Year: 1878




1t was said of the great Lord Mansfield
that his statement was as good as any other
able mans argument. Mr.. Edmunds is en-
titled to similar praise by the admirable
substitute which he has offered for the sill
yer resolution of Stanley Matthews which
is so warmly debated in the Senate. The
preambles of Senator Edmunds' bill for
his substitute is in the form of a bill, and
not of n concurrent res0lution) consist OF
recital of facts so lucid and so we'll con-
nected that they should convince all fair
minds that the view of the silver champions
is delusion. The Matthews resolution is
intended as forerunner Of the Bland Silver
would be q mere declaration OF opinion
without binding force but its passage by
the Senate would so commit the Senators
voting for it as to remove all doubt as to
their vote on the Bland bill. Mr. Edmunds
by his substitute, which is offered as an
amendment to the Matthews resolution,
will get beforehand with Mr.. Matthews in
bringing the question to test, since in the
order of proceedings the amendment will
be voted on in advance of the vote on the
concurrent resolution. There will, indeed,
be no parliamentary advantage in making
the proposed substitute the test beyond the
fact that Mr.. Edmunds' propositions are so
clear that no Senator can vote for OF against
them without full perception of their
meaning. There is no part of Senator
Edmunds' statements which can be sue
cessfully disputed, and it will require
great deal more squirming for Senators who
are not yet fully committed to vote against
thews resolution.


The Stanley Matthews resolution sets
out with distorted statement Of the legal
position of silver at the time the public
debt was contracted, the substance Of 1t
being that gold and silver then stood on
precisely the same legal footing, and that
the promise of the government TO pay coin
would be kept by paying either silver or
gold. Mr.. Edmunds, instead of advancing
mere legal fiction, recites the actual state
Of the law. In the first place he asserts
from the records of the Mint that only





been coined since the foundation Of
the government The insignifcance of
this amount, as compared with the total
gold coinage, is, of itself proof that the
government never intended that silver
should play au equal part with gold in the
discharge of money. obligations. 1t has
been the steady practice Of the government
to coin silver for small transactions and
gold in altogether larger quantities, and it
of course intended to discharge it's heavy
obligations in the kind of money 1t pro-
vided for that purpose. Mr.. Edmunds
does not draw this inference, which is so OBJ
vious that it sufficed to state the fact that
only eight million of silver dollars have
ever been coined.


The second fact set forth by Mr..
Edmunds is that the silver dollar Of the
United States had become SO absolutely
obsolete that it did not exist at the time Of
making any of the existing public loans.
Mr.. Edmunds wisely leaves this pregnant
fact also to tell its own story, forbearing to
draw the inference which it obviously sug-
gests. Those who vote against his substi-
tute will have to give square and direct
vote against undeniable historical facts. It
will not be an easy thing even for the silver
lunatics to fly in the face Of history, and
vote that silver dollars were in use in this
country at the time the bonded debt was
contracted. But our gold coin has never
fallen into disuse. By requiring the whole
TO 1,a 81 ko1
in gold the government has maintained an
active relation between its fiscal operations
and coined money, but none Of that coined
money was silver. The silver dollar having
long been obsolete as n fact the Coinage
law of 1878 recognized that fact 1t did not
demonetize silver which had been done
long before by ceasing to coin it, but merely
adjusted the Mint regulations to the exist
ing practice. The reason why this part Of
the law of 1873 attracted no attention at the
time was that it made no real change, silver
dollars having gone completely out of use
long time before. Tho proper inference from
this fact is that when the government engaged
to pay coin after having discarded silver
dollars, of which it never coined but u small
amount, neither party to the contract could
have understood the word coin to mean any,
thing but gold.


Mr.. Edmunds asserts that the holders of
government securities have n right to ex-
pect that, however the government may
change its laws, it will not put its creditors
in worse condition'than existed for them
Mt the time the contract was entered into.
This is as undeniable as principle of
of the silver dollar at the time the bonds
were sold is indisputable as fact. Can
Senators nationally vote against SO plain a
principle? Is it not true that government
has no moral right to SO change its laws as