Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1874-08-11

and refuse the legal tender currency of the
people, the people will be justifable, before
God and man, in the prompt rcpudidtion of
their vile fraud aud swiudle
JNo A. THOMSON.
Summit Point, W. Va, July %. 1874.
LEGAL TENDERs-A VIEW OF THE CASE.
The controlling reasons which sanction a
legal>tender issue aud it's maintenance as cur
rent money may thus be stated
First-And of itself concusive-is the fact
of our Indebtedness to the foreigner of some
two thousand millions of dollars, the mere an
nual interest on which is about double our
whole product of bullion
SecOnd-The entire principal is susceptible
of conversion into and on demand claim.
1t is clear, therefore, that if coined metal
alone be money, then every dollar of money
in the country would virtually belong to the
foreigner, and we should be wholly dependent
on his policy aud forbearance for any money
he mi ght allow to remain with US. This states
ment is, ss truth and for defense of the
legal tender, impregnable. The right to
create a currency or money and to establish
the value thereof, is an inalienable attribute
alike of sovereignty aud of self preservation.
For the Supreme Court to decide that a vol
untary, iIrevocabe abdicAtiOn of this vital
pcerogative had been made by both State and
Federal Governments, is to exclude the couu-
try from any money except just such and SO
much as the foreigner may vOuchsafe to lend
and recall at his pleasure. This is an ire
tutabIe statement of the case, and is preg-
nsnt with warning. 1t may be affirmed
safely that since 1919 to 1862. period of
nominal specie payment. we have been in debt
t" the foreigner to the extent which renders
him virtually the owner of every dollar of our
coin; and our experience from such foreign
ownership has been that he has seen fit, about
every seven years, to exercise this right of own
crship by drain of our specie, causing such
perturbOtions in our money market aud such
convulsions among our productive industries
as caused the failure of ninety-fve per cent.
OF all parties who during that long period
vcutured into business, and threw into idle
ness and Generalization millions of the willing
industrious. The diary of Amos A. Law
renee of Boston, as published, showed that of
his ownimmedate acquaintances ninety>seven
per cent. had been unfortunate. Is it within
the capacity of the imagination of man to
conceive and devise currency which could
produce more calamitOus results? Such we're,
such must ever be, the inevitable results in
debtor country of extingusbing one of the
vital attributes of sovereignty. If indeed,
this attribute of sovereignty could have been
extineuished by a suicidal blow in the con-
vention which framed the Federal Coustitu>
tion it is q fixed historic fact, standing out in
the boldest relief, that the rescue of = debtor
country from a monetary famine, or anarchy,
or chaos, is attainable only by the usurpation
of such An attribute as would authorize q gov
ernment to issue legal tenders. An universal
suspension of specie payment several times
during the above named period was au-
thorized. and was universally accepted as to
the exercise of just, q necessary authority,
of that supreme power-"ecessitasnOn hdLet
iegem. Surely, surely an authority which
could thus interpose and vindicate debtor in
his refusal to pay his specie debt in specie,
and coerce the creditor to take in payment
whatever the convenience of the general pub
lie accepted as currency. and could prOtract
this state of affairs indefinitely, to the total
cancellation of the debt or until that snpremo
Ter, sdiuS popuLi, should render it convenient
for the debtor to pay, must suffice to Justify
the issue of legal tenders. The above men
toned action the exercise of more ar
bitrary and unconstitutional power than is in
Cured in an issue of legal tenders. If the
Constitution excludes the power to issue legal
tenders, .forfiOri it precludes much more
decisively the exercise of such powers as we
have above referred to, in legalzing the sus-
pension of specie payments by the banks,
which is, in effect, to constitute bank notes
the money of the country; it is an exercise
of more extreme power than the Issue of
legal tenders by the Federal Government, VII
olatiug as it did the sanctity of contracts and
confscating the property of citizens To as
sent. as has always heretofore been the case
by the public, to the exercise of this power
by State Governments, and to object to legal
tenders by the Federal Government, is the
most perfect exemplifcation of '.swallowing
a camel and straining at gnat"
a legal tender is simply debt by the peo-
pie to the Federal Government. Because
an exaction by Government of taxes to the
full amount necessary to meet its expenditures
would be oppressive to capital and to property,
Government, very considerably, postponed
levying the full amount of taxes, but issued
checks illegal tenders) upon the people
These legal tenders were issued exclusively in
the interest of capital and of property, the
very and only interest which rail against them
because, had Government exacted the full
amount of taxes. these interests, and they
almost alone, would have had to pay the whole
amount to meet the Government expenditures,
and then we should have been burdened with
neither bonds nor legal tenders. People, then,
without property, would not have been bur.
dened with neither bonds nor legal tenders.