The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-19

uSclslon. but am not bound IN heIi.s,-.. h
NOT 40 believe that the tax Of 10 per c,.nr
~. me issues OF the state banks is a con-
sulutional tax. nor that the income t,~
IS unconstitutional. but We are an hound
/ 10 obey those decisions
Dut l 90 believe that gold and silver
COINS OF the United States are fun LEGAL
| 1ehder' under the constitution. whatever
sonsIess may say. ! state these PROPOSE
uohs, not because they are necessary 10
the argument. as 70 the power of gold
ana silver as legal tender money bllf -
Illustrate the power that belongs to an
lesaI tender money, whether silver. gold
OF paper. even if we do not admit Us
IN framing our constitution the conven-
'ioh was careful 10 protect both debtor
and creditor in these vital points. and II
look from the states the power to enact
lesal tender laws except only that they
might make gold and silver COIN legal
tender.
NO more important provision could be
Hiaue IN the organic law, whether IT re-
lates 10 the government, or the people
IMAM was done by this exercise of one Of
the highest powers OF sovereignty. in
coming money into dollars and in giving
10 thsin compulsory power in making pay
inent or debts, public and private
II was provided for fixed and made
permanent IN the constitution, as one Of
the essential guards of the liberties If
the people and as an Indispensable excr-
else OF sovereign power without which
TIE United States government would nave
been utterly imbecile
The legal tender power, that is, the
compulsory power of money, in the pay
ment OF debts, Is that, alone, which dis
tinguishes between money, as 1t is known
10 the constitution, and commodity or a
promise to pay money, as it is known 10
commerce and commercial law Money
mat creditor is not compelled TO re-
celve IN payment of a debt, is not money
within the meaning of the constitution.
1t is not money, such as a sheriff or
marshal can receive in satisfaction Of a
Judgment, for the collection of which he
folds an execution in. his hands
silver coins and gold coins that are not
legal tender for debt are simply bullion
Their value is created by contract, and
not by the command of the law
Mexican silver dollars and British gold
soVereigns are Just that kind of money
IN the United States. At home they are
money, because they are legal tender for
their full face value in the payment of
debts.
When the trainers of our constitution
conferred upOr congress the power to coin
money, that power was a useless thing
without the further power to make ii a
az 81 NNAANA III pay AAlS4lL VI utUlSs mat
further power was given in the words to
regulate the value thereof. and of foreign
coins The value of the coins, whether
domestic or foreign, was to be regulated
by fixing the relative weight and fneness
Of the metal, as between the different
classes of coins, and by giving to them
the compulsory power of legal tender.
In this citadel of true, constitutional
protection and safety which is the legal
tender power of money guarded and en-
forced by the courts. there is found that
actual parity, or equality, between all de-
scription of legal money that is alone pos
sible either in law or commerce.
No government and no combination of
government can establish actual and per-
feet parity between the precious metals,
or between different descriptions of mon
ey, by any expedient except by the law of
legal tender.
1t is desirable and beneficial to all bust
ness pursuits and transactions that the
just relations between gold and silver, as
bullion and as coin, should be accurately
ascertained and fixed by law; but they
cannot be fixed by law, except by reference
to their character as legal tender money.
When that is fixed the legal parity is
established. law that arranges the
coinage's parity and does not enforce ii
in the compulsory debt paying power of
the quantity of metal in the coin. AS to
it's actual or relative value, that is left
open to be fixed by agreement between
seller and buyer. or creditor and debtor.
In dealing with silver, the first Sherman
act of Feb. II 1873, deprived it of the
privilege of being stamped, measured or
weighed in the form of coin. 1t could
only be run into bars, in token, 1 sup
pose, of the dungeon to which it was con-
signed. Great Britain had gotten rid of
the parity question by making gold the
only legal tender for sums above 40 shill
ings, and this first Sherman act got rid of
it the same way, by reducing the legal
tender power of silver to S. But it added
cremation to death in the hope that if the
body was annihilated it could not be re-
surreeted. 1t blotted out the coin.
When the silver money of the cOnstitu-
ton was brought to this degraded condi-
ton by the degrading means that are al
gan, and the battle still RACES. A pretty
lively skirmish is being fought to-day in
Griffin and the whole world is in arms for
the struggle.
1t is not true, neither is 1t possible, that
in the course Of a century, or one thou
sand years, there is ever more than a
slight variance in their production on
ratio of sixteen pounds of silver to one
pound of gold. These facts have been
scrutinized with that care which only
the subject of gold and silver has been
able to excite. in the minds of millions
of men and of great governments. The
records have been made with extreme
caution and the history of gold and silver
is more complete and more exact than
that of any enterprise or industry that
ever engaged the attention of mankind.
The ratio between the metals estab-
lished in the coinage laws of the indus
trial and commercial nations ought to
satisfy the most doubling minds of the
most pessimistic prophets as to the nat
ural parity of these metals.
These coinage ratios, corresponding, as
they do, with the commercial ratios, are
the Interpretation merely of this law of
nature The truth has been sought and
found and established with solemn
precision that no other philosophic de-
duction as to a hidden fact has ever
reached. In the report of our superin-
tendent of the mint for 1894 we have
these ratios given for each year from
1857 to 1885, a period of 206 years, in all
that time the commercial ratios have
varied only between 1886, the highest, and
1414 the lowest, until 1874.
When we, with a craven spirit of sub
Ordipa tfon to British demands, abolished