CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



enormously enhanced in value, and would gain 

 a disproportionate and unfair advantage over 

 every other species of property. 



"7. The question of beginning anew the 

 coinage of silver dollars has aroused much 

 discussion as to its effect on the public credit; 

 and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Matthews) 

 placed this phase of the subject in the very 

 forefront of the debate insisting, preinaturely 

 and illogically, I think, on a sort of judicial 

 construction in advance, by concurrent resolu- 

 tion, of a certain law in case that law should 

 happen to be passed by Congress. My own 

 view on this question can be stated very brief- 

 ly. I believe the public creditor can afford to 

 be paid in any silver dollar that the United 

 States can afford to coin and circulate. We 

 have forty thousand millions of property in 

 this country, and a wise self-interest will not 

 permit us to overturn its relations by seeking 

 for an inferior dollar wherewith to settle the 

 dues and demands of any creditor. The ques- 

 tion might be different from a merely selfish 

 standpoint if, on paying the dollar to the pub- 

 lic creditor, it would disappear after perform- 

 ing that function. But the trouble is that the 

 inferior dollar you pay the public creditor re- 

 mains in circulation, to the exclusion of the 

 better dollar. That which you pay at home 

 will stay there ; that which you send abroad 

 will come back. The interest of the public 

 creditor is indissolubly bound up with the in- 

 terest of the whole people. Whatever affects 

 him affects us all; and the evil that we might 

 inflict upon him by paying an inferior dollar 

 would recoil upon us with a vengeance as 

 manifold as the aggregate wealth of the Re- 

 public transcends the comparatively small lim- 

 its of our bounded debt. And remember that 

 our aggregate wealth is always increasing, and 

 our bonded debt steadily growing less! If 

 paid in a good silver dollar, the bondholder 

 has nothing to complain of. If paid in an in- 

 ferior silver dollar, he has the same grievance 

 that will be uttered still more plaintively by 

 the holder of the legal-tender note and of the 

 national-bank bill, by the pensioner, by the 

 day laborer, and by the countless host of the 

 poor, whom we have with us always, and on 

 whom the most distressing effect of inferior 

 money will be ultimately precipitated. 



"8. When we pledged the public creditor in 

 1870 that our obligations should be paid in the 

 standard coin of that date, silver bullion was 

 worth in the London market a fraction over 

 sixty pence per ounce ; its average for the 

 past eight months has been about fifty-four 

 pence; the price reckoned in gold in both 

 cases. But the large difference is due partly 

 to the rise in gold as well as to the fall in sil- 

 ver. Allowing for both these causes and strik- 

 ing the difference, it will be found, in the judg- 

 ment of many of the wisest men in this coun- 

 try, perfectly safe to issue a dollar of 425 grains 

 standard silver; as one that, anticipating the 

 full and legitimate influence of remonetization, 



will equate itself with the gold dollar, and ef- 

 fectually guard against the drain of our gold 

 during the time necessary for international 

 conference in regard to the general reestablish- 

 ment of silver as money. 



'And I think we owe this to the American 

 laborer. Ever since we demonetized the old 

 dollar we have been running our mints at full 

 speed, coining a new silver dollar for the use 

 of the Chinese cooly and the Indian pariah a 

 dollar containing 420 grains of standard silver, 

 with its superiority over our ancient dollar os- 

 tentatiously engraved on its reverse side. To 

 these 4 outside barbarians ' we send this supe- 

 rior dollar, bearing all our national emblems, 

 our patriotic devices, our pious inscriptions, 

 our goddess of liberty, our defiant eagle, our 

 federal unity, our trust in God. This dollar 

 contains 7-J- grains more silver than the famous 

 * dollar of the fathers ' proposed to be recoined 

 by the pending bill, and more than four times 

 as many of these new dollars have already been 

 coined as ever were coined of all other silver 

 dollars in the United States. In the excep- 

 tional and abnormal condition of the silver 

 market now existing- throughout the world we 

 have felt compelled to increase the weight of 

 the dollar with which we carry on trade with 

 the heathen nations of Asia. And shall we do 

 less for the' American laborer at home? Nay, 

 shall we not do a little better and a little more 

 for those of our own blood and our own fire- 

 side?" 



Mr. Withers, of Virginia, said: "Mr. Pres- 

 ident, the bill under consideration, which I 

 believe is to be an important factor in restor- 

 ing the prosperous condition of our country, 

 has been assailed most vigorously upon two 

 grounds objection to the legality of the pro- 

 posed measure, and objection to its expediency. 

 I shall have but little to say with regard to the 

 legal question ; first, because I am not myself 

 learned in legal lore, and it is perhaps pre- 

 sumptuous in me to attempt a legal argument. 

 But as long as I have the Constitution before 

 me I cannot fail to recognize the force of that 

 provision which specifies that gold and silver 

 shall be the currency of this country, shall be 

 the legal tender of this country. I recognize 

 another fact, that the law of contracts must be 

 held as applying to all the obligations of the 

 Government, and when these bonds upon their 

 face distinctly declare that they are payable in 

 coin of a certain specified value, it cannot be 

 that payment in such coin is a violation of the 

 contract. 



" By the Constitution the power ' to coin 

 money and regulate the value thereof ' is giv- 

 en to Congress in explicit terms ; and stand- 

 ing upon that provision, I do not care to seek 

 further to find an argument to sustain the 

 proposition that Congress has absolute and 

 entire control of this subject. I know my 

 friend from Delaware (Mr. Bayard) says this 

 power to ' coin money and regulate the value 

 thereof,' if carried out in the manner proposed, 



