curred — ^from the nature of the case they never can occur — where 

 the money of the country is genuine money current all over the 

 globe. They all come from no other reason than as I have said : 

 we have got the shadow undertaking to do the work of the sub- 

 stance, which means, in plain language, that we have been telhng 

 hes on a large scale — and it isn't profitable to lie. 



Now, this being the case, it leads us to notice the important dif- 

 ference between money and currency — that is, between money as 

 I have explained it and the currency as we actually have it. We 

 have got a certain currency — certain papers printed on both sides 

 — which we call money, and the trouble is we are undertaking to 

 make it do the work of money and we can not succeed. This cur- 

 rency, I say, is not money, is not a standard of value, because, in 

 the first place, it hasn't got any value in itself ; it doesn't cost any 

 labor to get it, and therfore cannot be a standard of value. More- 

 over, what sort of a standard is that which stretches out at the 

 beck of Congress or the will of anybody else ? On the 25th of 

 February, 1862, Congress passed a law decreeing that one hun- 

 dred and fifty millions of paper should be made legal tender. 

 July 11th, this was increased by another one hundred and fifty 

 millions. At the same time it was decreed that nothing should be 

 issued of less danomination than one dollar, but in less than a 

 week Congress passed a law issuing fractional currency, of which 

 we have had some forty miUibns, and this in the face of the dec- 

 laration of Congress that it shouldn't be issued. Then, on the 

 25th of Feruary, the next year (1863), Congress authorized the 

 national banking system, allowing the national banks to issue 

 three hundred millions of currency, and then, the 3d of March, 

 the same year, ordered out one hundred millions more of green- 

 backs ; on the 12th of July, 1870, fifty-four millions more. Then 

 our present Congress, after a debate on the currency, which for 

 folly, I believe, has never been equalled in any civilized assemblage 

 on the globe — now, I speak within bounds, there, (aj^plause.) I 

 don't know anywhere of such exhibitions of folly in legislative ut- 

 terance, as you will find in such speeches as those of Kelley of 

 Pennsylvania, Ferry of Michigan, Logan of Illinois, and others. 

 Well, after this debate, they passed a law ordering twenty-six mil- 

 lions more of legal tender. After they had added this, they would 



