But the real motive lies back of all this. These men want more money, more money; not real money, but depreciated paper moneycheap money, becoming cheaper and cheaper as more is issued, making it easier to pay debts. But will a dollar of this money buy what a dollar of gold, or even a dollar of paper money, will now buy? We know it will not. It will depreciate, even in greater proportion, as its volume increases. Your grain, your iron and coal, may bring you more money than you now receive, but the money received will buy less than now, and you will be constantly cheated by a false weight and a false standard. How strange it is that human experience, so often repeated, does not stamp upon the mind of every human being the truth proclaimed by Webster, acted upon by Jefferson and Jackson, and which lies at the foundation of the laws of currency: that, of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with de preciated paper money! Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation-these bear lightly on the happiness of the mass of the community, when compared with a fraudulent currency, and the robberies committed thereby.

Now, fellow citizens, to return once more to the national banks, which the Ohio Democrats propose at once to destroy. I need not remind you that, next to Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, I had as much to do with the passage of the national bank act as any one; and yet I regarded it as an experiment, and chiefly supported it as a means of driving out of existence the heterogeneous multitude of State banks that, during the war, threatened to overwhelm us with paper money of limited circulation and no security. The national banking system has proved, on the whole, to be a great success. Mr. McCulloch, in his report as Secretary of the Treasury in 1867, carefully reviewed the whole system; and I refer my Democratic friends to that report for some wholesome reading. Since he wrote, the banking system has been improved by making it free, and by providing for the prompt redemption by each bank of its notes, at the Treasury of the United States. The national banks have yet to bear the test of coin redemption. When the United States notes shall have advanced to par in gold, the banks must redeem their notes at par in gold. If, then, experience shall show that this system will furnish to the people, through local banks, circulating notes which shall be freely convertible into gold, then the Republican party will stand by it. If not, that party will modify or dispense with it. And, in dealing with this question, I trust that the Republican party will do as it has done with other great problems of human government which it has successfully solved, acting with moderation and wise statesmanship, and relying upon the intelligence of an educated people, rather than upon that spirit of blind demagogism which has plainly led to the adoption of this ninth resolu

tion.

There is one other financial plank in the Democratic platform that is easily disposed of. I will read it:

Tenth-That the public interest demands that the Government should cease to discredit its own currency, and should make its legal tenders receivable for all

public dues, except where respect for the obligation of contracts requires payment in coin, and that we favor the payment of at least one half of the customs in legal tenders.

This resolution, apparently plausible, not only involves grave errors of fact, but is ridiculous in its logic. It says that the Government should cease to discredit its own currency, and yet the Democratic party does not propose to pay it. I suppose that the utmost discredit that can be put on any currency or any promise to pay is to refuse to redeem it. The same platform which thus reproaches us for discrediting our currency proposes to issue three hundred and fifty millions more of it, when every note is a broken promise, and every additional issue will cause a further depreciation. But consistency can scarcely be expected in a Democratic platform. The adoption of this proposition would reduce our duties on imported goods to an extent equal to one half of the discount of our paper money, when compared with gold, or at this time about seven per cent. Now, as a revenue measure this is certainly a bad one, when our present income is barely sufficient to meet our expenditures. But a still graver objection to this resolution exists. By the law as it now stands, passed in February, 1862, and upon which every bond of the United States now outstanding was issued the very foundation of our public credit-it was provided:

SECTION 5. That all duties on imported goods shall be paid in coin, . . . and the coin so paid shall be set apart as a special fund, and shall be applied as follows: 1. To the payment in coin of the interest on the bonds and notes of the United States.

2. To the purchase and payment of one per centum of the entire debt of the United States, to be made within each fiscal year after 1862, which is to be set apart as a sinking fund, and the interest of which shall in like manner go to the purchase or payment of the public debt.

