SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY 1864-1865 115 



doubtful titles to the confiscated houses and lands of the 

 clergy and aristocracy. 



The speech of Senator Allaben had exercised a real 

 effect, but these simple statements, which I supported by 

 evidence, and especially by exhibiting specimens of the 

 assignats bearing numbers showing that the issues had 

 risen into the thousands of millions, and in a style of en- 

 graving most easily counterfeited, sufficed to convince the 

 Senate that no such inference as was drawn by the sena- 

 tor was warranted by the historical facts in the case. 



A vote was taken, the bill was passed, the troops were 

 finally raised, and the debt was extinguished not many 

 years afterward. 



It is a pleasure for me to remember that at the close 

 of my remarks, which I took pains to make entirely cour- 

 teous to Dr. Allaben, he came to me, and strongly op- 

 posed as we were in politics, he grasped me by the hand 

 most heartily, expressed his amazement at seeing these 

 assignats, mandats, and other forms of French revolu- 

 tionary issues, of which he had never before seen one, 

 and thanked me for refuting his arguments. It is one of 

 the very few cases I have ever known, in which a speech 

 converted an opponent. 



Perhaps a word more upon this subject may not be 

 without interest. My attention had been drawn to the 

 issues of paper money during the French Eevolution, by 

 my studies of that period for my lectures on modern 

 history at the University of Michigan, about five years 

 before. In taking up this special subject I had supposed 

 that a few days would be sufficient for all the study 

 needed ; but I became more and more interested in it, ob- 

 tained a large mass of documents from France, and then 

 and afterward accumulated by far the largest collection of 

 French paper money, of all the different issues, sorts, 

 and amounts, as well as of collateral newspaper reports 

 and financial documents, ever brought into our country. 

 The study of the subject for my class, which I had hoped 



