate of interest. 

 If he is to be paid in a currency whose pur- 

 chasing power is greater, he will take a less 

 rate of interest. And the test is the rate of 

 interest in the market to-day. And the answer 

 to what I understood to be rny colleague's 

 argument is in that very fact. It is all summed 

 up in these words : We have a currency over 

 the value of which Congress has control, and 

 no mortal can tell what that value will be nine 

 months or a year hence. 



" The proposition of my colleague and of the 

 gentleman from Pennsylvania, in the bill be- 

 fore the committee, is to make that which was 

 a war measure of the Government the intro- 

 duction of Government promises to pay with- 

 out provision for their immediate payment a 

 permanent part of the currency of the country 

 in time of peace. I said when on the floor 

 before that it was a departure from all the 

 former policy of the Government of the United 

 States. 



It is a question whether there is any power 

 under the Constitution of the United States, 

 except that power which rises above almost 

 every other the power of self-preservation in 

 time of war that authorizes the Government 

 at all to issue this kind of paper. So little did 

 the framers of the Constitution dream of the 

 exercise of such a power under any circum- 

 stances, that they did not provide in terms for 

 its exercise even for the purpose of saving the 

 life of the Government in the perils of war. 

 And the Supreme Court of the United States 

 has indicated in its late opinions and judg- 

 ments grave doubts whether there exists at 

 all in the Government any such power except 

 to meet the exigencies of war. That the power 

 was exercised from the most patriotic motives 

 all admit. All now admit that it was an abso- 

 lute necessity at the time. The history of the 

 creation of those promises of the Government 

 is that they came out of the groans and the 

 burdens of the life-struggle of the nation, and 

 are not the healthy development and growth 

 of the country in its normal condition. It 

 were a marvel that out of such a state of 

 things, and to meet such a terrible exigency, 

 there came, as by chance, a peace policy set- 

 ting at naught all the laws of finance by 

 which the civilized world has till now been 

 governed. 



" I hold in my hand the autograph letter of 

 the then Secretary of the Treasury, the late 

 Chief-Justice of the United States, in which he 

 returned to the Committee on Ways and Means 

 the first bill that was introduced into the House 

 of Representatives creating these legal-tender 

 notes. In that letter is set forth the necessity 

 for their creation; the struggle in his own 

 mind to come to the conclusion that in that 

 state of things there was power in the Gov- 

 ernment to make them a legal tender a con- 

 clusion which he afterward, as Chief-Justice, 

 reversed ; and his anxiety to meet the issue 

 with a corresponding power to fund them in a 



six per cent, gold-bearing bond to keep them 

 at a level with specie and to secure their im- 

 mediate retirement' as soon as the necessities 

 of the Government should permit. And I 

 hold also a subsequent letter to that committee 

 in which, when in order to float in the dark- 

 est hours of the war the ten-forty bonds the 

 Government made the fatal mistake of aban- 

 doning the idea of funding those notes in a six 

 per cent, gold-bearing bond, he records his 

 anxiety and distress, in view of the necessity 

 pressing upon him, to resort as a substitute for 

 this funding process to that other alternative 

 of contraction, which brings with it so much 

 distress and consequent opposition. I do not 

 feel quite at liberty to put these letters upon 

 the record without permission. I allude to 

 them because they do but give expression to 

 the entire sentiment of those in every branch 

 of this Government who created these notes. 



"War, with its necessities and burdens, 

 being passed, the country looked to us for a 

 policy that would cause these notes to pass 

 away also, and the abnormal condition of 

 things created thereby to fade with the mem- 

 ories of the war. They have looked in vain. 

 Indeed, until within a short time it has been 

 the announced policy to let things alone, and 

 allow the country to grow up to the expanded 

 condition of the currency, and so relieve itself 

 of this abnormal, this strange condition of 

 things. But I am here to rejoice with my 

 friend from Ohio (Mr. Garfield) that at last 

 an unmistakable voice comes to our aid from 

 high authority, demanding an affirmative and 

 an aggressive policy toward these Treasury- 

 notes. I rejoice that our hands are being 

 strengthened in the effort (if we have-courage 

 to make it) to bring this country back to the 

 laws of trade; those laws which no sophistry 

 of argument, or misapprehension of facts, or 

 misconstruction of circumstances, however 

 specious, can put to naught. But the effort 

 is now, by the bill before the House, to per- 

 petuate this condition of things, and make it 

 the permanent policy of the land." 



Mr. Smith, of New York, said : " I have no 

 purpose of mtiking a speech on this occasion. 

 I desire only to explain the reasons which will 

 control my own vote upon this bill. 



" First, I am opposed to all inflation of the 

 currency. With the exception of my vote for 

 the $400,000,000 greenback bill, for reasons 

 which will appear, as I proceed, I have voted 

 steadily and uniformly against expansion in 

 every guise in which it has been presented to 

 the House. 



" Second, I am in favor of the resumption 

 of specie payments by the Government at the 

 earliest moment possible, without serious det- 

 riment to the finances of the Government. 



" Third, I am not only opposed to all ex- 

 pansion of the currency, but I am equally op- 

 posed to any legislation in the interest of na- 

 tional-bank currency to the exclusion of the 

 legal tenders, and for these reasons : The 



