430 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



ebbing away for the want of means to save it. Read it 

 and ask yourself if this is the rightful condition of the 

 American citizen. 



On December 4th, 1865, Hugh McCulloch, who had 

 succeeded Salmon P. Chase as secretary of the treasury, in 

 his report to Congress, said: 



u The first thing to be done is to establish the policy 

 of contraction. That the legal tender acts were war 

 measures, passed in great emergency; that they should be 

 regarded only as temporary; that they ought not to remain 

 in force a day longer than would be necessary to prepare 

 for a return to the gold standard; and that the work of 

 retiring the notes, which have been issued, should be com- 

 menced without delay, and carefully and persistently 

 continued until all are retired. n 



On the 1 8th of the same month the House passed the 

 following resolution: 



u Resolved, That this House cordially concurs in the 

 views of the secretary of the treasury in relation to the 

 necessity of contracting the currency, with a view to as 

 early a resumption of specie payments as the business inter- 

 ests of the country will permit, and we hereby pledge 

 co-operation to this end as speedily as possible. ' ' 



Only six men voted against the above resolution. In 

 further proof of the fact that the object of the conspiracy 

 was to entirely wipe out the greenbacks, we quote again 

 from this man McCulloch' s Report: 



* ( It will be observed that I favor the entire withdrawal 

 and extinguishment of the greenback, I desire the Federal 

 Government to get out of and abandon forever, and as soon 

 as possible this whole business of creating and issuing 

 paper money to be redeemable or irredeemable. ' ' 



The law to contract the currency was not passed until 



