Year: 1868

HON. FREDERICK STONE,
| OF MARYLAND,


IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
July Is and 16, 1868.


The House being in Committee of the


Whole on the state of the Union


Mr.. STONE said: Mr.. Chairman, grear
deal of the idle defamation on the subject
of the finances is the result of the miscon.
ception of the law, and a great deal of in.
territorial Misrepresentation. We hear re.
peated everywhere the Importance of the
Government maintaining it's faith, but We
do not very often hear it stated clearly and
distinctly in what that keeping of faith
consists. We have large debt, and a
portion of it is already due. There is al
ready before this House a bill from the
Senate, called funding bill, which in
fact was intended to provide for the pay


ment of that which is already due.
suppose, sir, the only safe rule by which


we can be guided in ascertaining in what
mode the Government should preserve its
faith with it's creditors would be to ascer-
tain precisely what contracts it made with
them, and whatever the Government NAV
choose to pay more than its contract is a
question for the Government itself to de-
termlne. The only rights which the cred
ltors OF the Government have are the terms
OF the contract that they made with the
Government at the time they loaned the
Government the money. In order to as
certain what that contract was we have
only to refer back to the series of the acts
OF Congress. No one was authorized to
speak for the Government except the Gov
ernment itself. The acts of Congress
spoke in language too clear to be misun-
derstood or misrepresented, and no man
with fair disposition to arrive at what is
the true construction of these acts of Con-
gress can read them and be for one mo-
eeqrsrty oi cn1s conrIacE


In the month of February, 1862, Con-
gress passed an act, called the legal ten
der act, by which we made non-interest-
bearing notes of the Government legal
tender for all debts, public and private.
They made in that act no exceptions but
duties on imports and the interest on the
public debt; these were declared to be
payable in coin, but that every other spe-
cies of Indebtedness should be discharged
and liquidated by non-interest bearing
Treasury notes of the United States, gen.
orally termed legal tenders. In the very
same act, after declaring that these non
interest bearing notes should be received
in payment Of every debt, public or pri-
vate, in the second section they provide
for the creation of public debt, making
the duties on imports and the interest on
that debt payable in coin.


Now, sir, is not that plain enough? If
the law itself was constitutional, if Con-
gress had the right to issue these non-in-
terest-bearing notes and make them legal
tenders in payment of debts, public and
private, when in the very act in which
they contracted the debt they said the
notes should be legal tenders. can the
creditors who took the loan and advanced
their money upon the faith of that act
complain Of any misunderstanding, that
there was any ambiguity in the act.


But Congress did not stop here. To
show that they thoroughly understood the
import Of the language they were using.
two years afterward, in March, 1864, they
passed another loan law in which they
used this language;


Payable at period not more than
forty years from date in coin, and of such
denominations as may be found expedient,
not less than fifty dollars, bearing an in
terest not exceeding six per cent a year,
payable on bonds not over $100, and on
all other bonds semi-annually in COIN"


They first said that the principal shall
be paid in coin, and then that the inter-
est shall be paid in coin. drawing dis
tinction between the bonds issued under
the act of March, 1864, and February,
1862. But this is not ALL AS late as
1865 Congress passed another act, in
which they gave the Secretary of the
Treasury discretion to make the princi-
pal and interest, one or both, payable eth
er in currency or coin, so that it should be
expressed on the face of the bond.


Now, then. here is an act of Congress,
in 1862, making these bonds payable in
currency, leaving the Secretary of the
Treasury no discretion. Then there is
the act of March, 1864, leaving him no
discretion whatever, for the bonds issued
under that act must be paid. both princi-
pal and interest. in coin. Then as late as
March 8, 1865, Congress passed law
giving the Secretary of the Treasury the
discretion to make the principal or the in
terest, one or both, payable either in coin
or currency, as he might deem expedient:


Now, propositions are being pressed
upon this House which amount to this
that although the Government obtained a
loan during the tendency of the war, and
contracted with its creditors to pay in cur
repcy, a goId-beariur bond is to be SUBJ