Joint Commission on the Monetary System.

Mr. Cox.  By instruction of the Committee on Banking and Currency I now report the concurrent resolution of which I gave notice this morning.  I wish both of these measures to go to the country together.  I call the previous question on the passage of this concurrent resolution.

The concurrent resolution was read, as follows:

Resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring,) That a commission is hereby authorized and constituted to consist of three senators, to be appointed by the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, to be appointed by the Speaker, and experts, not exceeding three in number, to be selected by and associated with them, with authority to determine the time and place of meeting, and to take evidence;  and whose duty it shall be to inquire---

First, into the change which has taken place in the relative value of gold and silver;  the causes thereof;  whether permanent or otherwise;  the effects thereof upon trade, commerce, and the productive interests of the country, finance, and upon the standard of value in this and foreign countries;

Second, into the policy of the restoration of the double standard in this country, and, if restored, what the legal relation between the two coins, silver and gold, should be;

Third, into the policy of continuing legal-tender notes concurrently with the metallic standards, and the effects thereof upon the labor, industry, and wealth of the country;  and

Fourth, into the policy and best means of providing for facilitating the resumption of specie payments.

And said commission is authorized to employ a stenographer, and shall report on or before the 15th day of January, 1877, with the evidence taken by them and such recommendations for legislation as they may deem proper.

Mr. Bland.  Mr. Speaker, it was not my desire to postpone action on this resolution.  What I have done here to-day seems to have been done under a misapprehension.  I had supposed there was an intention to press this resolution to a vote without debate.

Mr. Speaker, I desire to make some remarks on this question.  We have a resolution here reported by the Committee on Banking and Currency looking to the postponement of the bill that I had the honor to report to this House from the Committee on Mines and Mining.  It does not necessarily work that postponement.  But when the act was passed demonetizing silver there was no such provision as this;  no commission, no jury was asked upon the question whether silver should be demonetized or not.  But it was done stealthily.  Now after that act has been passed in a stealthy manner we are asked to pass a resolution of inquiry whether that act was proper or improper.  This is in the character of mob law.  You hang a man and then try him to ascertain whether or not he was guilty.  You have demonetized silver, and now you appoint a jury to see whether that act was proper or improper.  That is the position that this resolution occupies with reference to that question.

I say it is the duty of this House first to restore the currency where it existed and then appoint your commission to ascertain whether it is proper or not to repeal that law.  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] characterized this legislation, proposition to remonetize silver, as being the most corrupt that had occurred in this Congress during his official career.  I suppose that the gentleman from Ohio had forgotten some of the legislation here during his official career in this House.  I suppose he had forgotten the act of 1869, an act that he voted for, changing the contract in the interest of the money-sharks of this country and against the people, by which they were swindled out of millions and millions of money.  I suppose the gentleman had not in his recollection at that time the Credit Mobilier swindles and frauds in this country.  I apprehend the gentleman had forgotten the fraud and corruption of the Boss Shepherd ring in the District of Columbia.  If the gentleman does not recollect all these frauds, the country recollects them.

Mr. Bland.  When I have made no personal allusion reflecting on the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Garfield,] I want to know why his friends are so tender on the subject.  Do they know anything against him which comes within the category which leads them to squirm here ?  I have not charged anything against the gentleman from Ohio excepting that he had forgotten that corrupt legislation had occurred here during the time when his party was in power.  Is there anything else you remember, gentlemen, that will make my language out of order ?  If so, state it;  I want to know why this commotion and whence it comes.  When a gentleman rises on this floor and reports from a committee a bill that involves a principle that is stigmatized by the gentleman from Ohio as being steeped in rascalities, and as being more so than any measure which had been introduced here during his official career;  when that is done, have not I the right to call the attention of the country to what occurred while he was in office, to show that corruption after corruption occurred here while he was a member ?  And, Mr. Speaker, I think I am in order and that is the trouble with the gentleman.

The bill I reported is a measure in the interest of the honest yeomanry of this country;  here is a measure that proposes to do justice, to whom ?  To the toiling millions who are to-day earning their bread in the sweat of their face;  it is a measure in the interest of the poor and common people of the country, and hence it excites the opposition of the agents of the money sharks in these lobbies, and those who seem to be in their interest upon this floor.  Because a measure is for once reported to this Congress that has within it a provision for the welfare of the people of the country against the corrupt legislation that has gone on here for the last sixteen years in the interest of the moneyed lords, it is here denounced as full of rascalities, and all this by the party that had perpetrated these injustices and brought corruption, fraud, infamy, and dishonor upon the country.

Mr. Speaker, if I did not know that a majority of this House was in favor of this bill I would not hesitate in saying that we were misrepresentatives of the American people;  but because the majority here favor this bill and because they will pass it if it can ever come to a vote, those that are in the interest of the lobbyists have been filibustering and endeavoring to defeat it from day to day.

Mr. Speaker, the common people of the country cannot come to this Capitol.  They are not here in your lobby.  They are at home following the plow, cultivating the soil, or working in their workshops.  It is the silvern and golden slippers of the money kings, the bankers and financiers, whose step is heard in these lobbies and who rule the finances of the country.  They are the men who get access to your committees, and have ruled and controlled the legislation of this country for their own interests.  If the constituents of those who are opposing this measure could look down from the galleries upon them, they would sink in their seats with shame for the course they are pursuing, because it is adverse to the interests of their people.

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Mines and Mining, I have reported back to this House the following bill, and shall at the earliest opportunity allowed me put it upon its passage:

A bill (H.R. No. 3635) to utilize the product of gold and silver mines, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That coin-notes of the denomination of $50, and multiples thereto up to $10,000, may, in the mode hereinafter provided, be paid by the several mints and assay offices at San Francisco, Carson City, Philadelphia, and New York, for the net value of gold and silver bullion deposited thereat;  and of the bullion thus received not less than 75 per cent. in coin or fine bars shall at all times be kept on hand for redemption of the coin-notes, gold for gold, and silver for silver.  The gold deposited shall be computed at its coining value, and silver at the rate of 412.8 grains standard silver to the dollar, less the lawful mint charges, and such charge for transportation from the several assay offices to the mints for coinage, and from the latter to the assistant treasuries respectively at which the coin-notes shall be payable;  and there shall be coined at the mints of the United States the silver dollar hereinbefore mentioned.

Sec. 2.  That for bullion deposited at the mints of San Francisco and Carson the coin-notes issued shall be redeemable on demand at the assistant treasury at San Francisco;  and for bullion deposited at the Philadelphia Mint and assay office at New York the notes shall be redeemed at the assistant treasury at New York.

Sec. 3.  That the Secretary of the Treasury shall from time to time cause coin and fine mint-bars (stamped) to be transferred from the mint to the assistant treasuries at San Francisco and New York in such amounts as may be necessary for the redemption of the coin-notes.

Sec. 4.  That the coin-notes issued under the provisions of this act shall be receivable without limit for all dues to the United States;  and the coin mentioned in this act shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private, not specified to be paid in gold coin.

Sec. 5.  That the gold-coin notes issued under this act shall be redeemed on presentation in gold coin or fine bars, and silver in silver dollars or fine bars.

Sec. 6.  That the coin notes authorized by this act shall be issued shall be prepared under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, and shall be transferred to the mints and assay offices named in this act as a part of the bullion fund, and from which fund deposits shall be paid for in coin or coin notes at the option of the depositor.

Sec. 7.  That the fine gold and silver bars by this act authorized to be issued shall bear the mint stamp of fineness, weight, and value, and the value of the gold bars shall be computed according to their coining rate and the silver bars at their coining value in dollars.

Sec. 8.  That the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe the necessary regulations for carrying into effect the provisions of this act.

This bill is of vast importance to the tax-payers of this country, for they are the debtor class to the Government.

The first section of the bill, as will be observed, provides for the payment by the Government certificates for bullion of gold and silver.  Twenty-five per cent. of this bullion or coin arising therefrom is required to be at all times in the Treasury for the redemption of the coin certificates, gold for gold, and silver for silver.  It also authorizes the coining of the silver dollar of the value of 412.8 grains silver to a dollar.

