140 Wisconsin' State Agricultural Society. 
ilia, to enforce tlie observance of the fact that a resumption of 
specie payments, which is claimed to be such by the financial Solons 
of the country is not the specific for the remedy of financial ills, 
on the contrary those false promises to redeem notes in gold when 
there is never to exceed one-third of the required quantity of gold 
available for redemption, intensifies and aggravates the evils. We 
must abandon the vicious and unscientific system of promising to 
liquidate all the indebtedness of the commercial world—on any day 
when a panic may sweep over it and cause demand—with 
$8,000,000,000. Three thousand million of gold coin, all that is to¬ 
day available for that purpose in Europe and America combined. 
All the gold coin in the world as asserted by M. Chevalier, in 1848, 
could be contained in a receptacle thirty feet long by thirty feet 
wide, and nine feet and a half high. All the gold coin and orna¬ 
ments in the United States to-day, if melted down and moulded 
would not make a solid cube of fifteen feet. The idea of gold re- 
demption of all debts on any day is simply ridiculous. The results 
of efforts to accomplish this impossible feat we have seen illustrated 
time and again in suspensions and panics. The idea of carrying on 
the business of the world solely with coin is preposterous and need 
not be discussed. The practicability of having a circulating me¬ 
dium composed of government-debt obligations, redeemable at all 
times, and in convenient places in government obligations bearing 
interest and equivalent in value to gold, seems obvious. 
Let us then press forward in the work of securing for our country 
such a circulating medium which would be an absolutely converti¬ 
ble currency on a specie basis that is measurable as to quality by a 
specie standard, but not redeemable in specie. Specie basis and 
specie redemption are not synonymous terms, the first is practicable 
the second impossible, and has been proved to be impracticable by 
the experience of many generations. 1 have already detained you 
for more than two hours; I cannot further trespass upon your pa¬ 
tience and kind attention; there are many points that I have wholly 
omitted for want of time, and I have been unable to dwell suffi¬ 
ciently upon others. 
Let the people test, by their common sense, every argument that 
is presented to them by speakers or writers, and they will pierce 
the armor of sophistry and deceit, and will secure a perfect solution 
of the greatest problem of the age. This people and their institu- 
