GREENBACKS AND BONDS. 531 



gold. Who is that favored class? The banks and brokers 

 and nobody else. They have already $250,000,000 of State 

 debt, and their commissioners would soon take all the rest 

 that might be issued. But how is this gold to be raised? 

 The duties and the public lands are to be paid for in United 

 States notes, and they or bonds are to be put up at auction 

 to get coin for these very brokers, who would furnish the 

 coin to pay themselves by getting 20 per cent, discount on 

 the notes thus bought. * * * * 



* ' I have proposed an amendment to the Senate amend- 

 ment upon the principle of legitimate parliamentary rules, 

 that you may make as palatable as you can an amend- 

 ment which you do not like before the vote is taken upon 

 it. My amendment is offered for the purpose of curing a 

 little the evils and hardships of the original amendment 

 of the Senate. And though it may be adopted I shall 

 vote against the whole as amended. My amendment is to 

 except from the operation of the legal tender clause the 

 officers and soldiers of the army and navy, and those who 

 supply them with provisions, and thus put them upon the 

 same footing with the government creditors who hold 

 their bonds. I hope' they will not be thoughtless merito- 

 rious than the money-changers. I trust it will be adopted 

 as an amendment to the Senate amendment, so that if this 

 pernicious system is to be adopted, if the beauty of the 

 original bill is to be entirely impaired, those who are fight- 

 ing our battles, and the widows and children of those who 

 are lying in their graves in every part of the country, 

 killed in defense of the government, may be placed upon 

 no worse footing than those who hold the bonds of the 

 government and the coin of the country." A Conference 

 Committee on the part of the House was appointed to 

 meet a similar committee from the Senate. They were 

 unable to agree upon any compromise other than the bill 

 as passed by the Senate. 



