Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-11-27
Paying the Bonds in Greenbacks-The
Necessity for Specie Payments.

From Senator Summers Cambridge
Speech.
The cheat of paying interest-bearing
bonds. in promises without interest is
kindred in character to that of taxing
| the bonds. 1t is fiat reputation. No
subtlety of technieallity, no ingenuity
I of citation, no skill in arranging texts
of statutes can make 1t anything else.-
\ It is so on the face, and it is SO the more
the transaction is examined. Here
again. invoke that rule of conduct to
a weaker party, and I must insist, that
If, from any failure of explicitness, ex-
Guiding all contrary conclusion, there
can be no reason for repUdiation, every
such suggestion must be dismissed as
the frightful Well-spring of disastrous
consequences impossible to estimate,
while it is inconsistent with that public
faith which is the supreme law.
Elsewhere have considered this oueS-
ttOn so fully, that content myself now
WITH conclusions only. Do you coYet
the mines of Mexico and Peru, the pro-
hts Of extended commerce, or the har-
vest of your own teeming fields? All
these and more you will multiply inf
nately, If you will keep the public
faith inviolate. Do you seek stability
IN the currency with the assurance of
Soho Duslness SO that extravaganza and
gambling speculation shall cease? This
too, you will have through public the
faith. Just in proportion as this is dis
credited the nation is degraded and inn
pOverished. If nobody had breathed
repudiation, we should all be richer
and the national debt would be at a
lower Interest, saving to the nation mill
lions of dollars annually. Talk of tax
alton; here is an annual tax of mil
lions imposed by these praters of repu-
diation.
Careless Of the teachings of history,
you are exhOrted to pay the national
debt in greenbacks, knowing that this
can be done only by creating successive
patches, counted by hundreds of mill
lions, which will bring our currency to
the condition of Continental money,
when nights lodging cost a thousand
dollars. or the condition of the French
dsSfglsGtS. the paper currency of the
Revolution, which was increased to a
fearful amount, precisely as it is now
proposed to increase ours, until il ceased
to be practical standard of value
Talk of clipping the coin, or enfeebling
1t with alloy; talk of the disgraceful
frauds of French monarchs, who, one
after another in long succession reduc-
ed the value of their money and sWOre
the officers of the mint TO conceal their
degradation; talk of pesistent reductions
in England from Edward I to Eliza
beth, until coin was only half of itself;
talk OF unhappy Africa, where MungO
Park found that gallon ofruun, which
was the standard of value, was half
water; talk of all these-you have them
on colossal scale in the cheat of pay
ing bonds with greenbacks. If not
taught by our own memorable expert
ence, when Continental money, which
was the currency of the time, was lost,
like the river Rhine at its mouth, in an
enormous outstreched- quicksand, then
be taught by the experience of another
country Authentic history discloses
the condition to which France was re-
duced. Carlyle, in his picturesque
work on the Revolution, says: "There
IS, so to speak, no trade whatever.
AssigDRts, assignats long sinking, emit
ted In such quantities, sink now with
an alacr1ty beyond parallel" The
hackney-coachman on the street when
asked his fare, replied: 'fSix Thousand
livres." And still the assignats sunk
until at last the nation was a pauper.
The Directory, invested for time with
supreme power, on repairing to the
place of the Luxembourg, found it with
out single article of furniture. Bor-
rowing from the doOrkeeper a rickety
table, an ink-stand and sheet of letter
| paper they drafted their first official
! message announcing the new govern
ment. There was not a solitary piece
OF coin in the treasury; but there was a
| pr1nting-press at command. Assignats
We're IA bricated In the night, and sent
/ +SNN@A A. ~AAO A4OAnAbS Wei 4EOuA bIt0
press. At last they ended in nothing;
but not until great and generous peO-
pie was enveloped in bankruptcy, and
every family was a sufferer. Bank
ruptcy has its tragedies, hardly inferior
20 these which throb beneath the
''sceptered pail"
| Similar misconduct among us must
result in similar consequences, with all
the tragedies of bankruptcy. Not a
| bank, not corporation, not an institn-
! ton of charity, which would not suffer
each sweeping multitudes into the
| abyss which 1t could not avoid. Busi-
ness would be disorganized; values
would be uncertain; nobody would
know that the paper in his pocket to-
| day would buy q dinner tomorrow
| There is no limit to the depreciation of
tneOnVertible paper Down, down it
deseends, as the plummet, to the bot
tom; or, up. up, as the bubble in the
air, until, whether down or up, it disap-
| pears. 1t is hard to think of the poor,
or of those who depend on daily wages,
under the trials of this condition. The
rich may, for the time, live from their
abundance; but the less favored class
| can have no such refuge. Therefore,
| for the poor and all who labor. do now
plead, when ask that YOU shall not
hRrken to this painful proposition.
| plead, also, for the business of the
country. So long as the currency con-
tinues In its present uncertainty, it can
not answer the demands of business. It
Is a diseased limb, mo better than what Is
known in India as q "Cochin Leg" or
an excrescence not unlike the pendulous
I gOitre which is pitiful sight of an Ale
pine village. Business must be eman-