CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



139 



in the Senate, and I have no doubt it expresses 

 the deliberate and considered public opinion of 

 the people of that State with the same propor- 

 tion among them as to unanimity as was evi- 

 denced by the vote of their representatives in 

 the General Assembly. 



" I have been moved, Mr. President, in part 

 by that expression of public opinion of the 

 State which I have the honor in part to repre- 

 sent in this body, to introduce the resolution 

 which has been just reported to the Senate by 

 the Secretary. The resolution to which I now 

 speak does not cover the entire ground cover- 

 ed by the resolution of the General Assembly 

 of Ohio, for the latter not only expresses the 

 opinion contained in the resolution now pend- 

 ing in this body, that the restoration to the 

 coinage of the country of the silver dollar au- 

 thorized by the legislation prior to the year 

 1873 is not in violation of the public faith nor 

 in derogation of the rights of the public cred- 

 itor, but it also expresses the opinion that this 

 restoration of that coin is demanded by true 

 financial wisdom; in other words, that it is 

 not only the right of the United States consist- 

 ently with its obligations to its creditors to re- 

 store to its coinage the silver dollar, but that 

 it is expedient and wise and in pursuance of a 

 proper public policy so to do. 



" The recitals in the resolution refer to three 

 distinct periods in our legislative history, and 

 classify the public obligations by reference to 

 those dates. The first recital refers to all the ob- 

 ligations which were outstanding on the date 

 when the ' Act to strengthen the public credit' 

 received the executive sanction: the 18th day 

 of March, 1869. That statute corrected and 

 supplemented all the prior legislation on the 

 subject by making an express and emphatic dec- 

 laration and definition of the public faith in 

 respect to the existing and then outstanding 

 obligations of the Government. It provided 

 as follows : 



That in order to remove any doubt as to the pur- 

 pose of the Government to discharge all just obliga- 

 tions to the public creditors and to settle conflicting 

 questions and interpretations of the laws by virtue 

 of which such obligations have been contracted, it 

 is hereby provided and declared that the faith of the 

 United States is solemnly pledged to the payment 

 in coin or its equivalent of all the obligations of the 

 United States not bearing interest, known as United 

 States notes, and of all the interest-bearing obliga- 

 tions of the United States, except in cases where the 

 law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has 

 expressly provided that the same may be paid in 

 lawful money or other currency than gold or silver. 

 But none of said interest-bearing obligations not al- 

 ready due shall be redeemed or paid before maturity 

 unless at such time United States notes shall be con- 

 vertible into coin at the option of the holder, or un- 

 less at such time bonds of the United States bearing 

 a lower rate of interest than the bonds to be redeem- 

 ed can be sold at par in coin. And the United States 

 also solemnly pledges its faith, to make provision at 

 the earliest practicable period for the redemption of 

 the United States notes in coin. 



" If the word ' coin,' as used in this act, for 

 any sufficient reason must be interpreted as 



meaning gold coin alone, and not as including 

 silver coin as then known to the laws of the 

 United States, we are met at once by a conse- 

 quence to which I wish to call the attention of 

 the Senate, and that is that it would be just as 

 illegal and just as dishonorable to pay the 

 United States Treasury notes circulating as 

 money in any other than gold coin as so to 

 pay the interest -bearing obligations of the Gov- 

 ernment ; so that, if we are shut up to a gold 

 payment of our bonds by the terms of the law 

 or the spirit of the law or the obligations 

 of honor, then also are we cut off, in respect 

 to the resumption of payment of our non-in- 

 terest-bearing obligations which circulate as 

 currency, from any other medium of redemp- 

 tion except that of gold alone. 



" The proposition is a very wide one, and its 

 application ought to be thoroughly understood. 

 The Government of the United States in this 

 statute has pledged its faith not only to the 

 owners and holders of its interest-bearing ob- 

 ligations, but to the people who are the holders 

 and owners of its non-interest-bearing obliga- 

 tions ; and in whatever medium of redemption 

 they seek to liquidate one they are bound by 

 the same considerations of law and public faith 

 to insist upon the redemption of the other; 

 and it is just as much in violation of all these 

 considerations to make the silver dollar, by 

 any new legislation, a medium for the redemp- 

 tion of our Treasury-note circulation as to 

 make it the means of paying our bonded debt. 



"There are Senators here who are familiar 

 with the circumstances of the passage of this 

 law. The history of the legislation antecedent 

 to its passage is very plain, and the questions 

 which it was designed to solve are not doubt- 

 ful. The question had arisen in consequence 

 of the language used in the act of 1862 and in 

 the subsequent acts authorizing the issue of the 

 bonds of the Government, with the exception 

 of that statute which created the 10-40 bonds, 

 whereby it appeared that, although express 

 provision was made for the payment of the in- 

 terest accruing on those bonds in coin, the ques- 

 tion as to how and by what medium payment 

 should be made of the principal of the debt 

 was left unanswered. The greenback note was 

 made a legal tender in payment of all debts and 

 demands, public and private, except interest 

 on the public debt and the payment of customs 

 dues. 



" The question was therefore agitated wheth- 

 er or not the principal of the debt might not 

 lawfully and properly be paid in the greenback 

 circulation. To meet that question and to an- 

 swer it, and to answer it in the negative, the 

 public-credit act of 1869 was passed. In my 

 judgment (and it was always my opinion), the 

 very nature of the case was such that under 

 the statutes the original indebtedness of the 

 country was not repayable in the greenback 

 notes. I believed that by its terms I mean 

 by the implied terms, not by the actual lan- 

 guage, but by a necessary implication growing 



