I desire to say one word more, that this pledge is made knowing the full extent of the obligation imposed by this law, and I believe that every Senator who votes for this bill is personally pledged-all his political influence is pledged-to maintain that declaration, just as our fathers felt themselves bound by their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to maintain the pledges they made in the Declaration of American Independence.

The following is the act as passed by the two Houses:

An Act to provide for the resumption of specie payments.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and required, as rapidly as practicable, to cause to be coined, at the mints of the United States, silver coins of the denominations of ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents, of standard value, and to issue them in redemption of an equal number and amount of fractional currency of similar denominations, or, at his discretion, he may issue such silver coins through the mints, the sub-treasuries, public depositaries, and post-offices of the United States; and, upon such issue, he is hereby authorized and required to redeem an equal amount of such fractional currency, until the whole amount of such fractional currency outstanding shall be redeemed.

SEC. 2. That so much of section three thousand five hundred and twenty-four of the Revised Statutes of the United States as provides for a charge of one fifth of one per centum for converting standard gold bullion into coin is hereby repealed; and hereafter no charge shall be made for that service.

SEC. 3. That section five thousand one hundred and seventy-seven of the Revised Statutes, limiting the aggregate amount of circulating notes of national banking associations, be, and is hereby, repealed; and each existing banking association may increase its circulating notes in accordance with existing law without respect to said aggregate limit; and new banking associations may be organized in accordance with existing law without respect to said aggregate limit; and the provisions of law for the withdrawal and redistribution of national bank currency among the several States and Territories are hereby repealed. And whenever, and so often as, circulating notes shall be issued to any such banking association, so increasing its capital or circulating notes, or so newly organized as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of Secretary of the Treasury to redeem the legal-tender United States notes in excess only of three hundred million of dollars, to the amount of eighty per centum of the sum of national-bank notes so issued to any such banking association as aforesaid, and to continue such redemption as such circulating notes are issued until there shall be outstanding the sum of three hundred million dollars of such legaltender United States notes, and no more. And on and after the first day of January, anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin, the United States legal-tender notes then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the city of New York, in sums of not less than fifty dollars. And to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and provide for the redemption in this act authorized or required, he is authorized to use any surplus revenues, from time to time, in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and to issue, sell, and dispose of, at not less than par, in coin, either of the descriptions of bonds of the United States described in the act of Congress approved July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and seventy, entitled "An act to authorize the refunding of the national debt," with like qualities, privileges, and exemptions, to the extent necessary to carry this act into full effect, and to use the proceeds thereof for the purposes aforesaid. And all provisions of law inconsistent with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed.

Approved January 14, 1875.

THE CURRENCY.

AT MARION, LAWRENCE COUNTY, OHIO, JULY 31, 1875.

FELLOW CITIZENS: I accepted your invitation to accompany Governor Hayes to this opening meeting of the canvass, partly from a desire to visit again this beautiful region of Ohio, but chiefly that I might present to you, in the clearest and simplest way, my view of the financial questions involved in the canvass. I am personally indebted to the people of Lawrence County for their support during my official life, and have been in hearty accord with the views that have prevailed among you. I know very well the general interests which occupy you. You have here a great diversity of employments. You are farmers, miners, and manufacturers. You sell food, coal, and iron. You suffered from the panic of 1873, and still suffer from the low price of iron. You are largely interested in questions of currency and taxation. You have among you some differences of opinion on these subjects. therefore need not apologize to you when I say that I mean to confine myself on this occasion entirely to such topics. I am bound by my duty to you and to the people of Ohio to speak frankly upon the financial policy of the Republican party, with a confident belief that you are both able and willing to give to this policy your thoughtful consideration.

