RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 445 



body of representatives, elected every two years by the 

 people, and responsible to them for their actions, sworn to 

 do their duty and to support the constitution, would be 

 better calculated to guard the interests of their country- 

 men by fixing and preserving a uniform volume of 

 currency, in sufficient quantities to give life and activit)^ 

 to trade, commerce and the productive industries, and 

 preserve a steady range of prices, than would a body of 

 bankers and capitalists, who are responsible to no one, and 

 whose e /cry interest and inducement would lead them to 

 do as they have done, increase the value of the money 

 which they own by limiting its supply. 



For the very reason that gold and silver does not, nor 

 ever has existed in sufficient quantities to furnish an ade- 

 quate amount of circulating medium, or an honest basis 

 for a sufficient quantity of paper money, is one of the most 

 potent arguments of the fallacy of the specie basis system 

 with its twin brothers, Contraction and Resumption. 



For a government to issue bonds to purchase coin as a 

 basis for its own money, and thus entail an interest burden 

 upon a people who possess real estate and other property 

 enough to form a sound basis for twenty times the amount 

 of money needed, is" a fraud and inconsistency entirely out 

 of keeping with the advanced intelligence and civilization 

 of the latter part of the nineteenth century. 



As far as gold and silver will circulate with an abso- 

 lute, irredeemable, fiat paper money, well and good. Let 

 everything issued as money be endowed with every attri- 

 bute of money, and the purchasing and debt paying power 

 will be as great and uniform in one as the other. We are 

 not unaware of the fact that, in advocating the theory of 

 fiat paper money, we are treading on grounds, every 

 inch of which is, and has been for ages, vigorously con- 

 tested. We feel certain, however, in being abundantly 

 able to sustain our position. The fiat money theory is not 



