PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 1f9 



during the period of prosperity. To amend it undoubtedly will 

 Involve some sacrifice, but a sacrifice made to secure immunity 

 from the consequences which must inevitably follow the omission 

 to do the right thing at the right time. It is better to do this 

 out of our plenty than to wait in order to do it, or pay the 

 penalty of not doing it out of our poverty and adversity. If it 

 be a bad law, then the policy of "letting well enough alone" is 

 as wise as the man we have so often heard of in the story of the 

 Arkansas Traveller, who would not mend his roof in fair weather 

 because it give him no trouble, and who could not mend it in the 

 rain without getting wet and taking cold. 



In comprehending the merits of the law of February 28, 1878, 

 we shall be materially assisted by taking a brief review of the 

 history of our metallic currency. And this is all the more essen- 

 tial since the arguments which were employed to sustain its pass- 

 age had recourse to this same history, and the dollar which that 

 law ordained is claimed to be the dollar of our fathers, and to 

 embody a return to the policy, which originated from the wis- 

 dom of the founders of the Republic, and which has prevailed 

 without interruption throughout the eventful and glorious years 

 of our adolescence and early manhood, until it was interrupted 

 by a stealthy device sprung upon an unsuspecting Congress, and 

 passed without anybody, except its authors, being aware of its 

 dangerous nature and iniquitous purpose. 



At the close of the War of Independence one of the earliest 

 subjects to engage the attention of the statesmen and legislators, 

 who were laying the foundations of a great nation, was a national 

 coinage and legal tender. The subject was a difficult and deli- 

 cate one. In the several States there was a sufficiently good 

 system of weights and measures, which was uniform thronghout 

 all of them. A bushel, a quart, a pound avoirdupois meant the 

 same thing from New Hampshire to Georgia. But with money 

 it was very different. The only coins in use were, for the most 

 part, foreign, of many kinds, and a fevv^ colonial coins. In the 

 moneys of account the same terms were applied to coins or nomi- 

 nal moneys with widely different significations and values. Four 

 shillings might signify in New Hampshire the same thing as 

 twenty to twenty-two shillings in Georgia, provided a definite 

 understanding could be reached as to the kind of coin to be used 

 in a given transaction, and discordances only a little less wide 

 existed between moneys of the same name used in other States. 

 While all of the nations with which the new States held traffic 

 had comparatively respectable coinages — some of them very good 

 ones — America had none, and became the dumping ground of 

 debased and abraded coins swept out of the circulation of richer 

 and more populous nations. There was no legal tender, and it was 

 necessary for contracts to specify in what kind of foreign coin they 

 should be paid, and should any foreign State see fit to debase its 

 coins the creditor, unless otherwise specially protected and guar- 



