Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1892-08-03
Remarks or Hon. VIM. A. PETER, In the
Senate, January 81, 1892.
Mr.. PETER said :

Mr.. PREsIDENT-The details Of this
bill need not Low be considered, and it
would be equally useless at this time to
discuss the particular plan by which its
provisions are to be carried into effect.
1t IS the principle of the bill which first
concerns US, the doctrine it embodies,
the proposition it involves. Until that
is conceded 1t is folly to go further. The
bill assumes that the people, through
the agency of the Government which
they have created, not only may or can,
but that they ought to supply them
selves with what money they need, and
that borrowers ought to have the use of
money at low rate of interest. 1t is
to that assumption that desire to ad-
dress myself.
When we look backward over the
progress of this century and see how far
we have come, it seems strange that we
are just at the threshold of the greatest
problem of all the centuries, the equit-
able distribution of the products of la
Dor; that we are only beginning to learn
the powers which justly belong to the
government of free people, and to see
how admirably adapted to the demands
of high civilization our own Govern
ment is.
When we speak of the Government,
We do not refer to some great unknown
or untried power, some foreign entity
separate and apart from ourselves, our
institutions and our country; nor do we
allude to paternal potentate, prince
or power, endowed with fatherly in
stincts, whose watchful care directs our
way and guards our interests. Pater-
nalism is an exotic; it does not flourish
in a republic where the people are the
source of power.
The authority of Congress over the
subject of money is absolute and with
out limit. It is expressly granted in
two separate clauses of the Constitution
one relating to commerce among the
several states, the other to the coming
of money and regulating the value there
of. Either would be sufficient to confer
all the power needed. Indeed, the pow
er would exist without grant; 1t be-
| longs to nation as an incident of SOW
ereignty, the same as any other power
necessary to perpetuate government and
insure the comfort and convenience of
the people. The authority has been vol
unfairly bestowed by those in rlghtful
possession of it, and in language so plain
as to be unmistakable.
This matter has been judiciously de-
termined several times. The supreme
court, in the "legal-tender" cases. II
Wallace, Uuited States Supreme Court
Reports, 545 ct seq, say:
And, generally, when one of such powers
was expressly denied to the states only. it was
for the purpose of rendering the Federal pow
er more complete and exclusive; how sensible,
then, its trainers must have been that emer-
gences might arise where the precious metals
might prove inadequate to the necessities of
the Government and the demands of the peo-
ple-Then 1t Is remembered that paper money
was almost exclusively in use in the states as
medium of exchange, and when the great evil
sought to be remedled was the want of uni
fornity in the current value of money; 1t
mis- ut be argued, we say, that the gift of pow.
er to coin money and regulate the value there
of was understood as conveying general power
over the currency, and which had. belonged to
the staIss and which they had surrendered. =
By Aheobligation of a contract to pay money
is to ptsfhat which the law shall recognize as
[ money when the payment is to be made. Ii
there is anything settled by decision it is this
and we do not understand it to be contro
verified. No one ever doubted that a debt OF
81 900, contracted before 1884, could be paid
| with 100 eagles coined after that year, though
they contained no more gold than 81 eagle.
| when the contract was made, and this is not
because of the intrinsic value of the coin, but
because of its legal value. The eagles coined
after 1884 were not money until they were au
! thorized by law, and had they been coined be
fore, without a law fixing their legal value they
could no more have paid debt than unooined
bullion, or cotton, or wheat.
The internal commerce of the United
States is enormous, twenty times great
er than our foreign trade; greater thai
the entire foreign commerce of all the
great nations of Europe. The Pennsvl
vania railroad system alone, according
to Mr.. Carnegie, transports more ton
mage than all the merchant ships Of
Britain. In carving on this immense
trade nearly one-half the railway mil
cage of the world is used, half million
men are employed, and vast number
of locomotives, cars, boats, ships, anC
other vehicles and implements are il
constant use. Every one of these item
is subject to Congressional control if Il
be used in interstate commerce. Con
gress exercises control over navigablt
waters, and the boats f1oated on them
and we have gone SO far along the lint
of interstate-railway traffic as to bring
it all under one general rule, prohibit
ing unjust determinations and unrea
sonable charges.
We are exercising similar contro
over money and it is because mony ,lIk,
cars and ships, is an instrument of com
merce. In the march of civilization W,
have come to plane where vehicles TO
moving values are as needful as vehi
cles for moving commodities. Our banl
exchanges in single year amount t,
over SIS, 200, OO0. 900. Dimes, dollars ant
eagles are as much instruments of com
merce as are cars. locomotives, ant
steamboats,. The power to regulate on
includes the power to regulate all. An'
we are not without authority and pre-
csdent in this matter. Economists ant
statesmen agree that money is neces
sary factor in commercial transactions
and our Government has many times ex
ercised authority over the use Of money
net only in the minis and in the Treas
! ury, but in the Lands of the people.
}. During slxty-nine years of our ma
tional life the Government fixed tn,
, rate OF interest which citizens should
j pay for the use of money. Under tn,