The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-07-21

cided that congress is expressly en-
powered by the constitution to emit
bills of credit, to charter national cur
rency for the whole people in the form
of coin, treasury notes and national
bond bills, and the pOwert to make notes
of the government a legal tender" and
that inathe performance of this trust 1T
possesses the choice of whatever means
it may regard as conducive to the end.
| From this power springs the authority
| to enact the measure recommended by
1.-THE Farmers Alliance. The power
has been asserted in twenty-fOur acts
Of Congress, beginning with the ad-
ministration of Washington and COM
ing down to the present time. (Here
| Mr.. Barksdale cited the opinions of
Jefferson, Madison, jackson, Polk Cal
hOun and other great lights in the
political frmament.)
OTHER OBJECTIONS.
Other objections are urged by the
| gentleman. 1. That the bill provides
for a loan and that Congress has no
power to make a loan for "private
purposes Call the measure by what
name you please, it's real object is to
provide an in increase of circulating
medium. Congress had made numer-
GUS loans dating far back and coming
down to the present time. The Supreme
Court of the United States, as the
Senator admits, has decided that the
constitution authorized Congress to
make loans, notably in the case re
ported in United States reports "a,
Otto 4, p. 800, Chief Justice Waite
pronouncing the opinion. And the
Senator himself, in 1884, supported q
bill entitled IAN act to make a loan
to aid in the celebration of the Worlds
Industrial and Cotton Exposition" In
the face Of these precedents-I may
say in defiance of them-in his letter
to the Carroll Alliance, he says that
the power to lend money is not ex-
pressly delegated in which the power
to lend money is necessary and proper
for its full execution.
But he says in his latest letter, his
letter on the cOnstitutionality of the
measure, that these cases T not in
point; that he admits that the govern
ment can make loans for "public our
pOses;' and in proof cites numerous
judicial decisions. If the Alliance plan
really provided for a loan this would
establish its cOnstitutionality, because
1t does not propose legislation for a
private" but for the most important,
public purpose, viz; the performance
of the constitutional obligation to pro
vide a circulating medium for the bust
ness of the country. If that is not a
"public purpose" of transcendant i'm
portance, in thename of common sense,
what is:
CONTRADICTION.
He says that "because the govern
ment has no right of interference in
the private business of the farmer it
has no right to give or lend him none
in his private business"
Does the government claim the right
to prescribe how a mine owner shall
work his mines because it issues to him
legal tender notes for the bullion he
deposits? When the government gives
a pensions to a person under the fifty
million dependent bill, who swears
that he was in the Union army and
was disabled by a fall from his horse a
month ago, does it follow that the
government shall prescribe what he
shall eat and the sort of bed he shall
sleep on! When the Blair bill was
pending in the Senate it's authors and
advocates Senator George among
them did not claim that the mere act
Of appropriating the money carried
with it the right of governmental
control in the school systems of the
States, but they inserted provisions
directly authorizing the adoption by
the Federal government of rules and
regulations for the management of the
schools (Sections 2 and 81
But the Senator himself furnishes a
complete answer to himself. In a
speech in support of the Blair bill,
first session Forty-ninth Congress,
Feb, "a, 1886, after citing numerous
appropriations by the government, he
he said:
"These ~precedents establish the
proportion on which this bill the
Blair bill is based, that Congress may
appropriate money for the general
welfare without thereby assuming any
power or jurisdiction over the subject
to which the appropriation is made"