The second section of the bill names the places where these deposits shall be made and certificates issued.  San Francisco, Carson City, Philadelphia, and the assay office at New York are the only places as stated by Dr. Linderman, the Director of the Mint, where the parting of metals is provided for.

The third section refers to the details of providing for the redemption of these certificates.  They are in this section made redeemable either in bars or in coin.  This would be at the option of the Government.

The fourth section contains the pith of the whole bill;  that is, restoring the money character of silver and making the silver dollar authorized in the first section to be coined a legal tender for all debts, public and private, not specified to be paid in gold.  The remainder of the act refers merely to the details of carrying out the law.

The effect of the bill will be to restore the double standard of gold and silver, and also to obviate the objections so often urged against gold as well as silver, that as money, from the weight and bulk of the metal, they are inconvenient, for the coin certificates will take the place of and be used for business transactions instead of the coin itself.

Mr. Speaker, this is a short outline of the bill, a hasty explanation of the purposes intended in framing it.  By the terms of the bill we at once establish a convenient paper issue that will be used instead of coin, worth its face in coin, for the coin is always behind it for its redemption.  But the opponents of the bill say that to make all Government debts payable in silver as well as gold is dishonesty, repudiation, and ought not to be tolerated.  These are grave charges, and if true the bill should not receive the sanction of this House;  but if I can show that those who make the charge are the guilty parties, and the friends of the bill only desire to act in good faith toward the debtor class, the tax-payers, and the creditor class or tax-consumer, then the bill should pass at once and become a law.  In the first place, the enemies of the bill have been the loudest in their demand for specie resumption.  What is resumption of specie payments if it is not to resume the currency of the Government existing at the time of the suspension of specie payment ?  What was that currency ?  The answer is, gold and silver.  That is a fact that none deny.  The silver dollar at that time was as full and complete a legal tender for all demands, public and private, as was the gold dollar.

The silver dollar was, and continued to be, equal to gold as the money of the country, and is so by law up to the present time except for the act of February, 1873, which prohibited the coining of the legal-tender silver dollar.  This act was passed no doubt for the same reason and at the instance of the same parties that procured the passage of the act of 1869 pledging the faith of the nation to pay all its obligations in coin.  Both acts were in the interest of stock-jobbers and speculators in Government bonds.

Mr. Speaker, I send to the Clerk's desk to have read the act of 1869 referred to.

The Clerk read as follows:

That in order to remove any doubt as to the purpose of the government to discharge all just obligations to the public creditors, and to settle conflicting questions and interpretations of the laws by virtue of which such obligations have been contracted, it is hereby provided and declared that the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin or its equivalent of all the obligations of the United States not bearing interest, known as United States notes, and of all the interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except in cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money or other currency than gold and silver.  But none of said interest-bearing obligations not already due shall be redeemed or paid before maturity unless at such time United States notes shall be convertible into coin at the option of the holder, or unless at such time bonds of the United States bearing a lower rate of interest than the bonds to be redeemed can be sold at par in coin.  And the United States also solemnly pledges its faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of the United States notes in coin.

Mr. Bland.  This act does not make clear what was uncertain.  It defines no law.  The act professes to define and make clear some obscure statute.  Instead of making clear the intent or meaning of any law, it attempts to make that law which was not law before.  It clearly perpetrated the fraud of changing the contract between the tax-payer and the tax-consumer in the interest of the latter.  I incorporate in my remarks a statement and the figures taken from the Saint Louis Republican, a journal known throughout the country as a hardmoney advocate;  a journal that I think would deal equitably as between the bondholder and the people:

What the Bonds sold For.

During the war and just after its close the Government issued a great amount of bonds of various kinds, which, as we learn from the Treasury record of transactions, were sold at "par."  But this record is very delusive, and in the sale of the bonds referred to hides enormous losses.  The bonds were sold not for gold at par, but for greenbacks at par which is a widely different thing.  For example, a one-thousand-dollar Government bond sold at par in 1865, when gold was 145, brought only $700 in gold value; and as the interest on that bond has been faithfully paid in gold ever since, and the principal itself will be paid in gold, it is to be considered that for this debt of $1,000 the Government received only $700.  The higher the price of gold at the time an issue of bonds was disposed of, the less value the Government received for the bonds, although they were sold at par in greenbacks, as the deceptive Treasury reports inform us.  An approximately accurate calculation of the net result of these sales of bonds gives us another illustration of what republican financiering has cost us, and it deserves to be presented and placed to the account of that party.

The various issues of bonds and other forms of indebtedness issued in 1863 amounted in the aggregate to $552,595,000;  they were sold at par for greenbacks when gold was worth 155, and greenbacks only 61.  They therefore brought to the Government in gold value only $337,082,910.  In 1864 the 10/40 bonds, $196,000,000 in amount, were issued and sold at 7 per cent. premium, the only bonds issued during the war that brought a premium.  As gold at that time was worth 230, the 7 per cent. premium reduces this to 227;  the gold value of the price brought by the ten-forties therefore was forty-four cents on the dollar, or $86,240,000 for the whole issue.  In the same year there were issued of bonds and other forms of indebtedness $130,000,000, which sold for a gold value of forty-three cents on the dollar, making $55,900,000.  In 1865 there were issued bonds to the amount of $551,300,000, which were sold for seventy cents in gold, making $385,910,000.  In 1867 there were issued $380,000,000 of bonds, which sold for eighty-three cents, making $315,400,000.  In 1868 there were issued $42,500,000 of bonds, which brought seventy-three cents, making $31,025,000.  To sum up:

1863, $552,595,000 bonds at 61 .................. $337,082,910
1864, 196,000,000 bonds at 44 .................... 86,240,000
1864, 130,000,000 bonds at 43 .................... 55,900,000
1865, 551,300,000 bonds at 70 ....................... 385,910,000
1867, 380,000,000 bonds at 83 .................... 315,400,000
1868, 42,500,000 bonds at 73 ........................ 31,025,000
$1,852,395,000 ..................................................... $1,211,557,910

The debt of $1,852,395,000 therefore represents only $1,211,557,910 received by the Government, or an average price of about 66 cents on the dollar.  This is what the Treasury reports call negotiating loans "at par;"  it is a par sale of bonds that has cost the people a loss of $640,837,000, or one-third the whole amount of bonds issued.

The tax-consumers seem not satisfied with this enormous tax, but desire now to repudiate so much of the act of 1869 as provides for paying this debt in silver as well as gold.  Nothing but gold will satiate their financial maw.  The people of this country are now fully aroused on the question of finance.  They are looking for the cause of the wide-spread bankruptcies and business failures in the country.  They cannot fail to see that the demonetization of this precious metal, thus cutting off more than one-half the medium of coin payments and exchange, is the greatest calamity that could be conceived.

Mr. Speaker, now that this question is open for fair discussion and settlement we should make no mistake, no compromise that would further favor the tax-consumer and oppress the tax-payer.  Many schemes are suggested, among others that silver should be a legal tender only for small amounts of $20 or $50;  but this would be conceding all.  Should we now do this it would be claimed hereafter that Congress had after full discussion and mature deliberation abandoned the idea of making silver a full payment of public dues, that for the future, contracts and sales of all Government securities would be based upon this legislation, and to alter it would be a violation of public faith and honor.  Let it be settled once at least in the interest of those who have the burdens to bear.

Let this bill become a law and our financial troubles are ended.  Specie payments will have been resumed.  The resumption of specie payments must mean that we resume the coin that prevailed when we suspended.  This coin was gold and silver, both a full and equal legal tender for all debts, public and private.  Our legal-tender notes could be redeemed and their places supplied by a note based on specie.  We would have a monetary system that would regulate itself;  a system that would not depend for its volume or value upon the uncertain and partisan legislation of Congress.  The power that Congress assumes now to expand, contract, and thus from session to session unsettle all monetary affairs is an evil that, sooner or later, will bring the people of this country to the helpless condition of mere slaves of the money lords and plutocrats that rule the legislation here all the time in their own interest.  They have had their paid agents, lobbyists, and hired attorneys here in these halls and corridors scheming session after session for the last fifteen years, and by all manner of appliances have succeeded, as I have shown, in robbing the people of millions of dollars.  Yes, Mr. Speaker, by the one act of 1869 it is shown that the Government was robbed of over a half billion of dollars.

