State Convention—Finance. 
133 
6. It is proposed to prevent the government from discrediting 
their own issues by refusing to receive anything, whether gold, sil¬ 
ver, copper, nickel or paper which it issues for circulation among 
the people, for customs or any other dues. 
7. It is proposed to replace national bank-notes with United States 
notes as fast as the national banks shall voluntarily return their 
circulating notes, which they are now doing and will doubtless con¬ 
tinue to do when United States notes are made redeemable in cer¬ 
tificates of indebtedness bearing interest and equivalent in value to 
gold. The national banks will voluntarily retire all their circulat¬ 
ing notes under those circumstances, and confine their business to 
discounts and deposits alone, which is the legitimate office of banks. 
8. We are opposed to any amendment of the national-bank act 
looking to further exemption of national banks from local taxation 
or authorizing them to reduce the amount of security behind their 
notes. Private corporations should not be subsidized to do what 
government should do, and may do, with both economy and profit. 
9. We desire in order to exempt the currency from any sudden or 
emperical disturbance by Congress, to establish a reserve of fifty 
millions of United States notes, to be reached only by the substitu¬ 
tion in said reserve for notes withdrawn, pari-passu. United States 
bonds, known as 5-20s or 10-40s, in sums of not less than ten thou¬ 
sand dollars at the pleasure of any holder of such bonds, the holder 
of the bonds so hypothecated in the reserve to receive his bonds on 
the return to the reserve, of the United States notes withdrawn by 
him, less the interest which may have accrued on said bonds during 
the time the owner of said bonds shall have had the use of the 
United States notes as aforesaid. Thus supplying to our currency 
system a safety-valve to prevent currency panics, to prevent the 
rate of interest on loans on government bonds exceeding at any time 
the rate which the government pays on said bonds, and a gauge 
to measure with the accuracy of a steam-gauge, the pressure of the 
requirements of the country for more currency, which can be sup¬ 
plied when needed by reducing the bonded debt and increasing the 
floating debt. 
Within the last centuiy the steam-engine has been perfected, 
and all its wonderful progeny have been invented. In Great Bri¬ 
tain alone, during this brief period in the life of nations, the force 
vol ved through the combustion of coal, and applied to the perform- 