I

And, fellow citizens, let us approach directly the questions involved. They relate to your currency, and, incidentally, to the principles that should guide us in levying taxes on imported goods. These matters are directly presented to you by both political parties, and the decision of the people of Ohio upon them will have a wide-reaching influence upon the whole people of the United States. What do we mean by the currency question? Currency is that which, by law or custom, passes from hand to hand in exchange for labor and its productions, and for land, and all acquired wealth. Properly, the word currency includes gold and silver, as well as paper money; but, now that we have a depreciated currency, it will be best understood if we regard our currency as including only the United States notes, bank notes, and frac tional currency in common use in the United States. The first and principal question is, shall this currency be made equal in purchasing power to gold and silver? Upon this question there ought to be no difference of opinion among intelligent men. By common consent, in all ages of the world, in all civilized and semi-civilized nations, both Christian and pagan-gold and silver have been regarded as the best attainable standards of value. They are not only easily made into current coin, but they are, in any form and wherever found, of intrinsic value, easily divided, indestructible, and readily transported. Different nations have tried many expedients to substitute something else as a standard of value, but experience has uniformly driven them back to gold and silver. Even now, in the United States, where we have a legal-tender paper currency, its depreciation is daily measured by the standard of gold. All our business with foreign countries, and most

of the large transactions in commercial cities, are based on gold values. And now, in spite of our law, the market value of all your productionsyour wheat, your iron, your labor-is measured by gold. We deceive ourselves, as did the Israelites of old, by making gods and worshiping them. We make our paper money a legal tender, a standard of value, and naturally think it measures the price of gold. We think we see gold rising and falling for the play of the bulls and bears of New York; but it is our paper money-the public credit-that is rising and falling. Many hundred years ago men saw, as we now see, the sun rising in the East, passing over the firmament, and setting in the West. It appeared to them that the sun was a mere tender to the earth-a satellite, to render its daily offices for our use. Galileo and others proved that all this was deceptive; that the earth moves around on its axis once a day, and, as one of the smallest of the planets, on its orbit once a year; and that the sun was the center of our system, and was itself but one of innumerable stars. Though this has been demonstrated, and we all now admit it, yet we still say the sun rises, and the sun sets, just as the brokers say that gold has risen, or gold has fallen. And yet, fellow citizens, if we are not blinded by ignorance and heedlessness, we know that gold has not risen any more than the sun has risen; that gold does not go down any more than the sun goes down. It is the public credit, the promise of the United States to pay a dollar in coin, that rises and falls. Paper money is worth nothing except what it promises to be paid in gold; and then its value is in precise proportion to the expectation that it will be paid in gold, according to promise. The commercial world measures the value of our currency by its estimate or conjecture as to the time when we will redeem it in gold. All know that we have the ability to redeem it, but they speculate upon our willingness to do it, and measure in this way the depreciation of our note, just as they measure the value of an Erie Railroad bond, or any other security. Convince the commercial world that you will redeem this currency in gold when presented, and it at once becomes at par in gold. It will then buy as much food and clothing as will the best gold coin ever issued from the mint. When we can redeem it, it will be like the Frenchman's bank bill-"If you have the money I don't want it, if you haven't I do." Then the gold and the note will circulate side by side, the one interchangeable for the other. To accomplish this is now the highest object of statesmanship, and the greatest good to all classes, but especially those who labor for their daily bread.

And here, fellow citizens, you may ask: If gold is the best standard of value, why have any other money? Why have paper money at all? Why not fall back upon hard money, as the only currency? This was the old doctrine of the Democratic party of Jackson and Benton-yes, and of Governor Allen, too, forty years ago. The answer is that the experience of commercial nations has demonstrated that paper money is a great convenience in promoting exchanges. It is more portable; can be transferred more readily from hand to hand; it can be more easily guarded from thieves; and it gives life and activity to trade by substituting credit for actual coin. But all this is of paper money convertible into coin at the will of the holder-not of depreciated paper

money. We have had in Ohio a varied experience with paper money, from the wild-cat banks that sprung into existence after the War of 1812, to our State bank system. Still, though we have suffered many losses through bad paper money, yet we may consider it as a closed question in this country that we shall continue to have some form of paper currency. The Republican party cured one defect of our old bank currency, by giving us national money of uniform value throughout the United States, instead of the local currency of State banks. What we still want is national money readily convertible into gold.

Let us examine the reasons why our currency should be made equal to gold. The first and most obvious one is that the United States promises to pay its notes in gold. Here is a dollar bill. It reads. "The United States will pay to the bearer one dollar." What is a dollar? The statutes of the United States declare dollar to be a coin weighing twenty-five and eight tenths grains of standard gold. Why is this dollar not paid? Are we unable now, as during the war, to meet this obligation? It is said that the note does not fix the time of payment. This would be no defense by an individual in a suit at law, for the court would say that such a note is payable on demand, and would compel him to pay. The United States can not be sued, but it ought to be honest; it ought to observe those rules of honesty which it prescribes for its citizens. Admit that it has the power to say that the time of payment is a question of public policy; yet a public policy that delays the payment of such an obligation, after the nation is able to pay, seriously impairs the public faith, and sets an evil example.

