520 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



value, and then caused the entire destruction of the green- 

 back it would have been, perhaps, one of the most con- 

 summate pieces of villainy ever perpetrated on the people 

 of any government within so brief a period. How near 

 they succeeded in doing so has been partly shown in 

 previous chapters. 



The I^egal Tender Act for the first issue of green- 

 backs was passed by Congress and became a law February 

 25, 1862. The capitalists had already provided that for 

 every greenback issued there should be a bond issued to 

 catch it. The law of 1862 authorized the issue of 

 $150,000,000 in greenbacks, and about $500,000,000 in 

 bonds with which to fund them. Here was, perhaps, the first 

 mistake of the government, as it was also the first success 

 scored by the capitalists. The greenbacks authorized by 

 this act were made exchangeable, at their face value, for 

 the bonds which the secretary was authorized to issue by 

 the same bill. Had the government continued to issue 

 greenbacks as its wants required from time to time, and 

 without bonds, we should not have been burdened at the 

 end of the war with a large interest bearing debt, and the 

 evidences of the non-interest bearing debt would have 

 been in the hands of the masses of the people in the shape 

 of a circulating medium. That such a plan was practical 

 we have not the least doubt, and our convictions are 

 strengthened by the utterances of one of the greatest 

 of American statesmen. Thomas Jefferson says: 



"And so the nation may continue to issue its bills as 

 far as its wants require and the limits of its circulation will 

 admit. * * Put down the banks, and if this country could 

 not be carried through the longest war, against her most 

 powerful enemy, without ever knowing the want of a dol- 

 lar, without dependence on the traitorous classes (the 

 capitalists) of her citizens, without bearing hard on the 

 resources of the people or loading them with an indefinite 



