462 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



There are other objections of minor importance some- 

 times urged by the advocates of the metallic system which 

 we have not time, nor do we think it necessary for the 

 purposes of this chapter, to consider. We have clearly 

 demonstrated to the reader that, to retain and depend 

 solely on a metallic standard, with paper convertible into 

 coin, that we must have, from time to time, periods of 

 contraction, expansion and resumption, with periods of 

 financial distress, wide-spread ruin, and general bankruptcy 

 that have ever been the results of that system ; that by the 

 adoption of the non-convertible, absolute paper system, 

 and the issue of a sufficient quantity to satisfy the business 

 demands of the country, and that volume to be kept 

 uniform with, and relative to" the growth of the population 

 and business of the country, would be a remedy against 

 the present prevailing financial distress, and against its 

 probable recurrence in the future. 



We believe, however, that this chapter would be 

 incomplete, were we to omit the history of the position of 

 the two great political parties in existence in the govern- 

 ment to-day upon this all important question. As has 

 already been seen, contraction was a measure preparatory 

 to resumption, for which a majority of the representatives 

 of both parties voted in 1866. 



We now come to a consideration of the position of the 

 two old parties on the Resumption Act of 1875, and on the 

 principle of resumption in general. The Act of 1875, was 

 passed by a strictly party vote; the Republicans voting 

 for, while the Democrats voted against it. Both parties, 

 however, favored the resumption of specie payments. The 

 objection which the Democratic party had to the act of 

 January 14, 1875, was that it fixed the time to resume 

 about four years ahead, or January i. 1879. 



As it has been, and is still claimed by many Demo- 

 cratic speakers in the West and South, that the Democratic 



