The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1859-03-23

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The Hntaligenoer disapproves Of the action Of the
President in declining to call an extra session of Con
gress. The hltenigsnoer opposes the employment,
for the discharge Of government obligations, Of GER
tain suspicious certificates" which it snufls in the
Postmaster Generals letter, as at vr with the poll
cy Of The democratic party, and as a breach of demo-
eratic consistency. The ancient organ of " ~shin-pIas-
tiers" and Z" rag-money, +" with all the imposing gravity
and ~iesuitical earnestness for which it is distin-
guished, objects to the issuing of the imaginary "cer
%ti6cates, +" because they would constitute a paper
currency" Indeed, the LateRigeneer is out of hunor
generally with the action of the President and Post
master General on this subject. Well, well, we'll
our neighbours c~rustiness is chronic and will have TO
be borne with. Objections from it were to have
been expected as a matter Of course and if the In
feligeneer is distressed at the thought of issuing a
paper currency and at threatened departures from
democratic principle, the democracy have at least
the consolation of knowing that an old sinner in the
wickedness of bank rags and government paper is
at last in the way Of conversion to orthodox right
eousness in these grave and weighty particulars,
We apprehend, however, that the hteHigencer is
on a false scent in its hue and cry after the
. certificates" We find no mention of them in the
letter of the Postmaster General and W. imagine
that no very alarming or monstrous innovation is
about to be made in the ordinary routine and forms
observed by the Post Office Department, in settling
and auditing the accounts of its employees. Without
inquiring particularly into the matter in official quar-
tiers, we take it for granted that the accounts Of
officers and agents of the department viii be audited
and certified from bureau to bureau as usual, and
that the warrants given to claimants upon which
money is usually drawn, will, for the want o~fappro-
priated funds, have to remain in their hands until
the money is appropriated out of which to pay them.
We take it for granted that the business of auditing,
settling, and issuing warrants for moneys due by
law viii go on as usual not as a matter of option or
favor in the department, but as a matter of right in
the employees in the postal service. The accounting
officers of the government are in the habit of audit
ing and settling the accounts of employees, not with
reference to funds in the treasury, but with refer
ence to rights under the law and if, at the end of
the circumlocution through which his accounts
have to pass, the claimant finds no funds in
the treasury applicable to the payment of his
. demand, we take it for granted that the whole
80 AN"1 40 hiSN 'SNppAy w v
and the claimant stripped of his warrant. If not,
and IL, having in accordance with law become emit
tied 10 a settlement Of his account and to written
evidence of the fact, he makes such evidence the
subject OF assignment, in the manner in which as
signnents have been made by public officers and
agents from time immemorial, and the paper goes
into the hands of a third person, we cannot see how
the government would thereby become responsible
for issuing a paper currency. The act is that of. the
public creditor, and not that of the government
and the idea of a currency no more enters into the
case than it does into the assignment, by one pri-
vate citizen to another, of a bond or the endorse
ment over of q negotiable note. To say that the
sale and purchase OF choses-in-action between citi-
zens constitutes a currency of these choses-in-action, is
absurd. A claim upon the government audited and
acknowledged is q chose-in-action as legitimately
the subject of assignment between citizens as a
land Warrant, a single bill, aquarter Object, OF drove
of fat hogs. The case is q very plain one against
the EnteRigencer's idea of a currency.
We have no hope, however of reaching the con-
viotions of the LteHigeacer Oh any question which
it may fancy to regard as a question of currency.
1t has an idiosyncracy on that subject which is proof
against any arts OF afBnment at our command and
the remotest relation of any public topic to- paper
currency is sufficient to rekindle in a moment all
the ancient and slumbering fire of that veteran
organ of the money power, On the subjects of tariff
and revenue our venerable neighbor is eloquent in
the dialectics of the past, and wo to it's readers when
it mounts ia earnest mood either one of these hobbi-
horsical topics for eight OF ten columns of loaded
dissertation is as sure to come as the rising sun.
Ats readers were fortunate yesterday in escaping
six or eight columns at least of editorial dis
course ON tho subject of these supposed "certi6-
Gates, " and we think we can explain the rare good
fortune by which they escaped with only a column
and a half We did not receive the manuscript of the
Postmaster Generals letter until near nightfall, and
were not able TO despatch a corrected proof-sheet
of it to our neighbor until near ten O'Clock in the
night, Hence tho very moderate commentary Of
only a column and a half Uncle Toby and Corporal
Trim were brief in their accounts of the sieges in
Flanders compared with the hteHigSnesr in its re-
hearsal of the arguments of Clay and Webster upon
these hoary themes a quarter century old. There is
something touening in the pleasure with which our
ancient Contemporary, on the slightest hint of bank or
currency, will take down their dusty scrap-books
and spread out in many columns of editorial dis
course the antediluvian Lore of these obsolete topics
for the instruction of tho living generation.
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