Let us settle this question once and forever and give the people an opportunity to attend to other matters than watching to see how much will be plundered from them by each succeeding Congress.  Silver is the money of the Constitution.  Section 10, first article, says:

No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.

Thus silver is mentioned as a part of the coin money of the Constitution.  Article 1, section 6, of the Constitution reserves to the Federal Government the sole right to coin money.  No State can do it.  So the power to coin money is given to the General Government.  States are prohibited from making anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender.  Now, can a State make gold and silver coin a legal tender when the State is prohibited from coining money at all ?  The answer is in the sixth section named.  The Federal Government has the power to coin it.  The State can make this coin a legal tender.  It therefore becomes the duty of the Federal Government to coin this money so that the States may make and use it as a legal tender.  The States have the right to make silver a legal tender, but cannot coin it.  Now, can their constitutional right be exercised unless the Federal Government exercises its exclusive power of coining the money ?  This bill fulfills the obligation the Federal Government owes to the States, the obligation of coining the money they may desire to use as a legal tender.

I have shown that silver is the money of the Constitution, that it is the duty of the Government to coin it.  There is no mistake that the silver dollar has been a full legal-tender from the formation of the Government till the fraudulent act of 1873.  Then it is the duty of Congress to coin it and pay Government debts with it.  Title 37, page 70, section 3513, is as follows:

The silver coins of the United States shall be a trade-dollar, a half dollar or fifty-cent piece, a quarter dollar or twenty-five-cent piece, a dime or ten-cent piece;  and the weight of the trade-dollar shall be four hundred and twenty grains troy;  the weight of the half dollar shall be twelve grains and one-half of a grain;  the quarter dollar and the dime shall be respectively one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half-dollar.

Section 3516 is as follows:

No coins, whether of gold, silver or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the Mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights set forth in this title.

The gold coins of the United States shall be a one-dollar piece, which, at the standard weight of 25.8 grains, shall be the unit of value, &c.

Page 712, Revised Statutes, section 3586, is as follows:

The silver coins of the United States shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding $5 in any one payment.

These provisions are all taken from the coinage act of 12th February, 1873.  The effect of these sections is:  first, by section 3511 the gold dollar is made the unit of value;  the gold standard is here declared.  Section 3513 provides for the coining of the trade-dollar and subsidiary currency and section 3516 prohibits the coining any other than the coin mentioned in the title.  So that the silver dollar of 412.5 grains that had been a full legal tender up to the date of this act was left out.  Section 3586 permits the legal tender of silver coin to sums of $5.

This act of February 12, 1873, was a fraud, because its title gave no clew to the real intent of the act.  The record shows that the act was stealthily passed, without consideration and without debate.  The public generally had no notice of the pendency of such a bill, and it was not till during this session of Congress the law was unearthed and exposed.

Mr. Speaker, when will the time come that mistakes and blunders will creep into our statutes favorable to the tax-paying people ?  All such oversights heretofore have uniformly been in the interest of the tax-consumer.  Let this law be repealed as openly, as honestly, and boldly as it was stealthily, fraudulently, and sneakingly enacted.  With the double standard, which will utilize our product of silver as well as gold, we can resume specie payments without detriment to any class.  Indeed the question of resumption hinges upon this policy.  With this bill enacted into law resumption is at once accomplished;  but if we are to undertake resumption with the gold standard alone, the money sharks will foreclose the mortgages they have upon the people, sell them out of houses and homes, and turn millions of hard-working and industrious people into beggars.  The road to resumption with the double standard will be one of prosperity and happiness;  the other leads to a dark and dismal financial swamp, through the impenetrable gloom of which the eye of no statesman can discern the least glimmer of light.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard objections to that feature of the bill authorizing the issue of coin certificates, that the mints could not coin the silver fast enough to redeem these certificates and that to receive them for Government dues would result in having a large amount of silver bullion and certificates on hand, neither of which would be a legal tender for dues of the Government.  The answer is, no one would demand the coin or bullion;  no one would desire the payment of a thousand or a hundred thousand dollars in silver or gold, but would willingly take the certificate from the Government instead of the coin.  Practically no coin except for small change under fifty dollars would be called for or used, so that feature is in favor of the bill and not a valid objection to it.  Another objection urged is that it is not clear that the Government would get the benefit of the seigniorage or expense of coining;  but the bill provides all the expense of coining and transportation shall be paid by the depositor.

I here submit a letter from Dr. Linderman, Director of the Mint.  I sent him a copy of the bill and requested his answer on the subject.  The letter explains this matter satisfactorily.  The bill in other particulars has been amended so as to conform to all the recommendations contained in this letter.  The letter is as follows:

Treasury Department
Office of the Director of the Mint,
May 26, 1876.

Sir:  I have your note of current date inclosing bill H.R. No. 3363, and reply to your inquiries, as follows:

By the coining value of gold is meant the rate at which it is coined under the law, namely, 25.8 grains troy, nine-tenths fine to the dollar.  The alloy is paid for by the depositor, but is not valued in the coin.

The nominal value of the gold coins corresponds with their intrinsic or bullion value;  there is, therefore, no gain in value in the coinage.  The foregoing is an answer to your inquiries.

As the parting of bullion (separation of gold from silver, both metals being returned in fine bars) is carried on only at the mints in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Carson, and at the assay office in New York, it will be necessary to confine the provisions of your bill to those institutions.  Otherwise fine gold could not be kept for the redemption of the notes at the place of deposit.

I have noted in pencil on the bill the required modifications.

I observe that the value of the silver is to be computed at the trade-dollar rate, 420 grains to the dollar.

I suggest for your consideration whether the computation should not be made on the basis of 412.8 grains of standard silver to the dollar, a bill for the coinage of a dollar of that weight being now under consideration in the Senate.

I make this suggestion without in any way committing myself to the making of either of these dollars an unlimited tender.  Your bill is herewith returned.

Very respectfully, H.R. Linderman, Director.

Hon. R.P. Bland.

With the vast mining resources of this country, turning out annually silver and gold to the amount of many millions of dollars, increased by developments made daily in the Pacific States and Territories, there is no difficulty in resuming specie payments by utilizing the silver, but if the money sharks of the country prevent this, we may expect difficulties not now dreamed of.  If we have the right to demonetize silver, we have the right to demonetize gold.  This will be the logical result.  For when we refuse the one it will lead to the refusal of the other, and the substitution of paper in which Government bonds will be paid, and thus lead to unlimited inflation.

The question is here presented of honest resumption or on the other hand a forced unlimited inflation of paper money.  Let the bondholder ponder this well before refusing silver as a legal coin in this country.  It is true that silver is now worth even less than the legal-tenders, but this is because of its demonetization in a great measure;  but the fact that silver is cheaper than gold, does not alter the law of the case.  By law we have the right to pay at our option in silver or gold, so that we but exercise a moral, legitimate right when we pay in silver, the cheaper money.  That is the contract;  that is the law, so expressed in the act of 1869.  If the people have found a legal way of averting to some extent the injustice of this act, it is a providential interposition that they will hail with rejoicing.  We have promised to pay the debt in coin.  Silver is coin, legal coin, the coin named in the law "nominated in the bond."  Because silver is now cheaper than gold, should we again change the contract and say the tax-payer must pay in gold alone, would be robbery, nothing more, nothing less.  We have had too much of legalized robbery and plunder of this sort.  Let us call a halt, pass this bill, and for once do justice to a poverty-stricken, over-taxed people.  If A promised ten years ago to pay B a thousand dollars in wheat, at the end of ten years could B refuse the wheat because it had fallen in price and was worth fifteen cents a bushel less now than when the contract was made ?  No, sir;  the law would compel him to stand to his contract.  So should the bondholder.  The bonds were made payable in coin, gold and silver coin, not gold alone, but gold and silver, leaving the Government the right to elect whether to pay in the one or the other or both.

