Paper Currency. 



219 



the withdrawal of all the legal-tender notes. On the 12th of April, 

 1866, Congress passed a bill (83 to 53 in the House, and 32 to 7 in the 

 Senate) adopting the Secretary's plan. As soon as the withdrawal 

 began, speculation was checked, and the high prices which irredeem- 

 able currency had made, began to fall. In 1868 an act was passed 

 suspending the law of 1866, and discontinuing the plan of redemption. 

 People who had inventoried their property at high figures did not like 

 to have prices go down. Nothing further was done till the panic of 

 1873 caused suffering Wall street to beg President Grant and Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury Boutwell to open up communication between it 

 and the treasury vaults. The effort resulted in the re-issuing of 

 $26,000,000 of legal-tender notes, which had been retired as the law 

 provided. This act was in violation of law ; the notes had no L gal exist- 

 ence whatever, and the act was an assumption of power which is a dan- 

 gerous precedent. If such assumptions of power are tolerated, our ex- 

 ecutive officers will become the great stock operators in Wall street. 

 Any man who could have been favored with the exclusive use of the 

 information that such a course had been decided upon, thirty minutes 

 in advance of its publication, could have made a large fortune. 



Attention has been called to the powers given to Congress by the 

 Constitution, to legislate respecting the currency, and the inter- 

 pretation which our statesmen gave to those powers down to 1860. 

 During the term of the Federal Supreme Court, in December, 1869, 

 when there were eight judges on the bench (one vacancy) the legal- 

 tender acts were declared unconstitutional. Soon after that decision, 

 °ne of the judges who had concurred in it, resigned, thus making two 

 vacancies. The President nominated and the Senate confirmed, as 

 judges, two very able and worthy men whose opinions were known to 

 b e in favor of the legal-tender acts. At the December Term, 1870, an- 

 other case was presented, the court reversed its former decision, and 

 decided that the legal-tender acts were based on the war powers of 

 Congress and were constitutional. In the first decision, five judges 

 concurred and three dissented. In the second decision, five judges 

 concurred and four dissented. The two new judges voted with the 

 three who dissented from the first decision. In 1884, another case 

 was decided by the Supreme Court, which settles every point which 

 Can be raised in favor of the constitutionality of legal-tender paper 

 j^ney. As the matter now stands, Congress has power to issue 

 ]e gal-tender circulating notes to an unlimited extent in time of peace 

 38 well as in a time of war. All reliance upon any constitutional in- 



