the owner. When employed in most other pursuits, it adds to the national wealth. Certainly it is not the public interest to make this investment so profitable and attractive as to draw into it the capital of the country, or to make it so permanent as to create a privileged aristocracy. No privilege should be granted to the bond-holder that is not granted to the note-holder. Both are public creditors, and both can equally appeal to the public faith. The whole public debt should be made to assume such form that it may be a part of the circulating capital of the country, bearing as low a rate of interest as practicable, and only with such exemptions as will maintain it at par with gold. Whether this bill will promote these objects it is for the Senate to say. I confidently believe it will. I do not appeal to any party for the support of this measure, for it affects all alike. All must contribute to the public taxes, and all will share in the benefits of any relief.

But while we trust our political adversaries may support this as a measure of relief to our constituents, yet the fate of the bill must rest mainly upon the Republican party. It is my pride and hope that this powerful political organization, having conducted the country with safety and honor through the most memorable scenes of our history, may, still retaining the confidence of the people, gradually guide them back into the channels of peace, reduce their burdens, relieve them from oppressive taxes, and start again in productive labor the millions now waiting to develop the greatest country God ever gave to man.

Now distrust seizes upon every one. Wild schemes have been proposed, which drive capital from its moorings. Taxes are bearing heavily upon unprofitable industry, and complaints are made of the burden and distribution of these taxes. Sectional divisions are already showing their hydra heads, and disputes as to the terms of public engagements cast doubts upon the public faith. It is in such a time that Congress is able to perform its highest duty-that of an arbitrator. Upon questions involving the public debt, it is only the arbitrator. It can not shrink from this duty. I trust, sir, before this session closes, that Congress will provide for the redemption of our maturing bonds, thus saving ultimately $17,000,000 a year; that it will adopt such measures as will gradually make the dollar in greenback in the hands of the laboring man equal to a dollar in gold; that it will throw off the great mass of our internal taxes, and reduce our ordinary expenses to the lowest practicable limit. These measures adopted, we may safely leave to our constituents the renewal of trade, the restoration of confidence, and the development of industry.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY STANDARD.

IN THE SENATE, JUNE 9, 1868.

Mr. Sherman made the following report:

The following documents have been referred to the Committee on Finance:

1. S. 217, in relation to the coinage of gold and silver.

2. S. 412, to promote uniformity of coinage between the moneys of the United States and other countries.

3. The proceedings of the International Monetary Conference, held at Paris in June, 1867.

4. The report of Samuel B. Ruggles, Esq., delegate from the United States in the International Monetary Conference at Paris, November 7, 1867.

5. Sundry memorials relative to changes in our system of coinage. These documents present to the Committee of Finance the interesting question of international coinage, and in considering them we necessarily inquired:

First. Whether the object proposed was of sufficient importance to justify a change in the coinage of the United States.

Second. Whether the plan proposed by the Paris Conference was the best mode to accomplish the end desired.

Third. What legislation was necessary on the part of the United States to adapt our coinage to the plan proposed.

Fourth. What provision should be made for existing public and private contracts.

Your Committee, after a partial consideration of these questions, direct that the bill first named be reported with amendments, supported by the following report, and that Mr. Morgan, of the same committee, be authorized to submit a report adverse to the bill, and that these reports be printed, and that the bill be postponed until the next session, with a view to elicit a fuller discussion by the people of the several questions embraced in the bill.

First. The importance of a common monetary standard among commercial nations has always been conceded. It has been the hope of philosophers and statesmen and the demand of writers on political economy for centuries, but has been as strongly opposed by the jealCommerce and ousies of locality and the interests of rival nations.

peace have steadily approximated different standards of exchange toward each other, while local interests and war have as steadily caused them to diverge from each other. In all ages local and generally despotic authority has endeavored to make more money out of a given amount of gold and silver by clipping or alloy, while the general laws of trade and commerce have soon after reduced the current value of the money as it was reduced in weight and fineness. Formerly, not only each nation, but each province, duke, bishop, or municipality, made its own separate and distinct coin, often of the same name but

different values. The effort to unitize the different moneys of a nation was but a part of the process by which the modern nations of Europe have been formed, and in this process the original money was debased in a remarkable way. The pound sterling of England was, at the time of William the Conqueror, equivalent to a pound weight of silver; it is now 3 oz. 12 dwt. 16 grs. The German florin was originally a gold coin, worth about $2.40; it is now a silver coin, worth about 40 cents. The French livre originally contained a pound of silver, worth about $18.50; it is now worth about 19 cents. The Spanish maravedi in the year 1220 was worth $3.20 of our money; it is now worth about a quarter of a cent. The result of these changes has been to secure to all parts of each leading nation a common unit of money-of fixed value. The pound sterling is the unit in Great Britain; the franc in France, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium; the florin in South Germany; the thaler in North Germany; the dollar in the United States; and various other units in other nations. These units are purely arbitrary, based upon local law, and diverse in weight, value, and alloy. They are, in some nations, of gold only; in some, of silver only; and in some, a compound standard of gold and silver, differing materially in the amount of alloy, and in the relative value of the two metals.

For local purposes it is not very material which metal is the standard, nor of what weight and fineness the standard may be, if only it is of fixed and invariable value; for the value of property and all internal commerce adapts itself to the intrinsic value of the gold and silver in the prescribed standard.

