140 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



out of the very nature of the contract, it being 

 expressed to be payable in dollars, and the 

 greenback circulation not being dollars, but 

 being merely promises to pay dollars the ori- 

 ginal indebtedness of the country could not 

 properly be liquidated in any other than coin 

 dollars. Still there were a great many of a 

 different opinion, and the public agitation upon 

 that subject became very extensive; and, to 

 meet it and to meet the doubts and to allay 

 the disquiet excited by that public agitation, 

 this statute to which I have referred was 

 passed. It was intended to settle that ques- 

 tion, and was intended to settle every question 

 connected with the mode of paying those 

 bonds, and to assure the public creditor that 

 he should be paid only in coin money. 



" Mr. President, it does seem to me that if 

 it had then been thought, if it had then been 

 in contemplation of the parties, that these 

 bonds ought only to be payable in gold money, 

 and that their value in the market ought only 

 to be measured by that mode of payment in 

 undertaking to settle doubts, this statute would 

 not have created new ones ; it would not have 

 left such a question as that open ; it would not 

 have been guilty of the ambiguity of introduc- 

 ing a new element of dissatisfaction and discord 

 between the Government and the public cred- 

 itor. These bonds had been bought in the 

 market and from the Government. They had 

 been bought largely by the use of paper money, 

 and the argument was then made in opposition 

 to the passage of this act that it was inequi- 

 table ; that it was unjust to the people ; that 

 it was a hardship to the Government, which 

 ought not to be imposed to pay in any other 

 currency those who were holders of these 

 bonds than that which had been received for 

 them at the time. The answer to that was 

 made and was accepted, and, in my judgment, 

 was conclusive. It was this : * It is an imma- 

 terial circumstance what was the consideration 

 received for these bonds ; it is a matter of no 

 sort of relevancy what we were willing to take 

 or what you were willing to give. The ques- 

 tion of our obligation is, what have we prom- 

 ised to pay ? what is the letter, and the spirit, 

 and the true meaning of our contract? We 

 have taken greenbacks. We have promised to 

 pay dollars. That is our obligation, and that 

 we will declare.' And it was declared by the 

 act of March 18, 1869. 



" Now, what did ' coin ' mean at that date ? 

 Where do we go for the definition of a term 

 used in a statute ? What is ' coin ' ? Nothing 

 is coin in this country but that which by law 

 may be coined as money, and everything which 

 by law may be coined as money is coin. We 

 had on our books at that time another statute 

 which contained that definition, which enumer- 

 ated the coins of the United States, which de- 

 clared of what they should consist, how they 

 should be named, at what value they should 

 be rated, how many grains of gold should be 

 in the gold coin and how many grains of silver 



should be in the silver coin, and of what fine- 

 ness and how much alloy ; and at that date, as 

 at every prior date from that time back to the 

 beginning of the financial history of the Gov- 

 ernment, there had been known to the coun- 

 try, to its laws, to its statutes, to its people, to 

 the world, as one of the legitimate, lawful coins 

 of the United States, the silver dollar contain- 

 ing 371J grains of pure or fine silver. The 

 silver dollar authorized to be coined by every 

 coinage act which had been passed and which 

 had been changed only in reference to its 

 weight as standard silver, as to its intrinsic 

 value, as containing so much of pure silver, 

 had been established at the very foundation of 

 the Mint, and had been carried on continuous- 

 ly in every act of legislation upon the statute- 

 book. That was one of the coins. That was 

 one of the coins also spoken of in the act of 

 1862 authorizing the issue of Government 

 bonds and establishing a sinking fund for the 

 redemption of the principal of these bonds, for 

 the fifth section of that act provided : 



That all duties on imported goods shall be paid 

 in coin or in notes payable on demand heretofore 

 authorized to be issued and by law receivable in 

 payment of public dues, and the coin so paid shall 

 be set apart as a special fund, and shall be applied 

 as follows : 



First. To the payment in coin of the interest on 

 the bonds and notes of the United States. 



Second. To the purchase or payment of 1 per cent, 

 of the entire debt of the United States, to be made 

 within each fiscal year after th^ 1st day of July, 1862, 

 which is to be set apart as a sinking fund, and the 

 interest of which shall in like manner be applied to 

 the purchase or payment of the public debt, as the 

 Secretary of the Treasury shall from time to time 

 direct. 



Third. The residue thereof to he paid into the 

 Treasury of the United States. 



" At that date, up to the time of the passage 

 of the act of 1873, which dropped that coin 

 from the list of the coins of the United States, 

 the silver dollars authorized by the previous 

 coinage acts were receivable in payment of 

 customs duties, and were pledged by the sec- 

 tion of the statute which I have just read to 

 the payment of the interest and the principal 

 of the public debt. The same state of things 

 in respect to the legislation of the country ex- 

 isted on the 14th day of July, 1870, which is 

 the date of the passage of the act to authorize 

 the refunding of the national debt, which pro- 

 vides for the issue of 5 per cent., 4 per cent., 

 and 4 per cent, bonds, and marks the beginning 

 of the second period of classification ; for that 

 was intended to make the beginning of a new 

 history for the public debt, the object being to 

 reduce the annual interest by converting our 

 6 per cent, and other bonds into bonds of the 

 description authorized by the statute of July 

 14, 1870. At that date the coinage of the 

 country, so far as it was regulated by law, re- 

 mained, as I have stated, in the same condition 

 in which it was the previous year. 



" In this carefully prepared and well consid- 

 ered law, intended to be the foundation of the 