The bill I have reported is, I think, well guarded and carefully drawn, and I shall use every effort to pass it or some other that will answer the same purpose.  To this end I shall use every honorable exertion.  I know the bondholding interest represented on this floor has been filibustering it for two weeks and may delay it till next winter;  but I have the satisfaction of knowing that a majority of this House favor it and will hail the day when they can be brought to a vote upon it.

Mr. Kasson.  As the gentleman from New York does not wish to proceed further in the discussion of this question I shall content myself with some brief observations.  In the assault which has been made upon the coinage act of 1873 many gross misstatements have been uttered.  It is due to the gentlemen who were connected with that act, which is charged to have been surreptitiously passed, that the facts in relation to it should be distinctly stated.

The records of the Treasury Department show that the coinage act of 1873 was first transmitted to the Forty-first Congress by the Department accompanied by a report.  On the 25th of April, 1870, it was introduced into the Senate by Senator Sherman and printed on April 28.  It was reported from the Committee on Finance to the Senate, after seven months, on the 19th of December, 1870, and again printed, with amendments.  It passed the Senate on the l0th of January, 1871, and went to the House, and was printed by order of the House on the 13th of January, 1871.  On the 25th of February, 1871, it was again brought before this House by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] not now in his seat, who reported it back from the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures (of which he was chairman) with an amendment in the nature of a substitute.  It was again printed and recommitted.  That same gentleman again introduced the bill in the Forty-second Congress, and after considerable discussion it was again recommitted, and was not again considered in the House, as it appears, until the next session.  On the 9th of February, 1872, it was reported from the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures by Mr. Hooper, and printed and recommitted.  On the 13th of February, 1872, the bill was reported back by Mr. Hooper with amendments and made a special order for the 12th of March and until disposed of.  And the bill finally passed the House May 27, 1872, upon a division, ayes 110, noes 13.

The bill then went to the Senate, and was ordered to be printed, and on May 29, 1872, was referred to the Committee on Finance.  It was again reported back to the Senate in December, 1872, ordered to be printed and recommitted, reported back, with amendment, January 7, 1873 and passed that body on January 17, 1873.  It was sent to the House again for concurrence in the Senate amendments on January 21, 1873.  On motion of Mr. Hooper the bill was again ordered to be printed with the Senate amendments, and a committee of conference was ordered upon the disagreeing votes of the two Houses.  That committee reported;  and the bill finally became a law as the result of the report of the committee of conference February 12, 1873.

This is the "surreptitious" bill of which we have heard so much.  Hardly ever has a bill been so thoroughly considered by the two Houses.

Now in the face of facts like these, when the chairman of a committee of this House has made such charges as we have just listened to, I inquire if this House will indorse the report of that committee with any confidence in their investigation without further inquiry into the facts connected with this subject.

Mr. Holman.  The original bill was simply a bill to organize a bureau of mines and coinage.  The bill which finally passed the House and which ultimately became a law was certainly not read in this House.

Mr. Kasson.  I differ entirely with the gentleman, having given the history from the record.

Mr. Bland.  Will the gentleman allow me to read the Record, to show that the bill passed the House without reading when Mr. Kerr called for its reading.

Mr. Kasson.  The gentleman speaks of the final passage of the bill on the conference report ?

Mr. Bland.  I have the Congressional Globe here to show that it was not read.

Mr. Kasson.  Does the gentleman deny the facts as I have now stated them ?

Mr. Holman.  It was not read on the day of its passage.

Mr. Kasson.  It came into the House here and was discussed and was committed and recommitted and ordered to be printed and reprinted about eleven times in both Houses, and was considered in both branches of Congress and in conference committee.

Mr. Holman.  It was never considered before the House as it was passed.  Up to the time the bill came before this House for final passage the measure had simply been one to establish a Bureau of Mines;  I believe I use the term correctly now.  It came from the Committee on Coinage Weights, and Measures.  The substitute which finally became a law was never read, and is subject to the charge made against it by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Bland,] that it was passed by the House without a knowledge of its provisions, especially upon that of coinage.  I myself asked the question of Mr. Hooper, who stood near where I am now standing whether it changed the law in regard to coinage.  And the answer of Mr. Hooper certainly left the impression upon the whole House that the subject of the coinage was not affected by that bill.

Mr. Kasson.  Did the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Holman] himself call for the reading of the bill ?

Mr. Holman.  Certainly.

Mr. Kasson.  Why was it not read ?  It was your right to have it read.

Mr. Holman.  The record will show that it was not read.

Mr. Bland.  The reading was called for by Mr. Kerr.  I have the Record here to show that I am competent to make a report here in accordance with the facts.

Mr. Kasson.  What does the gentleman desire to show now ?

Mr. Holman.  Just this---

Mr. Kasson.  That the bill was not read ?

Mr. Holman.  I will read from the Congressional Globe:

Mr. Holman.  I suppose it is intended to have the bill read before it is put upon its passage.

The Speaker.  The substitute will be read.

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I hope not.  It is a long bill, and those who are interested in it are perfectly familiar with its provisions.

Mr. Kerr.  The rules cannot be suspended so as to dispense with the reading of the bill ?

The Speaker.  They can be.

Mr. Kerr.  I want the House to understand that it is attempted to put through this bill without being read.

The Speaker.  Does the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Hooper] move that the reading of the bill be dispensed with ?

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I will so frame my motion to suspend the rules that it will dispense with the reading of the bill.

The Speaker.  The gentleman from Massachusetts moves that the rules be suspended and that the bill pass, the reading thereof being dispensed with.

Mr. Randall.  Cannot we have a division of that motion ?

The Speaker.  A motion to suspend the rules cannot be divided.

Mr. Randall.  I should like to have the bill read, although I am willing that the rules shall be suspended as to the passage of the bill.

The question was put on suspending the rules and passing the bill without reading;  and (two thirds not voting in favor thereof) the rules were not suspended.

Mr. Kasson.  And that proposition failed ?

Mr. Holman.  Certainly.  But I will read farther:

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  I now move that the rules be suspended, and the substitute for the bill in relation to mints and coinage passed;  and I ask that the substitute be read.

The Clerk began to read the substitute.

Mr. Brooks.  Is that the original bill ?

The Speaker.  The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Hooper] applies to the substitute, and that on which the House is called to act is being read.

Mr. Brooks.  As there is to be no debate, the only chance we have to know what we are doing is to have both the bill and the substitute read.

The Speaker.  The motion of the gentleman from Massachusetts being to suspend the rules and pass the substitute, it gives no choice between the two bills.  The House must either pass the substitute or none.

Mr. Brooks.  How can we choose between the original bill and the substitute unless we hear them both read ?

The Speaker.  The gentleman can vote "ay" or "no" on the question whether this substitute shall be passed.

Mr. Brooks.  I am very much in the habit of voting "no" when I do not know what is going on.

Mr. Holman.  Before the question is taken upon suspending the rules and passing the bill I hope the gentleman from Massachusetts will explain the leading changes made by this bill in the existing law, especially in reference to the coinage.  It would seem that all the small coinage of the country is intended to be recoined.

Mr. Kasson.  Come to the point about the question of reading.

Mr. Holman.  I want to show that there was no reading of the substitute:

Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts.  This bill makes no changes in the existing law in that regard.  It does not require the recoinage of the small coins.

Then Mr. Sargent, Mr. Farnsworth, Mr. McCormick, and Mr. McNeely made inquiries in regard to matters of salaries and other changes contemplated by the bill, but none in relation to the question of coinage, because that was understood to have been answered already by Mr. Hooper.

Mr. Kasson.  Was the substitute read ?

Mr. Holman.  No, sir.  After the putting and answering of the inquiries I have referred to, the Record closes in this way:

The question being taken on the motion of Mr. Hooper, of Massachusetts, to suspend the rules and pass the bill, it was agreed to;  there being ayes 110, noes 13.

