CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



141 



new order of things in relation to the public 

 debt; intended to be the new starting-point 

 and period of reorganizing it; intended to 

 make a new basis for the title of its holders 

 and owners ; intended to strengthen it and se- 

 cure it so far as the ingenuity and the wit of 

 man could do by the choice of careful expres- 

 sions ; intended to define with the utmost pre- 

 cision all the rights and obligations of both 

 parties to the contract, we find that the medium 

 for the redemption of those bonds, the measure 

 of the value of those bonds, was most explicit- 

 ly declared. They were declared to be redeem- 

 able in coin of the present standard value at 

 the pleasure of the United States after ten 

 years from the date of their issue, and bearing 

 interest, payable semi-annually, in such coin. 

 There is no ambiguity about these terms. 

 There is no possible ground of doubt as to 

 what the words mean. There is no vagueness 

 in the meaning which was intended to be con- 

 veyed. It is as free from any possible shade 

 of doubt as words can make it. It refers to 

 the standard of values of coin as then existed, 

 the standard value then present, coin of that 

 ' present standard value.' 



"Therefore, it seems to me, outside of all 

 legitimate contention in this argument in re- 

 spect to the obligation of the Government, 

 that all the bonds issued prior to the act of 

 1869, and all the bonds issued directly under 

 the act of July 14, 1870, known as the refund- 

 ing act, by their terms, by the plain and proper 

 meaning of the words, are redeemable, as of 

 right, in the true and just sense of that word, 

 in the coins known to the statutes of the United 

 States on those dates, either gold or silver, ac- 

 cording to the weights and rates expressed in 

 the statutes then in force. 



" Now, how do the bonds issued under the 

 specie resumption act of January, 1875, differ 

 from those which have been already the subject 

 of our consideration? Let us see. The act to 

 provide for the resumption of specie payments, 

 in the third section and in the concluding para- 

 graph of the statute, declares as follows : 



And to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to 

 prepare and provide for the redemption in this act 

 authorized or required, he is authorized to use any 

 surplus revenues, from time to time, in the Treasury 

 not otherwise appropriated, and to issue, sell, and 

 dispose of, at not less than par, in coin, either of the 

 description of bonds of the United States described 

 in the act of Congress approved July 14, 1870, entitled 

 " An act to authorize the refunding of the national 

 debt," with like qualities, privileges, and exemptions, 

 to the extent necessary to carry this act into full ef- 

 fect, and to use the proceeds thereof for the purposes 

 aforesaid. 



" Now, then, it follows that this is as if it had 

 repeated word for word every provision in the 

 act of July 14, 1870, by reference to its date, 

 and had made the bonds of the same obligation, 

 of the same tenor, of the same meaning, as if 

 they had been issued directly under the act of 

 July 14, 1870 ; and that act was so particular, 

 in reference to avoiding possible misunder- 



standing of the nature and extent of the obli- 

 gations entered into under it by the United 

 States, that it was declared in the statute of 

 1870 'that the said bonds shall have set forth 

 and expressed upon their face the above-speci- 

 fied conditions.' Therefore every bond here- 

 tofore issued and now outstanding, and all that 

 can by law be hereafter issued, either under 

 the act of 1870 or the act of 1875, contain the 

 words that they are to be redeemed in the coin 

 of the United States of the standard value as 

 it was on the 14th day of July, 1870 ; not as 

 it is at the date of the issue of the particular 

 bonds, not as it may be on some future occa- 

 sion and at some future period, but as the law 

 stood at that time ; and is not less certain and 

 explicit in its meaning than if it had recited 

 the coinage act of the United States then in 

 force and said, ' Here is the list of the coins of 

 which we speak, and here are the denomina- 

 tions, the names, the weights, and the com- 

 parative values of the several particular coins 

 in which we agree that you shall be paid.' 



u I have already adverted to the grounds and 

 reasons for this very particular and express in- 

 sertion in the statute. It was done to secure 

 the creditor ; it was done to assure the pur- 

 chaser ; it was done to declare in express terms, 

 beyond the possibility of mistake, the full meas- 

 ure and full extent of the obligation of the 

 Government. 



" Prior to the passage of this act of 1875, but 

 subsequent to the passage of the act of 1870, 

 to wit, in the act of 1873, the Government of 

 the United States, actuated by motives and in 

 reference to purposes of its own, in the exer- 

 cise of its sovereign prerogative, passed a new 

 coinage act, in which there was dropped from 

 the list of authorized coins of the United States 

 what had been always previously known to our 

 law as the silver dollar. 



" Therefore it is true that since that year, and 

 at the time of the passage of the act of 1875, 

 and at every date when bonds have been issued 

 since 1873, under the act of 1870 or under the 

 act of 1875, there were no silver dollars which 

 could have been paid for the bonds, and no 

 silver dollars in which they could have been 

 paid off if they had then been due. Now, in 

 law or in morals what difference does that 

 make ? Could the United States by any act of 

 its own, particularly any act not done with any 

 such design, change, alter, make over again the 

 terms of the contract between these parties, 

 between itself and its creditors ? Could it make 

 any bond in the hand of a new purchaser dif- 

 ferent as to its obligation and value by any act 

 of its own from those which had been original- 

 ly and directly issued under the terms of the 

 act of 1870 ? Was that the intention, or was 

 it not most expressly the intention to make all 

 these bonds identical, precisely alike in every 

 particular as to the obligation of the United 

 States and as to their values in the hands of 

 the holders? 



" Then, Mr. President, if the United States as 



