Year: 1867

When Congress resumes business, we may
look for new and old devices for prolonging
and perpetuating vciOus and unsOund Cur
rency by the infinite lodges and sleight-of-hand
tricks of vicious and unsound legislation. When,
in the agony of our great struggle, we were
driven to the desperate resort of making the
promises of our Government a Legal Tender
for the sums specified on their face, no one
suggested OF imagined that this was TO be JUS
titled otherwise than by dire necessity, or en-
dured one moment longer than necessity
should compel The notion that the people
might be enriched by the persistent use of ." a
false balance" in the purchase and sale of their
! products and cOmmodities-by the compul-
| sorry employment of dollar i'll their dealings
which should be worth from forty TO ninety
| cents according to circumstances, and which the
| tricks of gold gamblers and kite-flyers should
cause to fluctuate in value from day to day-is
| of far more recent origin.


The Legal Tender" paper dollar has served
| its purpose Born of our National agony, it
should have died with it, There is not fl
nancier fit to manage the smallest village bank
who does not know that the Government might
have resumed Specie Payment directly after
the surrender of the Rebel armies-far more
| easily then than now, or hereafter Of course,
! some high neutrality-suspicious. EwOuld have been
pinched, as many more will be whenever we move
! in earnest toward Resumption; but the country
would have imported Two or Three Hundred
| Millions worth less of foreign wares and fab
lics since May, 1865, than it has done, and
would have exported less of our National Debt
| by the like amount The sale since Peace oi
! our Government bonds TO European capitalists
at fifty to seventy five cents or the dollar, to
/ be paid in full, principal and interest, by OuT
children and grandchildren, is one of the di-
rect and disastrous results Of our insane per
sstence in the use of a fallacious, Juggling
! Currency.


We are opposed to all the bills now before
! Congress, or yet to be presented, which aim at
! the perpetuation of an ITedeemable Currency
| They are all wrong in purpose; so that they
cannot be other than unsOund in their prOyi-
| siOns. All the legislation now needed is a short
act of this tenor: "a bill to provide for the
Resumption of Specie Payment. 81. The
Secretary of the Treasury is hereby author
"ized TO borrow, from time TO time at the
"most favorable rates which may be attaina-
"ble by advertising for bids in open market
"such sums as may be necessary TO enable lin
"tO resume and maintain Specie Payment"


Armed with the power thus given him, lei
the Secretary simply give public notice thai
/ the Treasury Notes and Postal Currency Ogh !
of the United States are henceforth redecmablS
in coin when presented in even S1CO's at the
Treasury of the United States in Washington
between the hours of 10 and p. III. of eacl
] h,,oi nj t1,o4 Nj
and Postal Currency will henceforth be re-
ceived as coin in all payments to the United
States, whether foriDuties on Imports or other
wise.


Well. why not?


Do you say that everybody would rush tC
the Treasury for specie? What would be the
motive, the inducement? The gold gamblers
occupation would be gone from the moment
that notice was given. The Two or Three
Hundred Millions of Gold and Silver coin OF
bars now lying dead in the country would at
once be added to our circulating medium. The
One Hundred Millions per annum that ouI
Mines are producing-and which every year is
increasing-wOuld oil be money instead of mer-


chandise from the hour of its coinage, if ne
sooner. The One Hundred Millions of Specie
now held by the Government might at first bt
heavily drawn upon; but to what endf The
Gold so drawn would not be annihilated ahC
precious little of it would go out of the cOun
try; for prices would fall and Importation
be light for some time after Resumption
Those who drew the gold from the Treasury
would not annihilate it; when they found that
they had not broken the Government, they
would very soon want to set it to earning them
something. Being just equal in value to Green
backs or National Bank notes, and not half
so convenient for business uses, it would either
run back into the Treasury or find its way
into the Banks, which. being authorized to Day