Mr. Kasson.  I must resume the floor.  The proceedings which the gentleman has read show conclusively---

Mr. Holman.  Just a single word further.  I wish to say that the subject of coinage was not supposed to be involved in the bill, and the measure as passed was not read in the House.

Mr. Kasson.  Now I come to this point:  not a word which the gentleman has read denies or modifies a syllable of the record which I have stated.  On the contrary, it is shown clearly that the proposition which was not read was the bill which was not passed --the original bill.  As to the substitute, its reading was begun, as gentlemen had a right to call for it and any single member could exact it;  and then an opponent of the bill on the other side of the House interrupted the reading, preferring an explanation;  and then gentleman after gentleman rose making inquiries about the contents of the bill and had them answered, after which nobody seems to have called for the conclusion of the reading of the bill.  That is what the record shows.

Mr. Lawrence.  Will the gentleman state whether it is or is not the fact that that bill changed the legal-tender quality of the silver dollar ?

Mr. Kasson.  I have not found anything in that coinage law that indicates the slightest surreptitious act or unusual proceeding.  On the contrary, the silver dollar was omitted from the original bill sent here by the Treasury Department, and the consideration of that question ran through all the various bills.

Mr. Bland.  Will the gentleman allow me to read that part of the act which modified the previous law so as to limit the use of silver as a legal tender to the amount of $5 only ?

April 9, 1872, Representative Kelley speaking:
"you must have one standard coin, which shall be a legal tender for all others, and then you may promote your domestic convenience by having a subsidiary coinage of silver, which shall circulate in all parts of your country as legal tender for a limited amount, and be redeemable at its face value by your Government."

Mr. Kasson.  The gentleman must excuse me.  He and the gentleman from Indiana.  [Mr. Holman] have already occupied more of my time than I have myself.

Mr. Bland.  Will not the gentleman allow me--

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Kasson] must not be interrupted by the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Bland.]  The Chair protected the gentleman from Missouri in his rights a few moments ago;  and he must now protect the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Bland.  I was simply asking---

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from Iowa declines to be interrupted.  That is sufficient for the Chair.

Mr. Kasson.  I hope it will be remembered that I only decline to be further interrupted after very large concessions in that respect.

I know very well that by that act the legal-tender quality of silver was limited to $5, the coinage of the old silver dollar having practically ceased long before.  Nothing has been read which controverts any part of the statement I have already made of the history of this legislation through two Congresses and both Houses.  I wish to add further that there were letters on the subject from nearly all the officers of the Mint --from Raymond, from Patterson, from the venerable Dr. Torry of New York, from Mr. Snowden, from Mr. Pollock, from Dr. Linderman.  The letters of these and other gentlemen who had elaborately investigated the subject I think accompanied the report that was presented on this question to Congress.

I did not intend to occupy the attention of the House thus long;  but I did think it important that this House should observe that the omission of the silver dollar from the coinage act was a proposition running through all its consideration.  One of the amendments proposed was to make the dollar that should be coined equivalent to two half dollars that were being coined.  That finally failed;  and the result of the proposition on that subject was that the dollar of 412½ grains was left out;  the proposed dollar equivalent to two of the existing half dollars was left out;  and the "trade-dollar" finally came in in lieu of all those other propositions touching the silver dollar.

In conclusion, I will simply say that I regret exceedingly that the language of popular prejudice should be heard in the discussion of a question of this sort on this floor.  The relation between gold and silver and their relative value prospectively as well as at present are among the most serious questions that can be presented to this body.  We cannot determine without further knowledge what that relation should be, whether we should coin exactly the old coin or whether we should establish a new fixed or variable relation to the gold dollar, in view of this unprecedented depreciation of silver or any other of these serious questions on which the greatest economists of the world are consulted by the legislative bodies of other countries before they come to a decision.

If at a time when European countries, especially the Latin nations, are limiting the amount of their silver coin, and Germany is repudiating it, and England will not have it as one of her standards, if at this time the United States adopts it, what will be its effect on us who open our hands for their refuse unless it be to depreciate it further here ?

As to the effects of this bill, of which the gentleman from Missouri spoke, I have no time to go into it further than to say that I am not one of the men who propose to take care of the labor of this country by paying it eighty cents for a dollar's worth of wages.  I am not one of those who propose that Englishmen buying the grain of our western farmers shall send here in payment of the balance of trade in our favor the depreciated and abandoned silver of Europe, worth 10 per cent. less than our own paper money, and 20 per cent. less than the gold that England now remits in payment for the surplus products of our farms.  I am not disposed to do all this until all the facts and relations of this question are submitted to us in a formal and carefully prepared report, with the evidence upon which its conclusions rest, that we may form therefrom a more intelligent and deliberate judgment.

I learn that in France, a double-standard country, about three weeks ago, the government suspended the coinage of five-franc pieces because of this uncertainty of information as to the result of the great agitation arising from the alarming depreciation of silver.  I have here a summary of the report of a committee of the English Parliament on one branch of this subject, which at the request of other gentlemen I append to my remarks without asking that it may be read.

Another question is how much surplus, if we adopt the double standard, will come from Germany, how much will come from India, and how much will come from China and all Asia, from all quarters of the world.  I know of these questions, but I do not know sufficiently of the facts, authentically, to ask this House to vote, or even to justify myself in casting a vote at this stage of our session on the other bill now pending in the morning hour, and therefore I urge the adoption of these resolutions.  [Cries of "vote!" "Vote!"]

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania of the Committee on Banking and Currency.

The following is the summary referred to:

To sum up the more striking facts which have been brought before your committee, the situation at the present moment appears to be this:

1.  The total annual production of silver has risen to upward of £14,000,000, from an average of about £8 000,000 to £9,000,000 in 1840.

2.  Of this amount of £14,000,000 the mines of the United States are estimated to have produced about £7,000,000, with the prospect of an increase for some years to come.  On the other hand, if the price of silver should remain as low as at present, there may be some diminution in the production elsewhere.

3.  Germany has still to dispose of an amount which is certainly not less than £8,000,000, with the possibility that it may exceed £20,000,000, but with the possibility, on tho other hand, that a considerably larger sum than the estimated amount may be ultimately required for subsidiary coinage.

4.  The Scandinavian kingdoms have discontinued the use of silver, but the amount of demonetized silver coin which they have thrown or can throw on the market are not important.

5.  Austria has apparently been exchanging silver for gold, the amount of silver held in the imperial bank having diminished from £10,000,000 to ;£6,000,000 since 1871.

6.  Italy has been gradually denuded of her silver currency.  Since 1865 large amounts have been exported;  her forced paper currency has apparently expelled the whole of the metallic currency, of which the silver coins amounted at the beginning of 1866 to about £17,000,000 sterling.

7.  France, on the other hand, has for some years past been replenishing her stock of silver, of which during the last four years her imports have exceeded her exports by £31,500,000.

8.  England, Russia, and Spain have each been buyers to the extent of some millions.

9.  Japan and China and other countries in the east have absorbed a certain amount.

10.  India still takes silver, but in greatly decreased amounts.

11.  The home government has bills to sell to the extent of £15,000,000 per annum, which debtors to India can buy in the place of remitting bullion.  This total has been gradually reached, and represents an excess of more than £10,000,000 compared with twenty years ago.

12.  The gross remittances of silver to India during the last four years have been £15,600,000 compared with £28,000,000 in the four previous years.

Legislatively, the position is as follows:

Germany is gradually demonetizing silver, and looks forward to its use only for subsidiary coinage.  The United States is carrying out a policy of introducing silver subsidiary coinage in the place of all fractional paper currency now afloat, and of coining full weight silver coins, but only on a contracted scale, and only available for legal tender for a limited amount.