3. The residue thereof to be paid into the Treasury of the United States.

Now, fellow citizens, under this law the United States has acted, and is compelled to act until the public debt shall be paid. Under it all duties on imported goods are paid in gold, and these duties now yield us a revenue of about $160,000,000 in gold. This money is mortgaged to the public creditors, and we dare not violate that pledge at the cost of national dishonor. Of this money, something over $100,000,000 a year is required to pay the interest on your public debt. Over $30,000,000 is required for what is called the sinking fund, for the gradual redemption of the debt. We have other expenditures which must be paid in gold-such as our foreign intercourse, and our navy, when abroad. This will leave, perhaps, $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 of gold, which is paid into the Treasury, and is sold for United States notes, and the proceeds used for current expenditures. Now, this resolution demands that this gold, thus sacredly pledged, shall be diverted, in violation of your public faith. And for what? To reduce the duties or taxes on foreign goods seven per cent.! No language is strong enough to denounce such a policy. A small portion of this fund, about twentyfive millions, may be used for any proper purpose of expenditure; and therefore Judge Thurman, last winter, proposed to receive one fifth of the customs duties in currency. But even this was opposed, on the ground that it would impair the trust fund, and as against public policy.

Senator Bayard, of Delaware, a leading Democrat, took strong ground against it, and it was overwhelmingly defeated. Now the Ohio Democrats propose to surrender one half of our gold revenue, to dishonor our pledges, and to drive the Secretary of the Treasury into the market to buy gold with which to pay the interest; and all to lower the duties that yield our revenues and protect our industries.

The eleventh resolution in this platform is only important in that it promises you, in place of your national banks, a system of free banks of discount and deposit; in other words, broker-shops. No doubt these are a great blessing, but I think we have now enough of them. At all events, we have now in every State the right to go into the brokerage business, free from all restraints; and we need not place the Democratic party in power for the purpose of gaining this great blessing. The only other financial plank in this platform is very brief:

Twelfth-A tariff for the sole purpose of revenue.

This resolution is a blow at that system of tariff laws which had its origin in Washington's administration, and has been continued ever since, varied in details, but retained in principle, and strengthened and improved by the Republican party; and which, while looking to imported goods as the chief source of Federal revenue, also regards the fostering and protection of domestic industry as a national object, incident to all revenue laws, and deserving of the most considerate and favorable care. If that be the meaning of the resolution, we accept the issue promptly. We do seek, while levying taxes, not only to make their operation as light and just as possible, but also to advance our own industry without impairing the sources of revenue. In this sense we are for the protection of American industry, and proudly point to the vast development of our home manufactures as the result of Republican policy. I do not think it necessary, before you, to enter into the common arguments that have been made upon this subject, for I know you are familiar with them. I have always regarded a tariff law as a subject, not of political dispute, but for the application of good, common sense in the adjustment of the details-applying the higher duties to articles of luxury, fair average duties on articles that come into competition with our own industries, and low duties, or none at all, on those of common necessity, which either can not be economically produced here, or enter as raw articles into our domestic manufactures. In passing such a tariff, we do look to something else than the mere money we wring from our people as taxes.

Take this whole financial platform of the Democratic party, and it opens up to you the most dangerous errors, the wildest demagogism, the greatest departure not only from fundamental principles of public policy, but from cherished principles of the Democratic party. We already hear the voice of remonstrance, the cry of alarm from all parts of the United States. The question is, What will they do with it?

Governor Allen, much to the surprise of some of his friends, readily yields his old convictions, and, if I understand his speeches at Newark and Gallipolis, adopts the whole platform. Many of the Democratic papers, however, openly repudiate it. The Democratic

editor in the city in which I live, and who is in every respect a very excellent man, rejects the platform and supports Governor Allen in his hard-money records of forty years ago. But, fellow citizens, political contests are not decided by candidates, editors, or office-holders; it is by the quiet, intelligent judgment of moderate men, who sensibly weigh questions of public policy, and who are above party dictation. It is this body of independent men who give the ebb and flow to party politics in Ohio; it is to them I appeal with confidence, to give their seal of condemnation to the dangerous doctrines contained in the Democratic platform.

