166 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



sound or any country is sound which tolerates 

 except as a necessity a depreciated paper money. 

 I want gold and silver for our money. I be- 

 lieve Congress has power to coin money. I be- 

 lieve that the word ' coin ' means metallic 

 money., I believe we have no right to make 

 anything else but metallic money. That is my 

 opinion. Therefore I want gold and silver as 

 our money. I want the gold dollar equal to 

 the silver dollar, and the silver dollar equal to 

 the gold dollar. 



" I am perfectly well aware that in the pres- 

 ent condition of this country gold and silver 

 alone are not sufficient to constitute its cur- 

 rency, and that we must have a paper currency, 

 and I insist that that paper currency ought to 

 be equal to gold and silver that is, converti- 

 ble into gold and silver. I do not say ' con- 

 verted into gold and silver.' I have no re- 

 spect for the argument which undertakes to 

 prove that paper currency cannot be equal to 

 gold and silver because there are not as many 

 gold and silver dollars in the country as there 

 may be paper dollars. Convertible, in my 

 judgment, means that it shall have the same 

 purchasing power; and whenever the paper 

 currency gets to the point where it is equal in 

 purchasing power to gold and silver, then it 

 ought to remain there. In my judgment, if 

 we make this legal-tender money, as you have 

 got it to-day, receivable in the payment of all 

 public dues, it will be equal to gold and silver 

 with all the people of America. I think it is 

 the only thing on earth that prevents it now 

 from being absolutely equal in purchasing pow- 

 er to gold and silver. 



"I move to amend the amendment of the 

 Senator from Delaware by striking out the 

 words 'excepting duties on imports,' so as to 

 read: 



Provided, That the said notes when so reissued 

 shall be receivable for all dues to tLe United States, 

 and not be otherwise a legal tender : and any reprint 

 of the said notes shall bear this superscription." 



Mr. Elaine, of Maine : "Mr. President, the 

 proposition of the Senator from Delaware, 

 even without the suggested amendment of the 

 Senator from Georgia, is a very radical one. It 

 would work an extraordinary change in the 

 currency of the United States. I venture to 

 read it in the hearing of the Senate : 



That the said notes 



" Referring to the legal tenders 

 when so reissued, shall be receivable for all dues of 

 the United States, excepting duties on imports, and 

 not be otherwise a legal tender. 



" It takes $346,000,000 and declares right oft 

 that they shall not from that day forward be 

 considered a legal tender between man and 

 man." 



Mr. Bayard : " Not precisely that. The Sen- 

 ator will see, if he will take the bill before the 

 Senate, that it provides for the reissue of the 

 notes when the same shall have become the 

 property of the United States." 



Mr. Elaine : " That is, as fast as they come 

 in, they are to be paid out." 



Mr. Eayard : " I mean this, that whenever a 

 note has been paid in other words, whenever 

 the Government has performed the promise in 

 regard to which it has been sixteen years in 

 default, and after it has once paid the note 

 it shall not be reissued with the legal-tender 

 clause attached. That is my proposition." 



Mr. Elaine: "Then the Senator, I think, 

 still further muddles the currency, because 

 those notes that do not come in for redemption 

 will still be a legal tender, but those that hap- 

 pen to come in for redemption when they are 

 reissued will not be a legal tender ; and so the 

 Senator from Delaware gives us two kinds of 

 Government paper." 



Mr. Bayard: "If the Senator will read the 

 amendments, he will find that the notes so re- 

 issued shall bear a superscription which will 

 prevent their being mistaken for legal-tender 

 notes." 



Mr. Elaine : " I am not, of course, trying to 

 misrepresent the Senator. I understand him 

 to aim at this, that when a greenback shall go 

 into the Treasury and the holder of it receives 

 his gold or silver for it, the Government then 

 reissues it, and reissues it with the legal-tender 

 quality stricken out." 



Mr. Bayard : " And that fact shall be print- 

 ed on it." 



Mr. Elaine : " And that fact shall be printed 

 on it, of course. So, then, if they all go in and 

 all go out again, we should have a uniform kind 

 of paper currency issued by the Government 

 which would have the legal-tender quality 

 struck out; but if one half go in and only one 

 half go out, we should have then two kinds of 

 Government paper, still further, as I say, mud- 

 dling the currency of the country. Then of 

 course the Senator will observe that the power 

 of the national banks to redeem their notes, as 

 they now have the right to do, in the legal- 

 tender paper of the country, is by that much 

 restricted, and you have thrown them back in- 

 to 'confusion worse confounded,' because I 

 suppose this second edition of paper money 

 would not be of the kind which the national 

 banks might redeem their notes in. If I un- 

 derstand the Senator from Delaware correctly, 

 he would not consider that a national bank 

 was discharging its obligation as it would be 

 to-day by handing out one of these new notes 

 for its bill, unless he adopts the novel theory of 

 the Senator from Georgia, that the very mo- * 

 ment you take the legal tender out of the note, 

 that moment it becomes equal to gold." 



Mr. Eayard: " I apprehend that resumption 

 by the Treasury of the United States would be 

 of course resumption by the national banks." 



Mr. Elaine: "Ah! that may be; but the 

 great instrumentality hitherto relied upon for 

 resumption by the national banks was that if 

 the Government paper was brought up equal 

 to coin, and the national banks only had the 

 obligation they now have to redeem in the 