The members of the Latin Union and Holland have adopted an expectant attitude, but meanwhile limit as far as possible the coinage of silver.  No indications are given of any intention on the part of Russia and Austria to pass any laws with regard to their currency.  The actual facts which have been enumerated speak for themselves;  and it will be seen at once which of them are in favor of a rise in the price of silver and which of them tend in a contrary direction.  It is important, too, that the temporary character of some of these facts and the normal character of others should be fully taken into account.  The surplus stock of Germany will in all probability weigh heavily on the market for some time to come;  still it is a temporary circumstance.

On the other hand, the United States will afford temporary relief to the market by retaining for her own coinage considerable amounts of the silver there produced. It is indeed possible, according to the evidence adduced, that the United States will retain as much silver for her new coinage operations as Germany may have to sell as the result of hers.

The case of France deserves especial attention.  The replenishment of her stock of silver can scarcely be regarded as other than a temporary circumstance.  During the last four years, out of a total of £76.000,000 of disposable silver, France absorbed £35,500.000.  The relief thereby given to the market must have been immense.  It is impossible to assume that it can be continued on the same scale.  The national inference to be drawn would be in the opposite direction.

With regard to India and the East, hitherto the largest consumers of silver, so much must depend upon the prosperity of the population, on the abundance of the crops --in fact, on their powers of production-- that it is impossible to make any forecast;  and, as regards actual facts, no more can be stated than that on the one hand they have always possessed a very large power of absorbing bullion, while on the other that power has been diminished by the growth of the sums annually payable by India to the home government.

The only facts in any calculations as to the future which are certain, and appear to be permanent, are the increased total production of silver and the effect caused by the necessity of the Indian government to draw annually for a heavy amount.  Both are adverse to the future value of silver so far as they go, but they may be partially counterbalanced by changes in the trade with the East.

As regards Europe, much must depend upon the action taken by the governments of the various countries where the question of the currency to be adopted is still unsettled.  Your committee have not considered it to be within the scope of the questions referred to them to make inquiry as to the intentions of these governments, though many references to their views will be found in the various official documents procured for the committee by the foreign office.  Your committee on this point would simply remark that it is obvious that, if effect should be given to the policy of substituting gold for silver wherever it is feasible, and giving gold, for the sake of its advantages in international commerce, the preference even among populations whose habits and customs are in favor of silver, and thus displacing silver from the position (which it has always occupied) of doing the work of the currency over at least as large an area as gold, no possible limits could be assigned to the further fall in its value, which would inevitably take place;  but your committee are bound to refrain from giving any opinion on the expediency of such a policy or the necessity for its adoption.

In conclusion, your committee have to observe that, while they have endeavored to be as precise as possible in their statement of the facts which have been brought to their notice and to give an explicit answer to the questions referred to them, as to the causes of the present depreciation of silver, they consider that, in view of the many uncertain elements to which they have pointed, and which necessarily enter into every calculation as to the future, they are not authorized to offer any further opinion as to the probable course of the sliver market beyond indicating, as they have endeavored to do, the various circumstances which have to be taken into account.

Mr. Townsend, of Pennsylvania.  Mr. Speaker, I do not want to detain the House at this late hour of the afternoon, but as the complaint appears to be that by legislation of Congress the silver dollar was demonetized, and as the charge has been made by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] that it was done surreptitiously and perpetrated an injustice and a fraud upon the people, I wish to say to the House that I have here in my hand the whole proceedings from the conception of the idea of the demonetization of the silver dollar down to the final consummation in the law of 1873.

In the report which was made by Mr. J.J. Knox, now the Comptroller of the Currency, in 1870, with regard to the re-organization of the Mint and the draught of a bill which accompanied it, the silver dollar of 412½ grains was left entirely out.  In the correspondence which took place between the Treasury Department and the officers of the Mint and scientific men all over the country it was the almost unanimous conclusion of those learned men, who had bestowed attention on the subject, that the dollar of 412½ grains should be omitted.  In the session of 1871, as has already been stated, my colleague from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] offered a bill in which that dollar was not mentioned at all.  It is No. 5 of the first session of the Forty-second Congress.  It was reported again by Mr. Kelley on January 9, 1872, with his recommendation that it do pass, and was debated by him and Potter, Garfield, Holman, and others.  On the next day the consideration of it was resumed and my colleague explained the bill and it was recommitted.  It was reported back by Mr. Hooper as bill No. 1427 on the 9th of February, having in it a subsidiary dollar of 384 grains and divisions thereof but omitting the old dollar of 412½ grains and providing that no coins of gold, silver, or minor coinage other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights therein set forth should be coined.  Mr. Hooper explained it in ten columns of the Globe, and stated specifically that the reason the dollar was reduced to 384 grains was that the silver dollar was worth one hundred and three cents in gold and was exported and we could not keep it here.  My colleague, [Mr. Kelley,] then chairman of the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, gave most substantial reasons for the omission of the old dollar, the sound policy of which I most heartily indorse, especially his observations on the double standard.  He said:

Mr. Kelley.  I wish to ask the gentleman who has just spoken [Mr. Potter] if he knows of any Government in the world which makes its subsidiary coinage of full value ?  The silver coin of England is ten per cent. below the value of gold coin.  And acting under the advice of the experts of this country, and of England and France, Japan has made her silver coinage within the last year twelve per cent. below the value of gold coin, and for this reason:  it is impossible to retain the double standard.  The values of gold and silver continually fluctuate.  You cannot determine this year what will be the relative values of gold and silver next year.  They were fifteen to one a short time ago;  they are, sixteen to one now.

Hence all experience has shown that you must have one standard coin, which shall be a legal tender for all others, and then you may promote your domestic convenience by having a subsidiary coinage of silver, which shall circulate in all parts of your country as legal tender for a limited amount, and be redeemable at its face value by your Government.

But, sir, I again call the attention of the House to the fact that the gentlemen who oppose this bill insist upon maintaining a silver dollar worth three and a half cents more than the gold dollar, and worth seven cents more than two half dollars, and that, so long as those provisions remain, you cannot keep silver coin in the country.

The debate occupied nearly forty columns of the Globe, so that there was no smuggling about it, but the attention was called to the change in the silver dollar and its reduction to a subsidiary coin. (See Globe, volume 89, pages 2304 to 2317.)

Later in the session (May 27) Mr. Hooper reported a substitute (No. 2934) which, so far as the silver dollar was concerned, was precisely similar to the preceding ones, all of them ignoring the old dollar and restricting the legal tender of the subsidiary coins to $5.  That bill was debated by Messrs. Hooper, Brooks, Holman, Farnsworth, Sargent, Kerr, and McNeely.

Mr. McNeely was a member of the Committee on Coinage, and said:

As a member of the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, having carefully examined every section and line of this bill, and generally well understanding the subject before us, I am satisfied the bill ought to pass.

It was thoroughly investigated by everybody who felt an interest in it, and passed, as has been stated, by a vote of 110 to 13.  It was twenty-two times before the House and Senate, and occupied over thirty-nine columns of the Globe in its discussions.  In the preparation of the bill presented by the report of the Comptroller of the Currency, and it was a very able report;  by the bill of Mr. Kelley;  by the bill of Mr. Hooper;  by the substitute of Mr. Hooper --on every occasion that matter came up before the House of Representatives and before the Senate, that dollar of 412½ grains was omitted and its omission explained when the reason was demanded.

In the bills presented by Mr. Hooper it was proposed to coin a dollar of 384 grains, as I said before, but that was eventually dropped out and the trade-dollar inserted in its stead.

I therefore say, Mr. Speaker, it is due in justice to the memory of the dead and in justice to the living --it is due to my friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Kelley,] not here to-day, that it should be stated on this floor that this bill, in the last session of Congress in which it was investigated, came before the Congress of the United States more than twenty times, and that the very question under discussion now was then explained by Mr. Kelley and Mr. Hooper as fully as possible.  It must be remembered that they stated very clearly the reason why it was that the dollar of 412½ grains was omitted.  It was explained in the Senate by Mr. Sherman and others, and the whole country had this matter under consideration for more than two years and at the end of that time came to the conclusion the silver dollar should be demonetized.  I say, therefore, it is due to the memory of the dead --Mr. Hooper-- and in justice to my living colleague who never does things surreptitiously, that this explanation should be made, that it was not done fraudulently, as the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] has said.  And his remarks are an unjust aspersion upon the frankness and fairness of gentlemen formerly and now upon this floor.  I trust he will recall when he comes to look over the whole of the record in the Congressional Globe the charge he has made against upright and honorable men as fully and amply as he has made it.

