The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-07
The Greenback Doctrine Its Fundamental
Error.

From the ~ Y. Times
The supposition that the legal tender acts
apply to the bonded debt of the Government
results from misapprehensiOn of their object
and scope. From the very origin of the Gov
ernment egalteuder acts have been passed,
their object in every case being to enable de-
PENDANTS in suits to plead that they have made
lawful tender but as the Government is
not capable OF being sued, aud is consequently
not under the necessity of rendering money in
legal proceedings, no lawyer or statesman, or
huancer ever supposed that these acts, which
commenced with General Washington's ad-
ministration, were passed with any other view
than to afford the means OF determining the
rights and obligations OF parties who might be
litgants in judicial contests. Society would
be entirely unprovided with proper and sut-
fcient regulations to determine the relative
rights and obligations of debtors and creditors
il courts were not in existence, empowered to
decide whether what had been rendered was
lawful and sufficient, or otherwise But
neither in any work on elementary law, nor
in any opinion promulgated by any court,
nor in any production regarded as authority
in any country, have these legal-tender acts
been supposed to relate in any manner to the
obligations of the Government which passed
them.
The act of Congress of February 9, 1893, pro-
vides that Spanish milled dollars of certain
q
der for the payment of all debts and de-
mands." The act of June %, 1884, provides
that certain other coins therein enumerated
shall pass current as money within the United
States by tale, "fOr the payment of all debts
and demands" The acts of June %, 1884 aud
March 3, lS43, use the same language appli-
cable to other coins. The Constitution re-
stricted the States from making "anything
but gold and silver coin tender for debts, !"
but was silent as to the quantity, weight, or
description of such coin, and hence the ne
cessity for legislation on this subject by Con-
gress to establish uniformity in all the States
as to what constitutes the debt paying me-
dium. But for such restriction on the
States, and for such regulations one Of the
great objects of union would have been frus-
trated.
No one supposed that the general Govern
ment could pay its debt in Spanish milled
dollars by weight, or in such other foreign
dollars by tale, although as between indiyl-
duals and corporations, public and private,
they were thus made lawful tender for their
public or private debts. 1t would have been
deemed violation of honor to apply an Ordi-
nary legal-tender act to the solemn obligations
of the Government, which had defined pre-
cisely in its coinage acts what the dollar was
which it purported to pay. The debt due by
a city corporation comes within the descrp-
tOn of public debt, and answers that call OF
In6 leBdl-l6uu6T dCJS OF loOA Whltu pIOFluea
that the greenback currency shall be ''lawful
money and legal-tende for all debts public
and private within the United States" The
privilege of pleading such a tender in court
was thus extended to the public debts of pub
! lie corporations.
The act further provides, and hare it departs
from its functions as a legal-teuder act, that
such greerback currency shall be receivable
for 'all claims and demands against the
! United States except for interest upon bOuds,
notes, and certificates of debt or deposit"
What was intended by claims aud demands ?
debt ascertained and fixed by solemn
undertaking is never referred to by such loose
phraseoOgy 1t was intended to apply to that
large mass of claims and demands current and
floating for which no bond or other security
had been iss led. When the Government
issues its promise to pay dollar it means
no other than the dollar fixed byits own laws.
A single test will set this matter clear. The
act of 1862 provides "that the Secretary OF the
Treasury is hereby authorized to issue, in
addition to the amounts heretofore authorized,
| one hundred and fifty millions of dollars OF
United States notes, not bearing interest,
payable to bearer at the Treasury of the
united states" These, it then declares, shall
be such tender.
Now, what did the Government intend
should be thus promised by the greenbaok
and paid at the Treasury on demand No
one supposes that it was any other than the