To my Republican associates I can speak with confidence and hope. We have a State ticket every name on which must command your sincere respect. We have a platform that speaks no uncertain sound, and meets our approbation. We are united on the wise and moderate financial policy which has hitherto guided our party and sustained the public faith and the public credit, which has given us ample means to carry on a great war and build up our industries, and which has now for the first time provided for us a safe national currency, needing only one attribute to make it perfect, while now we are agreed on a slow and steady progress to make that currency equal to gold. What more do we want, my Republican friends, than to march forward with unity, confidence, and strength? You may here and there find men who falter or discover faults to criticise; your officers and agents may fail; but your cause is good and your work is honorable-not free from faults, but better than that of any party that preceded it.

See, now, this broad country of ours. United we stand. Many of our ancient enemies now glory in our success. The prayers of four millions of freedmen rise perpetually to Almighty God for the Republican party. Great names adorn our history, written there by us. Memorable events for fifteen years have lifted our country from a confederacy of discordant States--left by a Democratic administration to the chances of civil war to the position of a nation of the highest rank, destined to mold a continent and to guide a world to free institutions. Let us not apologize to our adversaries for the faults that are human, nor examine with a microscope the failings of friends. If only the great objects we have sought, the good measures we have accomplished, and the policy marked out for us are, on the whole, wiser and better than are proposed by our adversaries, then our path of duty is with the Republican party. Inspire it, if you please, with better principles, with higher aims, and by a good example; but rest assured that you must rely upon that party for any progress that is made in framing or executing good laws. And, fellow citizens, you who have at any time acted with the Republican party, during the war or since the war, and from whatever cause have been dissatisfied with the party to which you belonged, let us come together again. We have forgiven the rebels; let us forgive each other. I am liberal enough to confess that the Republican party has committed some errors. And I am Republican enough to know that its history, its principles, its policy, and its tendencies give us the best assurance for an honest and able administration of the National and State Governments.

NATIONAL FINANCES-SPECIE PAYMENTS.

IN THE SENATE, MARCH 6, 1876.

On the motion to refer the resolutions of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, relative to the national finances, and in favor of the resumption of specie payments, at the time now provided by law, Mr. Sherman said :

MR. PRESIDENT: I have taken the unusual course of arresting the reference to the Committee on Finance of the memorial of the Chamber of Commerce of New York in order to discuss in an impersonal and non-partisan way one of the questions presented by that memorial, and one which now fills the public mind and must necessarily soon occupy our attention. That question is, "Ought the resumption act of 1875 to be repealed?" The memorial strongly opposes such repeal, while other memorials, and notably those from the Boards of Trade of New York and Toledo, advocate it. These opposing views are supported in each House of Congress, and will, when our time is more occupied than now, demand our vote.

And, sir, we are forced to consider this question when the law it is proposed to repeal is only commencing to operate, now, three years before it can have full effect-during all of which time its operation will be under your eye and within your power-and while the passions of men are heated by a presidential combat, when a grave question, affecting the interests of every citizen of the United States, will be influenced by motives entirely foreign to the merits of the proposition.

And the question presented is not as to the best means of securing the resumption of a specie standard, but solely whether the only measure that promises that result shall be repealed. We know there is a wide and honest diversity of opinion as to the agency and means to secure a specie standard. When any practicable scheme to that end is proposed I am ready to examine it on its merits; but we are not considering the best mode of doing the thing, but whether instead we will recede from the promise made by the law as it stands, as well as refuse all means to execute that promise. If the law is deficient in any respect it is open to amendment. If the powers vested in the Secretary are not sufficient, or you wish to limit or enlarge them, he is your servant, and you have but to speak and he obeys. It is not whether we will accumulate gold or greenbacks or convert our notes into bonds, nor whether the time to resume is too early or too late. All these are subjects of legislation. But the question now is whether we will or will not repudiate the legislative declaration, made in the act of 1875, to redeem the promise made and printed on the face of every United States note, a promise made in the midst of war, when our nation was struggling for existence, a promise renewed in March, 1869, in the most unequivocal language, and finally, by the act of 1875, made specific as to time.

And let us not deceive ourselves by supposing that those who oppose this repeal are in favor of a purely metallic currency, to the exclusion of paper currency, for all intelligent men agree that every great com