Now, in regard to the bill of the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Bland,] of which he has been speaking, I can imagine no legislation which this House can undertake that would be more disastrous to the interests of the country than the passage of that very bill.  It would change the existing relations of debtor and creditor all over the country.  It would change every contract, public and private, in the land, whether written or verbal.  And, more than that, it would be the most fatal blow which ever was struck at the credit of the nation.  It is a proposition, in the first place, which would defraud the laborer of his wages, and it would give the bonanza silver miners four or five million dollars a year of additional profit on the product of their mines.  It would take from the laboring-man 15 to 20 per cent. of his hard-earned daily wages and transfer it to the pockets of another.

It would, besides that, as I said awhile ago, strike down the credit of the nation.  And we have to remember that if this bill passes we say to the national creditor:  "We propose to pay you, principal and interest, at the rate of eighty-five cents on the dollar."  And I may remark that there are yet remaining nearly $1,000,000,000 of 6 per cents that we want to change into 5 per cents.  But with this threat hanging over them, that we intend to repudiate the obligations of the Government to the extent of 15 per cent., we will never be able to induce a bondholder to change another bond from a 6 per cent. to a 5 per cent. loan.

There is another point to which I wish to call the attention of the House.  The great plea that has been made about this matter is that we are entitled to pay in silver because at the time the contract was made we had a silver currency.  If that argument be good, I ask the House to remember this fact:  that since 1873 we have had but one standard of currency, and that was the gold standard;  and since that time we have changed $300,000,000 nearly --I think $286,043,000 of 6 per cents and $13,957,000 of the 5 per cents of 1858 into the 5 per cent. loan.  We have changed that amount of 6 per cents down to 5 per cents;  and under the argument which they want to invoke, the principal and interest of those $300,000,000 of bonds must therefore be paid in gold;  and yet by this bill it is provided that all the debts of the country, public and private, whatever they may have been,  whenever they may have been contracted, shall be paid in whatever currency the debtor may choose to impose upon the creditor.

And more than all, it is intended to impose upon the people of the country in their ordinary avocations of life a currency which is sixteen times as heavy and inconvenient as the one we have to-day.  When a man has an obligation of a thousand dollars or more to pay he can now put the amount in gold in his pocket, if the debt be payable in gold, and carry it to his creditor.  But if he has to pay it in silver, he will have to carry the amount with him on a wheel-barrow or a wagon.  It is a long step backward in financial economy.  It therefore seems to me that this is to substitute for a convenient currency a very inconvenient and cumbrous one.  And it is at the same time saying to the nations of the world that, "Inasmuch as you have trusted us to reduce your loans from 6 per cent. to 5 per cent., we intend to shave another 1 per cent. off and pay you in depreciated silver."  The nation cannot afford to adopt such a policy;  it would be ruinous in the end.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Many members called for the regular order.

Mr. Cox.  Mr. Speaker, how much of the hour is remaining ?

The Speaker pro tempore.  The gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Kasson] has five minutes of his time remaining, and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Cox] fifteen minutes.

Mr. Kasson.  I am not disposed to occupy any more time unless the gentleman from New York desires further debate.

Mr. Cox.  I yield to my colleague, [Mr. Hewitt,] who desires to make a request of the House.

Mr. Hewitt, of New York.  I ask leave to print in the Record some remarks upon this question.

Mr. Meade.  I ask the same privilege for myself. [See Appendix.]

There was no objection, and leave was granted. [See Appendix. On the so-called sectarian-school amendment.]

Mr. Cox.  I do not propose myself to occupy any further time, but I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Fort,] after which I will call for a vote.

Greenbury Lafayette Fort [1825-1883), Lacon Illinois, R;  studied law, admitted to the bar].  Mr. Speaker, but little can be said in two minutes.  I would like more.  Two hours would not be time enough in which to discuss the momentous question of restoring the legal-tender quality of the silver dollar.

Mr. Speaker, my esteemed friend from Iowa, [Mr. Kasson,] at great length and detail, has just given the House what he claims is the legislative history of the repeal of that satisfactory law first enacted in the days of Alexander Hamilton and continued without complaint from the people till 1873, and under which silver in dollars had been honored in payment of all debts both public and private.

Sir, I wish to remind my friend that with all his research he has not found, or at least if he has found he has not reported to the House, a single sentence, word, or syllable disclosing a purpose to repeal, change, or modify the laws relating to the legal tender of any coin;  no word of debate, no printed bill, no report of any committee, nor no journal of the proceedings of either House.

Sir, all that he states about this matter may be, and no doubt is, correct;  and yet it may likewise be true that no repealing clause was ever in any of the bills he mentions.  Those were all bills relating to mines and mining, and to the coinage laws, and the mints of the United States.  He has not shown that any of them contained the repealing clause as to the legal tender of the silver dollar.

The bill that was passed was a long one, containing many sections about coinage and mints, and was reported by the chairman of the committee as a substitute, and was most likely not printed.

Mr. Atkins.  Was the substitute read ?

Mr. Fort.  And the substitute was not read.  I charge it here until I am otherwise convinced that it is probable that at no time was the question ever discussed before the Senate or House;  and was passed in this House in less than twenty minutes after it was brought in, without time or opportunity to learn its provisions.  And I wish further to remind my friend that, no matter what he may claim as having happened here, the people were not consulted about the matter.  I would remind him that so far as I can learn not a single newspaper in the United States ever advocated any such measure.  And if he knows of a single paper that ever hinted at such a thing I now pause for him to arise and name it.  And I would further remind my friend that no public assemblage of the people ever so resolved, and that no public speaker from the stump or elsewhere in this entire country ever advanced any such proposition;  and if he knows of any such I now pause for him to mention the occasion.

Ay, sir, the people never dreamed that such things were happening, that such a stupendous wrong was being done to them.  Sir, no question involving so many millions of dollars to the country has been transformed into law since peace made the great war loans unnecessary.  And yet, as I claim and believe, it was not openly and fully considered;  and not over one in a thousand ever knew of the mischievous act until startled by its discovery when the Revised Statutes were published.  And for one I demand in the name of the people I represent that the law shall first be reinstated as it was, and then it will be time to consider whether we should appoint a learned commission to consider the relative value of gold and silver.

My respected friend from Iowa [Mr. Kasson] has sent to the Clerk's desk to have spread upon the record a document prepared in London, as I understood him.  I do not care to take lessons in finance from such teachers just now.  Their interests are not our interests.

Mr. Speaker, I said the other day when I occupied the floor a few minutes upon this question that the history of the repeal of that venerable law handed down to us from the fathers might never be written, and some may wish that it never would be.

I do not believe my friend from Iowa [Mr. Kasson] ever did know anything about it except what he has stated here;  but, sir, if the history of this repeal shall ever be fully written, I fear it will be found that a certain English gentleman, resident of London, was the author of the scheme.  I know nothing about the matter of my own knowledge, and do not state it as a fact or in any way vouch for it, but am informed that this representative of our creditors in London came to Washington, spent the winter here, and was in close counsel with the author of this repeal, and in all probability he drew the section of the bill himself.  The money lords of London commanded and we in humility and in silence bowed low and obeyed." [Cries of "That is so!" "Good !"]

Mr. Kasson.  Who was it ?  Who was the man ?

Mr. Fort.  You will find out when the history is written.

The Speaker pro tempore.  The time of the gentleman from Illinois has expired.

Mr. Cox.  The debate has taken a course not intended.  Nobody intended to discuss the bill of the gentleman from Missouri in connection with this resolution.  It does not necessarily follow that the resolution which I reported should antagonize his proposition.  This is a proposition looking to inquiry and information and report, and I trust that the vote will now be taken upon the adoption of the report of the Committee on Banking and Currency.  [Loud cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"]

Mr. Landers, of Indiana.  I call for the yeas and nays on agreeing to the concurrent resolution.