The inconvenience of different standards of value arises mainly in foreign commerce, in the exchange of commodities among nations. The intercourse between modern Christian nations is now more intimate and exchange more rapid than it was between provinces of the same country two hundred years ago. The annual trade between the United States and Great Britain is now greater in bulk and value than the aggregate annual trade between all the nations of Europe two hundred years ago. The same reasons for adopting an international standard of value now exist, as induced the American colonies less than one hundred years ago to abandon their diversified standards of value, and adopt as a common unit the American dollar. Every advance toward a free exchange of commodities is an advance in civilization; every obstruction to a free exchange is born of the same narrow despotic spirit which planted castles upon the Rhine to plunder peaceful commerce. Every obstruction to commerce is a tax upon consumption; every facility to a free exchange cheapens commodities, increases trade and production, and promotes civilization. Nothing is worse than sectionalism within a nation, and nothing is better for the peace of nations than unrestricted freedom of intercourse and commerce with each other. No single measure will tend in this direction more than the adoption of a fixed international standard of value, by which all products may be measured, and in conformity with which the coin of a country may go with its flag into every sea, and buy the products of every nation, without being disconcerted by the money changes.

This has been the wish of American statesmen since the revolu

tionary war. The Spanish milled dollar was adopted as the basis of our coinage before the Constitution was framed, and with the hope, expressed by Mr. Jefferson, that it would lead to an international unit. Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Gallatin each desired the same result, but the French war postponed all efforts in that direction. Mr. John Q. Adams, in his remarkable report to Congress of February 22, 1821, upon the kindred but more comprehensive subject, "the uniformity of weights and measures," says:,

This system approaches to the ideal perfection of uniformity applied to weights and measures, and, whether destined to succeed or doomed to fail, will shed unfading glory upon the age in which it was conceived and upon the nation by which its execution was attempted and has been in part achieved.

If man upon earth be an improvable being; if that universal peace, which was the object of a Saviour's mission, which is the desire of the philosopher, the longing of the philanthropist, the trembling hope of the Christian, is a blessing to which the futurity of mortal man has a claim of more than mortal promise; if the spirit of evil is, before the final consummation of things, to be cast down from his dominion over men and bound in the chains of a thousand years, the foretaste here of man's eternal felicity, then this system of common instruments to accomplish all the changes of social and friendly commerce will furnish the links of sympathy between the inhabitants of the most distant regions; the metre will surround the globe in use as well as in multiplied extension, and one language of weights and measures will be spoken from the equator to the poles.

Several efforts have been made by negotiation to secure uniformity of coinage, especially with Great Britain.

In 1857, in compliance with an act of Congress, passed upon the report of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, Prof. Alexander was sent as a special commissioner to that country to secure a unity of coinage between the two countries; but, after various conferences, the mission failed from an indisposition of the English Government to modify their pound, shilling, and penny.

In his report of December, 1862, Mr. Secretary Chase invited the attention of Congress to the importance of uniform weights, measures, and coins, and recommended that the half-eagle of the United States be made equal to the gold sovereign of Great Britain in weight and fineness.

The Berlin International Statistical Congress, held in 1863, composed of representatives of fourteen countries, and at which the United States was ably represented by Mr. Ruggles, agreed to the following resolutions:

1st. That the Congress recommends that the existing units of money be reduced to a small number; that each unit should be, as far as possible, decimally subdivided; that the coins in use should all be expressed in weights of the metric system, and should all be of the same degree of fineness, namely, nine tenths fine and one tenth alloy.

2d. That the different governments be invited to send to a special congress delegates, authorized to consider and report what should be the relative weights, in the metrical system, of the gold and silver coins, and to arrange the details by which the monetary system of different countries may be fixed according to the terms of the preceding propositions.

This led to the recent Paris Conference, and to the adoption by Congress, in 1866, of several measures for the use of the metric system of weights and measures. At the Paris Conference nineteen nations

were represented, comprising a population of 320,000,000 European and American and 190,000,000 Asiatic.

The Conference agreed with great unanimity upon the plan hereafter stated, and the delegates from the United States were active and influential in harmonizing conflicting views and in securing the result arrived at. Upon the first part of their inquiry, your Committee therefore conclude that the object proposed is of the highest importance, constantly sought for at every period of the government, and that the United States is fully committed to its support if the plan proposed is practicable and just.

Aside from the general advantages which we will share with the civilized world in attaining a uniform coinage, there are special reasons why the United States should now adopt the system.

1. The United States is the great gold-producing country of the world, now producing more than all other nations combined, and with a capacity for future production almost without limit. (See reports of Mr. Ruggles and J. Ross Browne.) Gold with us is like cotton-a raw product. Its production here affects and regulates its value throughout the world. Every obstruction to its free use-such as the necessity of its recoinage when passing from nation to nation-diminishes its value, and that loss falls upon the United States, the country of production.

2. The United States is a new nation, and therefore a debtor nation. By placing ourselves in harmony with the money units of creditor nations, we promote the easy borrowing of money and payment of debts without the loss of recoinage or exchange, always paid by the debtor. This is necessarily so where the debt is payable abroad; and, if payable here, the creditor discounts the exchange and difference in coinage in advance.

3. The technical rate of exchange between the United States and Great Britain, growing out of the different nominal values of coin, is a standing reproach which can be got rid of only by unifying the coinage of the two countries, when both the real and technical rate of exchange will be at par, with only such slight variations as will indicate the course of trade.

4. Gold is now demonetized as a currency, and the great bulk of it in the United States is now held in the Treasury, so that it is not possible to select a time when this great international change of coinage could affect the interests of our people less. From inquiries made of the officers of the mint we find that the cost of reminting the present coin would be less than one twentieth of one per centum. The fineness of the proposed coin being the same as the old, there will be no assay, and the cost of the change would not be perceptible to the holder of the coin, and scarcely so to the Government.

Second. The second inquiry of your Committee was whether the plan proposed by the Paris Conference was the best mode to accomplish the end desired.

It proposed:

1. A single standard, exclusively of gold.

2. Coins of equal weight and diameter.