Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1867-09-20

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the payment of public and private debts, and
| tae performance OF contracts ought to have
| been regulated This fragrant mode of viola
4 ting public fasth has been long prescribed by
public opinion. Governments have, in mod
| ern times, substituted for the same purpose,
issues ofpaper money, gradually increasing in
amount AID decreasing in value. 1t was TO
/ guard against these evils, that the provisions
N the Constitution on that subject we're intro
/ dueed. Considerations On the Currency,
! p. -.
! It rs true that the coin has been debased in
! our own tunes and country, but never with
! View 10 defraud either public or private cred
/ ltors. When the coinage Of the United States
/ was first regulated IN 1882, double standard,
/ both Of gold and silver, was adopted, and the
| proportion Of these two metals fixed at one
( to fifteen, which was then about their true re-
| lation in the market. But though the rela-
ton between gold and silver is certainly more
steady than that between any two other com
mOdities, at least within short periods of time
yat - Is not lmmutable. Accordingly. about
the year 1871, a change waa observed to have
! occurred. An ounce of gold, instead of be-
ing worth only fifteen ounces Of silver, was
! really exehangeable for about sixteen ounces.
/ Of course no one would pay a debt with six
/ teen ounces of silver, when he could do SO
/ with fifteen. The CONSEQUENCE was that the
] gold coins disappeared entirely from cIrcula-
/ ton, III obedience to the inyariable law that
1 the metal legally undervalued is always ex-
! PEELED Silver became practically the only
/ standard. The act Of June 25, 1884, com
monty called the gold bill, undertook to re-
store the true relation. To do this, either the
gold coin must be debased or the silver en-
haneed. The latter course would have been
/ iraught with more injustice and mischief than
the former. Though the true policy may have
been to let this alone, or TO have established
as the only legal what had practically become
| the actual standard, set many pure and emf
nent'statesmen we're then and still are welded
to different policy. Subsequently, by the
act OF January Is, 1887, the weight and stan
dard Of the coin Of both metals we're slightly
changed with no design but to maintain, if
possible, currency Of both gold and silver.
Silver, however, being now UNDERMINED, was
I baglshed from circulation as gold had been
before. BY the act Of February q, 1858. a
much more considerable reduction was made
in the weight OF silver coins less than the dol
lar, but evidently only for the purpose of sup
plying subsidiary currency, for small pay
meuts for by the same act II was provided
that the silver coins issued in conformity
thereto should be legal tenders in payment of
debts for all sums not exceeding five dollars.
| have no doubt that all this tampering with
the coin was unwise and unjust. Whatever
may be the advantages of a double standard,
they are too dearly purchasedby the frequent
! ly recurring necessity for these changes. But
/ DO not see that there was, in any of these
| instances, a criminal breach Of public faith,
! or an intention to interfere with private cen
/ tracts. In 1884, the public debt had been
/ then recently liquidated in full, and at the pc
4 Rod Of none Of these measures was anything
| TO be gained by the Government from them,
buJ rather the reverse.
| II. There Is another important difference
/ between the two measures of debaslng the
/ coin and Of issuing paper money. When an
| ac. is passed debasing the coin, all the mis-
! chief is done On the day following, the pri-
/ ces Of all markets adjusted themselves to the
new standard. Commodities, real or person
al, lands or chatiels, are Of exactly the same
| exchangeable value as before the only diff
| ference being that their value is expressed in
/ different figures. An ounce of gold viii still
1 buy the same number of bushels Of wheat,
/ whether It be coined into twenty pieces, call
/ ed dollars, or forty pieces. True, debtors are
| richer at the expense of their creditors but
! that gross injustice also is finished. Every
/ man, creditor or debtor, capitalist or laboreF,
/ knows exactly where he stands. Not so with
/ paper money, AS to all existing contracts,
/ the same, and even worse injustice is done, if
/ the paper depreciates, than when the coin is
! debased, All equality is at an end. To-day
I a man pays at one discount, tomorrow he
/ receives at another There Is, in truth, no
! standard 0fcalue, loh0tecer. The paper mon
! ey varies ike the mercury IN the barometer,
! acted on by the superintendent column of
air, swayed to and fro by the tides of the at
/ mosphere-now high, now low-now rarefed,
now condensed. Thus, as confidence rises or
falls, but more certainly as issues are increas-
! ed or contracted, the value OF every mans
property-and the real price Of his labor what
be can procure for it of the necessaries and
comforts of life, huctuates from day to day.
This was Just what the men of the Reyolu-
/ ton who met in the Federal Convention
| who assembled in the State Conventions and
/ and ratified the Constitution, had not merely
/ heard with their ears, but seen with their
/ own eyes, touched and handled with their
! own hands, and felt in their own pockets.
/ They had not the advantage of reading the
| same history repeated IN q more rapid and
/ aggravated form in the paper money Of revo-
! lutionary France. But they needed 1t Bot.
! They had quite enough IN their own expert
euce to make them determine to deal an et-
fectual death-bloW at paper-money.
On The acbole, then, am of opinion that
the proriSioa Of the act Of Congress Of fe5-
Jwa7y 25, 1862, declaring the notes issued IN
pursuance Of that act to beidaqtaL money and
! q legal tender Is unconstitutional.
! THIS reldeTS II unnecessary that 1 should
| consider the Other question, 1Ctjch has been
made as to the effect of the special agreement
! to pan IN {alctuL Silrer money Of the United
| .States. / am IN faUOr Of fenterjng judgment
for the plaatjf, bUt as q majority OF the
court are Of different opinion, judgment
| for the dgfRdaat