Another reason why these notes should be made equal to gold is that the purchasing power of depreciated paper money depends upon the caprice of speculators, who put its value up or down, according to their whim or interest. Every holder of one of these notes finds its value daily changing. It may be worth twenty-three grains of gold today, and to-morrow twenty-two. It is like a variable yard-stick, or a changeable ton. Surely, a promise depending on the faith of a great nation like ours should be as unchangeable as the best gold coin ever issued from the mint.

Again, a payment with such a note, to a laborer for his hire, or to a farmer for his grain, is a delusion. The note calls itself a dollar; it promises a dollar; the United States promises to pay for it a dollar; and yet it will only buy as much as will eighty-five cents in real money. Suppose its purchasing power were made equal to coin, then the deception would cease. The United States would then have redeemed its promise, and all business transactions would rest upon real values. But it is said that this note is good. So it is good to pay taxes; for the taxing power agrees to take it, and the same power declares that it shall be a legal tender in payment of debts. But would it not be better if it would buy as much wheat and corn and clothing as gold will buy? It would then be good for all purposes. There is no power in human law to fix its value in gold, or wheat, or labor, or clothing, Its value changes daily. While it is good in the sense that the United States is able to pay it, it is not good in the sense that the United States does pay it according to promise. Governor Allen said, the

other day, at Newark, that the United States note and the United States bond rest upon the same basis. So they do, but with this difference that the bond rests upon a promise duly performed, while the note rests upon a promise not performed. The difference is equal to eighteen per cent. of the value of the note. We wish to place the note-holder upon the same footing as the bond-holder, by making our promise to one as good as that to the other. The question we have to deal with is, are we now ready to enter upon this policy of honesty, of equality between note-holder and bond-holder; this policy of good money, national money, with paper and gold equal, the one to the other?

Now, fellow citizens, what are the objections to this policy? The first and most obvious objection is that existing debts and contracts, based upon depreciated paper money, would be advanced to the gold standard. If this were done suddenly, without notice or time for preparation, it would be wrong; but, if reasonable time be given, contracts will be adjusted to meet the change. Nearly every one is a creditor as well as a debtor, and debts due you will balance what you owe. The advance toward a specie standard will be so gradual as to be imperceptible. The fluctuations in the value of paper money have, in a single year, more than equaled the present depreciation, and yet we allow four years for the change. When the notes were first issued all contracts were payable in gold, and the creditor then suffered from a rapid depreciation of the notes; but since 1865 there has been a gradual appreciation of our currency. By a wise policy we could long since have reached a specie standard, but by reason of this very fear of debtors we have failed to take the proper measures. Ten years have passed away since the close of the war, and still we are fourteen per cent. from the specie standard, and have now been so for five years. Shall this always continue? Somebody will always be in debt. All existing debts are based upon the knowledge that we must reach a specie standard at some time. Why not now adopt this policy, and give full notice of the time and manner of resumption? Will debts diminish by postponing immeasurably the time? We know they will not. Would you attempt the impossible feat of scaling the debt, according to the value of the currency when it was contracted? This, though often proposed, has as often been rejected as impracticable. The only true policy is to give ample time and notice of resumption, so that debtor and creditor may adjust their obligations, and then steadily to pursue that policy until your United States notes shall be equal to gold; and this, as I will show you, is the policy now proposed by the Republican party.

Another objection meets us, whenever we attempt to advance the value of our currency to the gold standard. We are told that specie payments involve a great contraction of the currency, and that a contraction of the currency will make money scarce, and add to the present distress. This objection rests upon a fallacy. I deny both the premise and the conclusion. It rests upon the fallacy that we can, by law, fix the amount of currency necessary for the wants of business. From the very nature of a good currency it ebbs and flows, contracts and expands, to meet the demands of trade. If idle, it ought to be redeemed; if needed for the purchase of productions, it should be