Year: 1875

tlon. 1t will be greatly to be regretted if
the necessary measures are not adopted
now, for no future day is likely to be more
favorable. Values are shrunk so enor-
mously as to make it doubtful whether
they would be further contracted by re-
sumption of specie payments. The busi-
ness of the country is SO reduced in vol
ume as to render large amount of the
circulation redundant and useless; and it
is believed that the government might
safely commence now to accumulate coin
and gradually to withdraw its circulating
notes, continuing to do so without inter-
ruption until the difference in value be-
tween them and specie, as currency,
should vanish 1t is the most simple
mode. and the only one by which per-
manent resumption can be effected. In
deed, believe that nearly all the compli-
cations by which the financial question is
confused are the fruit of theories and nos
trums, which have no solid foundation in
experience and are calculated to defeat the
very object they are intended to accom-
plish.


1t is cause for deep regret and mortifi-
cation on the part ofevery patriotic citizen
who is not misled by theoretical fallacies
that we have remained so long in open vio-
lation OF our pledge to provide for the re-
demption of our outstanding obligations in
coin, and that we allow our credit to con-
tinue degraded below tthe universal stan
dard. There is nothing in the condition
of the country to justify it. Our immense
power Of production, which has been unim-
paired, Notwithstanding the calamities of
a destructive intestine war, would have
fn
obligations in the only legitimate medium
of payment. The delay is discreditable to
our character as nation, burdensome to
our industry and disadvantageous to US in
our exchanges with foreign states. 1t has
expelled our coin, discouraged immiera-
ton, and is constantly tending to make re-
sumption more embarrassing by degrading
our paper currency still further below the
specie standard. Our legal tender notes
are less valuable than they we're
year ago.. All these considerations pre-
sent the strongest argument in favor
of the earliest possible abandonment of a
destructive policy-a policy not even ad-
vantageOus to the specializing and selfish
interests through the influence of which
it is to some extent, maintained The
debtor interest of the country, as is we'll
known, has been very largely in favor of
initiating the currency still further No
measure could be more fatal to those who
advocate it with the hope of paying their
debts in cheaper money. 1t would be the
signal for the immediate collection of all
private obligations overdue. including
bonds and mortgages; for no creditor
would permit his debt to remain unpaid
while the currency made by law a legal
tender was in rapid course of depreciation
as it would be by adding to its volume.


The delay in repeating the Legal Ten
der act-an act which compels a man to
accept deprecated paper in payment
of debts due him--is equality discredt-
able to us. 1t has never had a shadow
OF justification except as war measure
Even as such its constitutionlity was
doubtful. As a measure OF necessity it
is equally questionable. 1t is believed by
many of the most sagacious thinkers and
experienced Gnanciers that If Congress
had embodied in every law borrowing
money provision to raise by tax sut-
t;cient amount to pay the interest, the
Legal Tender act would have been kept
within narrower bounds Be this as it
may, the act violates a principle Of political
justice which all communities are bound
to respect. 1t permits to the federal
government what it profits to the States
as an act of turpitude If such meas


ure was justified by the exigencies of war


the justification would cease with the re
storation of peace; and yet it has been


enforced for ten years in defiance of the
clearest maxims of private right and
public justice.