The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1895-07-04

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disastrous threatened changes oi
currency will be to all classes whether
debtor or creditor, investor or laborer,
farmer or mechanic, and how impos-
sible it would be for any government
without the consent Or against the
will of the commercial community to
interfere with the standards and
measures Of value.
Sir, those of us who passed
through the civil war and are fa-
miliar with the Operations of the
government during that period saw
the experiment tried of how far the
power Of congressional enactment
under the most favorable circumstan-
ces would extend toward forcing the
use OF an instrument which the com
mercial community did not want.
Sir, it is as impossible for congress
to force people to part with their la
Dor, their skill or their property ,ex-
cept according to their own notions
of values, as il is Of congressional
enactment to effect religious beliefs.
Is it possible for congress to pass an
act to make Presbyterians believe in
the doctrines of the Catholic church
or the reverse? Is it possible, by law
to make one, who is Mohammedan
in his belief and thinking, believe
and think as Christian or Bud
dhist? No more can congress
control their opinion about the
value of property and what they
want for their service.
'In 1861 the congress of the Uni
ted States issued the greenbac ks and
attempted to compel their use as
money, decreed that their tender
would discharge debt incurred For
the purchase of property or labor.
How far did any such au enactment
have an effect on subsequent trans
actions? In considerable portion
Of the territory of the United States
no more than if the law had been
tirman of the unspeakable Turk, and
although it remained in force for
seventeen years, there was no day
during that period when greenb backs
would discharge debts incurred for
labo: or exertion, or wheat or corn,
or be used in payment for them in
any portion of California, Oregon, or
on the Pacific slope. All transact
ions were conducted in gold and all
paper or bank notes were stamped
gold. So in the remainder of the
United States it is true that green
backs, for lack Of other currency,
were used, but they were used as
matter of convenience and with ref
erence always to gold, which re-
manned during call the seventeen
years the standard anu measure of
value. All transactions were con-
Quoted with reference to it, and the
value of the greenback, inasmuch as
it was practically a forced loan,
was proportional only to the pros
pect of its payment in gold, and at
one time, when that prospect seemed
somewhat remote, because of the
quantity issued and the i'll success at
tanning our armies in the field. that
value shrank to one-third Of its NOM
inai par. Even the credit and the
power of great government i'll the
throes of a great war could not COM
pei the imagjnations Of people or
control the commercial usages as to
values.
''But sir, this is not all. Blind
ievotees Of fiat money, believing
that in some mysterious way the op-
erations of government finance va
ried from the operations of finance
conducted by private individuals or
private corporations and that the
speculation in gold in New York
once eliminated, the enemy of the
greenback woald be destroyed, on
June 2, l64, passed law through
the house of representatives of the
United States under the lead of
Thaddeus Stevens, an ardent green
backer, and through the senate of
the United States, of which my dis
iinguished colleague now present,
was then member, and this was
signed by the president and SO en-
acted into law, an act Furnishing
by fine an Imprisonment any person
who should make any contracts for
the future delivery of gold or foreign
exchange or any contract not pay
able in the United States legal tea
der money.
The commercial world Of America
sound and patriotic to the
core, met this act with such intense
and violent repulsion and protest the /,
mpossibility of governing the imagi- |
nation of private citizens was SO inn
nedlately apparent that with in three
lays it agreed that the bill should
DC repealed and within fifteen days
hat repeal was enacted into law. No
uch instance Of the imDossibiity Of ;