CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



181 



bought more and mortgaged the whole to some 

 luckless bank, he himself would be in the poor- 

 house to-day and not here. 



" My one practical observation is, that the 

 limitation of our paper currency should be, and 

 will be in the end, left to adjust itself under a 

 free banking system, guided by the eager, in- 

 telligent, and aggressive enterprise of our peo- 

 ple. There is but one alternative, namely, an 

 exclusive greenback currency, subject at all 

 times to the caprice of Congress. If any one 

 asks me what that policy will lead to, I refer 

 them sorrowfully to the startling vote given 

 here on Monday for the silver bill. 



" And now, Mr. Speaker, I come closer to 

 the bill before the House. I make no reflec- 

 tions. I concede thsj,t its authors are my peers ; 

 but I denounce their work as hurtful, discredit- 

 able, and without excuse. The issue presented 

 admits of no compromise. There is no way to 

 average honesty with dishonesty. There is 

 no neutral ground between right and wrong. 

 The popular notion that it is the duty of law- 

 makers to do the best they can with questions 

 which divide the public judgment, does not 

 apply here. It is apparent to the whole coun- 

 try and to the civilized commerce of mankind, 

 since the votes of Monday, November 5th, that 

 anirredeemable-paper-money delusion has done 

 its perfect work in the minds and purposes of 

 a large majority of the popular branch of our 

 National Legislature, and that it remains for 

 the people to arouse themselves to know the 

 truth and save their priceless heritage from a 

 bondage only less terrible than human slavery 

 itself. 



" I lay it down, Mr. Speaker, as a proposition 

 firmly rooted in the deepest convictions of every 

 thoughtful and upright citizen, that the national 

 integrity shall not be sacrificed ; and I declare 

 to you, to my constituents, and to the people of 

 the whole country, that there never has been 

 a day in American history since the days of co- 

 lonial dependence when our national honor and 

 welfare were so imperiled as now. Say not 

 that this is an extravagant and heated state- 

 ment. What have we witnessed ? What did 

 this House of Representatives do on Monday, 

 November 5th ? It passed a currency bill, which 

 involves the one we are now considering, with- 

 out a syllable of debate, which, if enacted into 

 law, is estimated to take twenty millions, more 

 or less, from the hard earnings of the deposi- 

 tors in savings banks alone in the State of 

 New York, and which will otherwise, in the 

 event supposed, result in disasters and loss to 

 every State in the Union which no man can 

 measure or estimate. Let me say here that I 

 have reason to think that at least half a million 

 of men in the Empire State are prepared to send 

 their protest to Congress against the silver 

 abomination, in the name of common honesty. 

 Why this frantic haste ? There was never such 

 a proceeding here before, involving so much. 

 I am assured by those who served here when 

 the gentlemen who now rule the House and 



the country were on the other side of the Po- 

 tomac with their guns, that no such hurried 

 proceedings were tolerated. What is the mean- 

 ing of it? It has been intimated that the silver 

 and anti-resumption bills are the sullen rever- 

 beration of the late Ohio election. It is said 

 that eighty thousand Republican machine pol- 

 iticians refused to vote in Ohio because their 

 own upright leader kept his promises faithfully 

 to the country, and that repeal and ruin are the 

 penalty to be exacted by the successful De- 

 mocracy. 



" I cut the following from a late Baltimore 

 paper which throws a little light, perhaps, on 

 my inquiry : 



1 have come, he said, to tell the laboring men of 

 Baltimore and of the Eighteenth Ward that I stand 

 here to-night in the face of that history, now made, 

 but not yet written, by which the Democratic party 

 has fulfilled its promise of being a party in the 

 interest of the whole people. In my last speech 

 to you I sought to convince you that your depressed 

 condition was due to the legislation of the Ke- 

 publican party, and that prosperity would only 

 return to you when the shackles thus imposed 

 where stricken from you. ( Applause.) I tell you 

 now that by the action of the Democratic Con- 

 gress this morning these shackles have been srick- 

 en from you. It has declared that there shall 

 no longer be one money for the banker and the 

 bondholder and another for the people. It will now 

 go further and will to-morrow morning pass the bill 

 for repeal of the noxious resumption act. ( Applause. ) 



" Again, from the same paper and the same 

 speech : 



We have commenced by the resumption of silver ; 

 we will follow it to-morrow by the repeal of the re- 

 sumption act, and we will go further and make an 

 equalization of taxes by restoring the income tax. 



"We have here, it will be observed, resump- 

 tion of silver secured to-day; repeal of the nox- 

 ious resumption act to-morrow (they did not get 

 on quite so fast as promised) ; and equalization 

 of taxes by restoring the income tax shortly. 

 The last is a little mixed, but it looks to me like 

 a proposition to equalize things generally. 



" Again, I find the following in a highly re- 

 spectable New York paper of October 25th, cut 

 from a paper published in Missouri : 



Nearly every city in the entire West is hopelessly 

 in debt. All are moving for a compromise. If they 

 fail in that, the next thing will be flat repudiation. 

 Much as we regret it, this is the feeling of a majority 

 of the people. The majority rules, and the senti- 

 ment is " compromise or repudiate." We wish it 

 were otherwise ; but it is not, and creditors may as 

 well know the truth at once. 



" Here we have it, Mr. Speaker. Repudiate ! 

 That, in truth, is the word. I do not exagger- 

 ate. It comes as a rushing, mighty wind 

 comes ! We are now shaken by a wild blast 

 of a grand currency illusion, which has swept 

 over the plains of the South, the prairies of the 

 West, carrying this House by storm on Mon- 

 day, and threatening to ingulf the national in- 

 tegrity. 



" The bill before us justifies the most serious 

 apprehensions. It is a plain breach of con- 

 tract. Its monstrous and criminal impolicy is 



