CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



153 



NAYS Messrs. Allison, Anthony, Bout-well, Cam- 

 eron, Carpenter, Clayton, Cragin, Edmunds, Fenton, 

 Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Frelinghuysen, Ham- 

 ilton of Texas, Hamlin, Harvey, Howe, Ingalls, Lo- 

 gan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, 

 Patterson, Pease, Pratt, Sargent, Schurz, Scott, 

 Sherman, Speucer, Washburn, West, Windom, and 

 Wright 33. 



ABSENT Messrs. Alcorn, Boreman, Brownlow, 

 Buckingham, Chandler, Conkling, Conover 2 Dorsey, 

 Ferry of Connecticut, Gilbert, Gordon, Hitchcock, 

 Jones, Kelly, Lewis, Mitchell, Oglesby, Kamsey, 

 Eobertson, Sprague, Stewart, Stockton, Tipton, and 

 Wadleigh 24. 



So the amendment was rejected. 



Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, said : " I move 

 to strike out the word ' nine,' in line 24, page 3, 

 and insert ' seven,' so as to read ' 1877.' Ac- 

 cording to my view of this measure we shall be 

 no nearer specie payments in 1879 than we are 

 now. There is no provision in this bill for tne 

 accumulation of gold for the purpose of resump- 

 tion in 1879, and I think we may as well come 

 back to specie payments two years earlier as 

 postpone it to that period." 



The Presiding Officer (Mr. Allison in the 

 chair): "The question is on the adoption of 

 the amendment of the Senator from Delaware." 



The amendment was rejected. 



Mr. Hamilton, of Maryland, said : " I offer 

 this amendment : Strike out all after the en- 

 acting clause of the bill, and insert : " 



That from and after the fourth day of July, 

 A. D. 1876, nothing but gold and silver shall be a 

 legal tender for the payment of debts contracted 

 thereafter. 



Mr. Stevenson, of Kentucky, said : " I de- 

 sire briefly to state why I shall vote against 

 the pending bill. It cannot afford the stability 

 which the country expects, nor afford the re- 

 lief which it has a right to demand. The bill 

 is deceptive. It is a species of Janus-faced 

 legislation, and should be deemed rather a 

 measure of party policy than one of financial 

 relief. The expansionists, by one construction, 

 can claim it as their measure, and give it their 

 support, while the contractionists, by a differ- 

 ent construction, can insist that they have 

 triumphed, and the bill is one of contraction 

 which commands their support. And it is true 

 that the bill is so worded as to justify diverse 

 constructions, and allow both contractionists 

 and expansionists to unite in its support. 



"But, Mr. President, I am opposed to this 

 bill upon another ground. I am unwilling to 

 confer upon any Secretary of the Treasury the 

 power to expand or contract the currency at 

 discretion. The chairman of the committee who 

 reports this bill declines to answer the ques- 

 tion whether the Secretary of the Treasury can 

 reissue the notes that he has redeemed, whether 

 he will not have the power to reissue them. 

 That is a matter on which the honorable chair- 

 man says every Senator must put his own con- 

 struction. That is not the doctrine of the 

 democratic party. They are opposed to arbi- 

 trary, unlimited power in one or many officials. 

 They go for no ambiguous legislation. They 



are for straightforward, honest, upright legis- 

 lation, which the country can understand and 

 which the public interest demands. 



"The present Secretary of the Treasury 

 might, and probably would, construe the act 

 as requiring a destruction by him of all the 

 legal tenders as fast as they should be redeemed, 

 while his successor might take an opposite 

 view, and construe the same words as empow- 

 ering him to retain the legal tenders which 

 should be redeemed, and to reissue them if he. 

 at any time deemed the interests of the coun- 

 try required it. Either construction would find 

 defenders in this chamber from Senators who 

 will vote for this measure. Is such legislation 

 open ? Is it wise ? Is it beneficent ? Are not 

 the interests of the country too great to allow 

 or justify it ? I think so, and therefore I shall 

 vote against the bill." 



Mr. Hamilton, of Maryland : " I did not know 

 that my amendment was going to give rise 

 to discussion. It expressed my own personal 

 views ; but I withdraw it." 



The Presiding Officer (Mr. Allison in the 

 chair) : " The amendment is withdrawn." 



Mr. Edmunds : "I wish to say a word on 

 the general topics that have engaged our 

 attention. The Senator from Kentucky com- 

 plains that the chairman of this committee 

 does not submit to the Assembly's catechism 

 and answer the thirty-nine or the fifty-nine or 

 the one hundred and nine questions which 

 may be propounded to him. Have Senators 

 forgotten that the construction of this bill, if 

 it becomes a law, is a question which does not 

 belong to Congress, that it belongs in another 

 department and in another tribunal? And if 

 Senators had addressed themselves to the bill 

 itself, instead of the Senator who has it in 

 charge, and had stated to us their opinions of 

 its defects and of its construction, and had 

 offered amendments in that view, there would 

 have been some force in asking us to vote upon 

 those amendments. But this opposition to a 

 bill providing for a resumption of specie pay- 

 ments, which is based upon catechisms and 

 general talk entirely apart from the bill itself 

 and intended to touch an entirely different 

 body of people, as it evidently is, and not in- 

 tended to touch the merits of the bill at all, is 

 not quite the thing, it appears to me, in the 

 Senate of the United States. Senators seem 

 to be exceedingly ready to ask questions of 

 other people without pronouncing any opinions 

 of their own. I suppose they might catechise 

 the Senator from Ohio on the subject of the 

 ten commandments or of all the laws that we 

 passed last year; but, if in connection with 

 that they would give us their own views upon 

 this particular bill and tell us why it is that 

 they are opposed to it and what they under- 

 stand it to mean as a reason why they are op- 

 posed to it, perhaps the country might get 

 some information. Whether it would be val- 

 uable information might possibly be another 

 question. 



