238 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
other things. Give me a thousand dollars in pure gold; I can with 
it buy wheat. I do not want it to be coined; it is expensive. Bul¬ 
lion retains its value. Coin does not retain the value. There is 
where I object to a bullion-currency, because it is subject to loss. 
It is not fixed and stable. We want a currency that is fixed and 
stable. 
Mr. Wood: There is a difficulty arises in my mind, in reference 
to these bonds, into which the currency might be at any time con¬ 
verted. I have heard it suggested that they might be from $100 
and upwards. I don’t see that there need be any restriction. They 
might be issued from five dollars upward. Say, that when a man 
had this currenc} r he did not want, he could get bonds. When he 
wanted this currency, would he be under any obligation to go and 
get the greenbacks? Why not use the bonds themselves? They 
would certainly be transferable, and ought to be. Would not it 
result in a short time in being an interest-bearing currency. 
Mr. Benton: That thing did actually occur during the war. 
The government issued a compound interest-bearing note, but they 
were soon all speedily retired, because they bore interest. The 
bond retains value, not the currency. A circulating medium that 
retains the value is likely to be hoarded as the compound-interest 
notes were. 
Mr. Wood: How can that be regulated? You say that the bond 
would not be transferable. 
Mr. Benton: It is not legal tender. 
Mr. Eaton: I do not wish to see the gentlemen, who read this 
paper, entirely annihilated because he possesses learning, and be¬ 
cause he has read a paper possessing considerable merit. I do not 
rise for the purpose of replying to the paper, because I hope I have 
too much sense to attempt anything of that kind; but I rise more 
for the purpose of asking some of these gentlemen in the reai^ 
seme of the friends of the measure, to come to his rescue on this 
occasion, and to supply what seemed to me to be wanting in his 
paper on certain points. He refers eloquently to the indebtedness 
of the countrjq to the indebtedness of corporations and to individ¬ 
ual indebtedness, and now I would desire to hear some of these 
gentlemen, that feel so muchfinterest in the fine-spun theory that 
he presented here, to come forward and show us illiterate farmers 
how those citizens who have their farms mortgaged and in debt 
