The Portland daily press., 1874-04-28
Our New York Letter.
The President's Veto and the Vetoed Bill.
A defense of the Presidents action.

The Presidenl's Veto and the Vetoed Bill.
defense of the Presidents action.
NEW YORK. April q, 1874
The President in vetoing the Senate Finance
his character, the soundness of his judgment
and the integrity of his motives. He has a
happy faculty of doing the right thing in the
right way and at the right time. 1t shows how
little he was understood, even by contempora-
ries at the Capital, that nearly all of them be-
leved he would approve the measure. "Of
course he will sign itr' was one of the COM
monest EXPLANATIONS on the floors of the two
houses of Congress and in all the pnblic places
in Washington. Now and then, a person fa
miliar with the Generals modes of reasoning,
and aware of the deep and earnest thought
which he had given to the subject Of finance not
only since the panic, but long before, predicted
veto. But the number of these was too insight
ticaht to breast the current of popular report
which dealt with the Executive sanction as a
matter of course, and vouchsafed nothing
more than plying smile of derision, or a
snrug of disdainful incredulity at the bare sng-
gestion of possible veto. 9 NT p
The bill from which the President withheld
his approval is piece of legislative patch
work without comeliness OF utility. The first
section strikes blow at the public credit by
providing for the permanent diffusio1 of a re-
serve fund into the general circulation, whence
it was withdrawn and sequestered. This works
wrong to every holder of the obligations of
the government The forty four millions of
legal tenders which had been retired ceased
thenceforth to belong to the fixed currency, land
any temporary employment of them, in an ext
gency simply partook of the nature of a loan
to be repaid at the earliest moment that the
national revenue would permit. When the Treas
ury becomes depleted through insufficiency of
receipts, recourse to borrowing is the only alter
native to prevent distonor. This happened
last fail, and led to the use of portion of the
Treasury reserve to satisfy maturing Liabilities
But the employment of trust fdnd to meet
pressing emergency is widely different thing
from sweeping it into the general circulating
medium, to be submerged in the unfathomable
sea of irredeemabliUy. This point seems not
to have been generally understood by the ma
iority of the members of Congress. But it is
quite evident that the President thoroughly APP
preciated it, and that therefore he could not APP
prove that portion of the bill which sponged
out in alsingls sentence the line which separated
the 1856, 000, 900 of legal tender afloat without
limit of time, from the $44, 600 which had
sacredly been laid aside as the savings from ex-
cessve taxation. The national debt having
once been reduced to that not inconsiderabe
extent, it was alike inconsistent with policy or
principle to augment it again with the worst
form of liability it was possible to incur.
As it turns out, it was a mistake that Con-
gress did not, when the Limit of legal tender
was fixed at 1856, OOO.O 900 enact law prohibit
ing any inroad upon the residue. But those
were the days when the Golfers of the State
were we'll filed, when taxes were levied on tea
coffee, incomes etc., ETC., and nobody seemed to
entertain the smallest apprehension that time
might come, when by reducing the national in
come $100,000,000 per annum, and ex-
periencng periodical declension of
revenues from imports, the necessity would
arise for resort to extraordinary means
for replenishing depleted exchequer Besides,
the law, as it stood was ambiguous, as many a
statute has been before, through obscurity of
phrase, or defects of punctuation, Not few
deemed its provisions ample to protect the reserve
from even momentary encroachments. The
notes were to be Cancelled" That is the word
used, and to the ordinary comprehension, it
would seem strong enough and decisive enough
to preclude their reissue On the other hand
the $356, 000,0 900 were declared to be minimum
not maximum, and this left the meaning of
the statute uncertain. The money has been
used Congress has tacitly acquiesced in its use;
and the right to trench upon it in any and every
emergency is so far established by precedent
that nothing less than an absolute legal prohibit
ton will preventits being borrowed from, when
ever the Treasury department gets short of
funds. u.5 +. ga.
That the existence of such source os supply
is impoltic and dangerous, will appear obvious
to any one who will take time to consider the
objections to it. In the first place it serves as
constant temptation to extravaganza, and that
is a kind of temptation, to which no public Off
eer, be he never so parsimonious of habit should
be subjected. In the next place while it is the
easiest possible debt to contract, it is the hard.
est Of all to pay. 1t requires no small degree
of moral elevation for an individual to cash a
note which has no date of maturity and bears no
interest, especlally if he is loaded down with
other debts to Sfhich both those conditions at
tach. That noun of multitude which we call
altitude of devotion to principle. Hence we
find that the people if we may accept the votes
of their Congressional representatives as ex-
pressing their will, are by no means eager to
contribute through the tax gatherer the amount
required to make good the little item of $780,,
900, 600 which has been taken from the Treasury
revenue. How it shall be got back again into
the Treasury vaults is one Of the gravest diff
culties which surround the financial problem,
and if it is ever restored it ought to be guarded
by the strongest functions Of law against future
escape.
The second section of the bill which the Pres.
ident has extinguished, is one of the crudest and
cumsiest bits of legislation that can be found
even amid the multifarous statutes of such a
law-making people as we are. 1t permits an
increase of 46 millions of National bank cur
rency, but lmitsit to communities whose means
Tor securing the bonds which constitute the ba-
SIS OF issue are understood to be extremely slen-
uer' IL also prescribes a locking up in the
country banks of IS per cent of their reserves
which under the present law thew can loan ont
to the redeeming banks. tits estimated bx the
Comptroller of the Currency, and his opipion is
corroborated oy eminent bankers, that this fea-
ture OF the measure Will work contraction of
some $50 100000. Consequently the President
has been called upon to pass upon scheme
which, while it disturbs public confidence and
inspires dread of any departure towards
further expansion of deprecated paper, has in
it so small an element of initiation that