The New York herald., 1874-03-27
The Measure Of DfshOnOr-Aa Appeal
90 the Presidcmt.

To you, President Grant we make this
appeal! The imitation measure has passed
the Senate. Our hope that the conser-
vative branch of the Legislature would
prove to be really conservative has been dis
appointed The Senate is only tedious
fragment of noisy and mob ruled House OF
Representatives. The ''public opinion
which has been sweeping from Peoria to
Philadelphia and Newark not to speak Of
Oshkosh and Oconomonow and which
has found expression in y hun dred rural
newspapers and corner groceries, has been
heard. The cant about the burdens of the
South has been ''obeyed' All the pregnant
lessons OF history, the encrusted wisdom and
experience of centuries, as seen in the success
and misfortunes Of great CommonweaIths, have
been thrown aside tor the crude teachings of
Morton and Logan, and America embarks
in new and dangerous experiment.
We have lived upon this revolving globe for
some thousands of years, and the lessons we
have learned (since Sinai at all events) have
been based upon the simplest rules, that lie
is a lie and the truth the truth that money is
a value and not decoration or a picture;
that no business can succeed unless based
upon integrity; that without integrity there
can be no credit; that money, which simply
represents baseless and whimsical promise to
pay is false pretence. The history of every
nation that ever rose to eminence or power
illustrates this; for no Power ever became
genuine and permanent that was not based
upon truth. We had instructive lessons in re-
cent history in the growth of the assignats
under Robespierre and the Continental cur
rency during the Revolution. We saw what
the French did in their season of dreams
and hopes and terror; how, under the
frenzy of the Revolution and the tarantula
dame which they called Liberty they resolved
that paper should be money, and that all
values and weights and measures should be
at the pleasure of the Convention. The
result was seen in the disintegration of all
values-the rise of currency which expressed
only the hopes and fancies of enthusiastic
and which, although protected by the guillo-
tine, soon became the scorn and the byword
of France For Of what value WAS thousand
francs month to workman who, it was
true, in better days only earned hundred,
when loaf of bread and bottle Of wine cost
him fifty when he carried his money to mar
ket in basket and brought his purchases
home in his pocket? Never was an experiment
of government by enthusiasm more honestly
tried than during the French Revolution.
The leaders Of that movement began with the
axiom that the past was a mistake and the
present a crime; that history had no expe-
riences that did not spring from the ambitions
of monarchs and the cupidity of the aristoc-
racy, and that liberty consisted simply in
tearing down all that was old. So, among
other lessons which freemen learned, in addi-
ton to their reverence for Regulus and the
Gracchi, was this, that the laws of finance and
trade were like the laws Of entail and mort
main and primogeniture, only so many evil
dences OF a tyrannical rule, and they should
perish with the corrupt systems of the past
But they did not know that the laws Of trade
and business and commerce, like mathematics
and astronomy, were fixed science more
affecting the liberty of the citizen than the
moral law, and based upon the moral law as
fundamental principle.
But so came the asslgnats, and France wal
lowed in the mire of bankruptcy and repudia-
ton until the advent of the steel-like genius Of
Napoleon, which saw the mathematical aspects
of moral laws if no others, and, following
| these laws, brought the nation back to SOL
vency and credit. What was the result
! The moment that France passed from the
allurements of an inconvertible and ire
sponsible currency to the stern duty of con-
solidating her financial integrity she began
her career of greatness, career so prosperous
tha. when visited with unspeakable disasters
she rose superior to them ALL and was able in
one day to buy the enemy from her soil.
Some Of our readers may disparage this
achievement as is our custom to disparage
France generally since her defeat But let us
remember our own fortune during the war,
when We passed the Legal Tender act and
asked the nations of the world to aid us. There
was every reason why we should have been
aided. We were an exceedingly rich people
rich in what we possessed and in what we hoped
10 possess when we had thoroughly developed
our cousky. But the passage Of that act was
the first step. We dishonored our credit and
asked the world to accept it. We destroyed
the values which the world had imposed upon
money, and the result was that the world ac-
cepted our credit at our own valuation; and
we were compelled to fight the South with a
diseased and hampered credit-to sell our
bonds for whatever they would bring, like
Venezuela or Spain, and time and again, for
the very want of credit, to resort to the most
painful expedients to find the means Of sup
plying our armies and navies. If we could
have entered the war with the credit of
France, and maintained it, we should have
saved thousand millions of dollars. But we
dishonored ourselves in the beginning, and