The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1884-06-19
BENJAMIN'S REPLY To THE OFF.
OIAL NOTIFICATION OF HIS
NOMINATION.
He Warns up, Cites the Supreme
Court, and Defends the Le-
gal Tender.
Assembling of Democratic
Clans at Saratoga, the Cleve-
land Forces.
Delaware Democracy Presents
Bayard to the Chicago Con-
VentiOn.

Bayard to the Chicago Con-
VentiOn.
New YORK, June 17.-In response
to the formal announcement of
his nomination by committee
of the Greenback national con-
vention, Gen. Butler says:
LOWELL, MASS, June 17.-Gentle-
men of the committee: l am served
at your hands with an official an
nouncement of the action of the con-
vention at Indianapolis. In the ordi-
nary course of political events, the
choice of a convention of Representa-
tives men of any considerable portion
of my fellow citizens, according to me
this, the highest honor they can con-
fer, would call for grateful &C
acknowledgement, even though it
might be the selection to represent
the thoughts of such a convention
upon questions which commonly
divide political parties. Your views
on such questions may have been
inherited, or an outgrowth of meas
ures merely of administration. The
great questions you present are higher
and grander than any mere political
measure. Nearly quarter of cen
tury ago, when the very existence of
the republic and the establishment of
a democratic government hung on the
issue of the greatest civil war the
world ever knew, or may ever know.
By the wisdom born of an imperious
necessity, a financial system, springing
from patriotic impulse to
save the nations life and rescue the
hope of free institutions for all men
from going down forever in darkness
and death, was devised by the great
and good men of that day to whose
care republican government, to be ad-
ministered for the people and by the
people, had been confded. That sys-
tenn of finance for free people, IN its
infancy, saved the life of the nation
which would have perished without
it, and broke the cqains which enslav-
ed four millions of men. It gave
this country when war was raging, a
prosperity it had never known. 1t
enabled the people to assess upon
themselves and pay taxes to an extent
before unknown in any country. 1t
made it possible for the government to
repay three fold all it received in
loans from any creditor, Or gave to-
him security more profitable and sta
BILE than ever issued by any power in
the world. and made the financial sys
tenn of our government at
once the envy and admi-
ration of all mankind. This
was done bo a legal tender currency.
While the questions as to its stability
was raised by the very form of legis-
lation by which it was enacted, and
while still graver doubts prevailed in
the minds of many wise men whether
legal tender currency resting, not on
the intrinsic value of the material
in which it was coined was with
in the constitutional competency
and power of the legislative branch
es of the government, that question
having been three times submitted to
the supreme court of the United
States. The great tribunal of the
construction was at last decided in
the affirmative, with such unanimity
as to show there might be no posi-
bility of doubt. The purpose of your
organization and of those who voted
with you, was to support, and sustain
this money as the currency OF the
people. This the peoples currency,
you well may say: 1t was designated
by its friends by the pet name OF the
Greenback.
The decision of the supreme court Is
one of the great deeds wrought for
the peoples safety and prosperity,
Enacted by the highest legislative
power, the decision, about to be af-
tirmed as an accomplished fact will
never again be disturbed or doubted,
so that its friends might well say, see
the end of our labors in this regard
has come, let US rejoice; let those who
aided ia the great work press on to
deal with equally important but un-
settled measures for the welfare of the
whole people. The legal tender
having become the very foundation,
as well as the measure of value, inter-
twined with all business people; the
engine of the prosperity of the nation,
it seems to me almost an act of cru
city, again to disturb, causelessly, a
financial question which has been SO
set at rest with the assent of all good
men-as much so as was the question
of the right of man to hold his
brother-man in slavery. Therefore,
| have said, 81 am glad that the
question is no longer apart in
political consideration and states
manship, and we may now
turn from it as the country has turn
ed from the questions of slavery and
of war.
But alas for the power of the
darkness of error-the resurrectionists
of the false ideas of a dead past have
dug up the moulderlng remains OF
contention from the peaceful graves
where they slept, and threaten, by a
rehash of exploded resolutions, for
mulated into platform. by
party convention and to revlv-
ify and agitate controversies which
will unsettle commercial values,
hinder and delay the businesss
energies of our people with
apparently but the single object to
extend a system of purely paper cur
rency, issued by corporations, estab-
lished by the government indeed, but
for private emolument and gain to
the corporations to which the curren-
cy itself is valuable only because 1t IS
made redeemable in the very green
back which this .Ghoul-like agitation
seeks to repudiate, overthrow and des-
troy.
Such currency Andrew Jackson,
with the wisdom of statesman, by
| the iron hand of a sold
ier, sustained by the. democratic
party of more than generation ago,
had wholly crushed out, and in the
hope of the wise and good, had buried
forever, as one of the grieyous errors
of administration, which had insidi-
ously crept into the government for
the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the few and
the destruction of the people.
AS democrat, taught in the An
drew jackson school in my early
youth, with my judgment matured by
many years converse in public af-
fairs, aided by earnest and deep study
with the intensity of purpose a topic
of such magnitude. affecting every
| interest of the people-nay, it
may be the very existence
of a free constitution-demands, l am
constrained-were it the last act OF
nv Iife-in view of this attempt tc
undo what Jackson had so well done
coming from whatsoever question II
may, to say to you gentlemen, there
seems a wisdom-indeed an exigency