Year: 1871

From the Washington Patriot.
Return to Specie Payment.


The following bill was introduced in the
House on the 18th inst, by Mr.. Merrick, OF
Maryland, and referred to the Committee on
Banking and Currency:


AN ACT regulating the mode of payment of du-


ties on imports and equaliZing the value Of


Treasury notes.


Sec l. Be it enacted by the Senate and House
of Representatives of the United States. OF
America, in Congress assembled, That from
and after the passage of this act all Treasury
notes of the United States shall be receivable
in payment of duties on imports in the same
manner and upon like footing as they are now
authorized by Law to be received in payment
of any other debt or obligation due to the
United States.


The foregoing bill is the short and direct
road to the resumption of specie payment
Many of our sound thinking public men have
been indisposed to advocate resumption Of
specie payment, because they believe such
result could not be accomplished without in
voIvlng a contraction of the volume of the
currency to ALI extent that would be embar-
RAISING and hazardous to our various CONNER
cal enterprises. The amount of currency is
not greater than the demands of commerce
and trade require, and We should hesitate to
commend any measure which would either
directly or Indirectly diminish that amount at
the present time. The process by which this
bill proposes to restore the country to con-
stitutional currency will enlarge instead OF
contracting its volume, by bringing into ac-
tive circulation the gold now boarded in the
vaults of the Federal Treasury, and like a.
mount in private hands.


The only depreciation which to-day exists
is the depreciation which the Government it.
self creates, and continually enforces, by a re-
fusal to receive its own notes at par. How
ever unsound the latest decision of the Su-
preme Court may be-that it is competent for
the Government to make its notes legal
|tender-still, while that decision stands for
law, the glaring injustice of the Government
|depreciating the very paper which it forces
every citizen to receive in payment of bis
debts, and in all commercial transactions,
must force itself upon every mind. Let the
Government give full credit to its own issues,
and all men will, with one accord, give them
|equal credit. So long as there is an artificial
discrimination made, and an arbitrary de-
mand for concentrating all the specie Of the
country at the Custom House Of New York,
and for boarding it in the Treasury, it will Of
necessity command prsum over legal ten-
der notes, and the instant that constraint is
removed paper and gold will be of equal value.


The pretext that the Government requires
tod snk k0 Ia
to meet the gold interest on the public debt,
is mauifestly fallacious, for if the Treasury
notes are at par with gold, the Government
can, of course, pay either in gold or Treasury
notes its gold interest. No creditor, foreign
or domestic, would refuse to receive Treasury
notes for bis interest if they were of equal
value with gold, and any one electing to take
gold could, of course, draw it. as the Govern
ment having paper or gold indiscriminately
at command, would have his choice gratified
without Cost. But granting that the imme-
diate effect of the measure would not be to
raise the notes absolutely to par with gold.
the difference in value would be trivial, and
the Government could readily 60 into the
market and purchase the gold at a very small
premium. The whole gold interest upon the
public debt is not far from one hundred and
twenty millions per anuum. Assuming that
the difference in the market value of gold and
paper should be as much as five per cent,
this would require ouly six millions of paper
to be paid as a premium for the requisite a.
mount of gold. The Government is now, at
the expense Of the commercial interest of the
country, making profit by selling its sur
plus gold aud trading upon the misfurtunes
of the people. How much better to subject
itself, it need be, to small abatement of the
surplus which it applies to the extinguish-
ment of the national debt in order to accom-
plish result for which the material interest
of the whole country is thrsting, aud for the
non-attainmeut of which the honor and good
faith of the nation are arraigned before the
civilized world.


1t is not because it cannot and ought not to
be done that it has not long since been done.
But tie discrimination against its own paper
by the Government under the pretence of ne
cessity to provide for its gold interest on the
national debt is only an artful device to main
tain and to enhance the present enormously
high tariff by the addition to the nominal du-
ties of all that excess which can be created by
a premium upon gold.


For example, the duty upon given article
is fifty dollars, required to be paid in gold,
and the gold premium being fourteen per
cent. then the real duty is ifty-seven dollars
instead of fifty, or an addition of fourteen per
cent. to the nominal duty. Again, the bond
holders, like the tariff men, are interested in
keeping up the discrimination in rates, for,
instead Of realizing sixty dollars interest upon
his thousand dollar bond, he receives $68 40.
Let us do full justice to the bond-holder-let
us pay the last dollar to which the national
faith is pledged, and let us pay it in gold and
silver; but let US not so pay as to pay more
than ought justly to be paid. Let them have
no unjust discrimination in their favor. But
let the faith of the nation be proven equal and
perfect to all men, aud especially to the labor-
ing classes of the country, so oppressed and
borne down by the monopoizing manufactnr-
ing, and bond d-holding and moneyed capital
lists. The Democratic party wars against mo-
nopoly and oppression in every form and un-
der every disguise. 1t is the true and only
friend of the people and of the laborins classes,
and, in the interests Of labor and Of the peo-
pie, its mission is to expose and resist all tyran


ny of government, all injustice of monopoliz-
ing capitalists, and to maintain the integrity
of the Constitution, and the equal rights of
the people. In the mission which lies before
it, one of the first familiar steps is the restor-
alton of the constitutional currency-gold and
silver-an achievement easy, simple, and eer-
!%-s- ~, f,.l -,