14 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Congress or the will of anybody else ? On the 25th of Feb- 

 ruary, 1862, Congress passed a law decreeing that one hun- 

 dred and fifty millions of paper should be made legal tender. 

 July 11th this was increased by another one hundred and fifty 

 millions. At the same time it was decreed that nothing 

 should be issued of less denomination than one dollar, but in 

 less than a week Congress passed a law issuing fractional 

 currency, of which we have had some forty millions, and this 

 in the face of the declaration of Congress that it should not be 

 issued. Then, on the 25th of February, the next year (1863) , 

 Congress authorized the national banking system, allowing 

 the national banks to issue three hundred millions of currency ; 

 and then, the 3d of March, the same year, ordered out one 

 hundred millions more of greenbacks ; on the 12th of July, 

 1870, fifty-four millions more. Then our present Congress, 

 after a debate on the currency, which for folly, I believe, has 

 never been equalled in any civilized assemblage on the globe, 

 — now, I speak within bounds, there (applause) ; I don't know 

 anywhere of such exhibitions of folly in legislative utterance 

 as you will find in such speeches as those of Kelley, of Penn- 

 sylvania ; Ferry, of Michigan ; Logan, of Illinois, and others, 

 — well, after this debate, they passed a law ordering twenty- 

 six millions more of legal tender. After they had added this, 

 they would have issued still more, and were only hindered 

 from flooding the country by the steadfastness of President 

 Grant. 



Now, I would like to know what sort of a standard would 

 you call that sort of a yard or bushel which could be stretched 

 out at this rate, and you obliged, mind you, to use this 

 stretched measure for the same as the old one ? Some one 

 says, "Isn't it a medium of exchange ? Cannot we buy things 

 with greenbacks?" Of course we can, to a certain extent, 

 but every one knows we cannot buy as much with these paper 

 promises as we could with the dollar which they are falsely 

 supposed to represent. Moreover, we cannot take them 

 abroad. A bank of England note will buy all over the world, 

 because there is gold behind it, and the whole world knows 

 it ; but a United States promise to pay does not buy goods 

 outside of the United States, except to a very limited extent 

 in Canada, and this for the reason that it is a dishonored 