The question was taken on ordering the yeas and nays;  and on a division there were--- ayes 15, noes 135.

So the yeas and nays were not ordered.

The question was taken on agreeing to the concurrent resolution;  and on a division there were--- ayes 132, noes 31.

So the concurrent resolution was agreed to.

Mr. Cox moved to reconsider the vote by which the concurrent resolution was adopted;  and also moved that the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

The latter motion was agreed to.

And then, on motion of Mr. Eden, (at seven o'clock and five minutes p.m.,) the House adjourned.

Mr. Speaker:  The discussion has taken a wider range than the provisions of the concurrent resolution reported by the Committee on Banking and Currency would seem to warrant, and has in fact extended to the merits of the bill reported some days since by the Committee on Mines and Mining, entitled "A bill to utilize the product of gold and silver mines, and for other purposes."  This extraordinary bill, extraordinary in the nature of its provisions as well as the source from which it comes before the House, contemplates the following ends:

1. That the United States shall purchase all the gold and silver bullion which may be brought to its mints and assay offices and pay for the same in the coin-notes of the United States for gold at the rate of $1 for 25.8 grains, and for silver at the rate of $1 for 412.8 grains.

2.  It directs the coinage of silver dollars, not now known to the law, weighing 412.8 grains each of standard silver.

3.  It provides that the coin-notes so issued shall be receivable without limit for all dues to the United States, and that the silver dollars so coined shall be a legal tender for all debts, public and private, not specified to be paid in gold coin.

4.  For the redemption of these coin-notes a fund equal to 75 per cent. of the amount outstanding shall always be kept on hand in the public depositories of the United States.

The arguments which have been presented in favor of this measure appear to be as follows:

1.  That the act of February 12, 1873, by which the silver dollar was demonetized was passed surreptitiously, and that Congress was purposely kept in the dark as to its real nature and the effect of its provisions.  In other words, that Congress did not intent to demonetize the silver dollar and that the bill could not have been passed if it had been understood that no more silver dollars could be coined after its passage.

2.  That Congress has the right to restore the coin of the same weight and fineness as it contained prior to 1873, and to use it as a legal tender for the payment of all debts contracted prior to that date not specifically payable in gold coin.

3.  That the debtor class in this country, now suffering from the oppression of the creditor class, will thereby be greatly relieved, because debts can be discharged in a less costly medium than that now required by law, to wit, legal-tender notes or gold coin.

4.  That the burden of the public debt of the United States and of the several States and municipalities, now too heavy to be borne, will be greatly lessened, and industry, being thus relieved from taxation, will again become active and labor will be fully employed and better paid.

5.  That the price of silver will be raised in consequence of the enlarged field for its use and a better market secured for one of the leading products of the American soil.

Against this bill I am charged by the Chamber of Commerce of the City of New York "to remonstrate in its behalf as unjustly and needlessly permitting the payment at par of more than $11,000,000,000 of public and private debts by silver coin now depreciated in market at least 18 per cent. and liable to still further fluctuation and depression.  Of this debt more than two thousand millions exist in the accumulated savings of many years invested in policies on lives, the holders of which will be despoiled of the 18 per cent. being three hundred and sixty millions.  The holders of mortgages on property in all parts of the United States for at least $5,000,000,000, and many of them ill able to bear the loss, will lose their 18 per cent., being at least nine hundred millions.  All these immense sums extracted from suffering individuals are bestowed by the bill on the debtors, without any equivalent justification or any public gain whatever."

In submitting this remonstrance, let me say that in my judgment it does not overstate the injury which will be inflicted upon the creditor class of the country, who are never supposed to be its enemies until after they have parted with their money, and for whose advent our fellow-citizens in the South and West are anxiously waiting, when they tell us that more capital is needed for the development of their great natural resources.  But if there were any doubt upon the subject, the source from which the remonstrance emanates should lay the doubt at rest.  For more than a century the Chamber of Commerce has been a recognized authority upon all questions pertaining to exchanges and finance.

It is composed now, as it always has been, of the leading merchants, bankers, and manufacturers of the city of New York.  It numbers over seven hundred members, whose occupation, training, and interests have necessarily made them familiar with the laws of trade and the delicate elements which affect credit, public and private.  They become thus not merely experts, so to speak, in all matters of finance, but they are to a large extent the jealous guardians of commercial honor, which lies at the foundation of the national prosperity.  Their voice is entitled, therefore, to great weight, greater possibly than the report even of a committee of this House, whose duty under the rules is not to consider questions of finance at all, but is strictly limited to consider all subjects relating to mines and mining that may be referred to them, and to report their opinion thereon, together with such propositions relative thereto as may seem to them expedient." (Rule 153.)

Let me say right here, as the chairman of the committee has complained that the bill has been resisted by tactics commonly known as filibustering, he has no just ground of complaint when he reflects that when the Committee on Mines and Mining undertakes to deal with the question of what shall be the legal tender for the payment of debts, a subject entirely foreign under the rules to its domain, as foreign as the tariff question, it sets an example of improper use of its opportunities which can fairly and indeed only be met by such opposition as is secured under the rules of the House, adopted to meet just such violations of propriety.

But to return to the remonstrance, to the serious allegations of which I invite the attention of the House.  Summed up in one word, it charges that the bill under consideration means spoliation under the guise of law, against which the highest financial and commercial authority on the American continent enters its solemn protest;   spoliation, I venture to say, upon a scale so vast as to dwarf the plunder of India under Warren Hastings, and which renders ridiculous the sum-total of the extravagant expenditures of the last eight years, upon the investigation of which this House and its committees have expended their energies during the present session of Congress.

Let me explain, although it ought to be clear without even a word of explanation, the process by which this spoliation will be accomplished.  As the law now stands, all existing contracts for the payment of money must be discharged either in gold coin or in legal tender notes.  Now this bill proposes to make silver a legal tender for the payment of debts in all cases where the word coin or dollars is used, in all public and private contracts at the rate of 412.8 grains standard silver to the dollar, the value of which at fifty pence per ounce, the quotation of to-day, is 84.8 cents.  Under the pledge of the act of 1869 the legal-tender notes of the United States are redeemable in coin, which all the world has heretofore taken to mean gold coin, and their market value has been and is to-day fixed with reference to redemption in gold coin.  With gold at a premium of 11¾, these notes are worth 89.8 cents to the dollar;  but if they are to be redeemed in silver coin, worth only 84.8 cents to the dollar, they will necessarily fall to the same discount with reference to the value of silver as they now occupy with reference to gold;  in other words, they will be worth 73.1 instead of 84.8 cents in gold.  The result is, therefore, that on all money contracts, whether payable in coin or in paper, there would be an immediate confiscation of the property of the creditor by act of Congress of 15 per cent. of his just claim.  In the aggregate this would amount to a transfer, so far as the act of Congress could have any effect, from the creditor to the debtor class of a sum greater than the entire debt of the United States.

The advocates of the bill admit that this is one of the objects which they have in view.  They call it "relief to the debtor class."  They forget, however, that the laws of nature cannot be reversed by acts of Congress.  It is true that the bill will authorize the debtor to discharge his debt with a less valuable commodity than was intended for its discharge at the time the contract was made, but no act of Congress short of a general division of property or an utter cancellation of indebtedness can endow the debtor with the means of payment.  He may indeed have a property which, in the present condition of things, would sell for enough to discharge his debt and leave him a surplus.  But if this bill be passed, this margin and surplus would disappear with the same rapidity as the golden hues of the clouds after the Sun passes below the horizon.  In the face of the proposition to confiscate 15 per cent. of all the indebtedness of the country, every dollar of foreign capital would be withdrawn from the country as rapidly as it could be collected, and the steamships could remove it in some form of material value.  Every dollar of American capital that could be controlled would in like manner be remitted to foreign countries for safe-keeping or would be hoarded in the secret recesses to which confidence betakes itself in time of spoliation.  There would be a universal collection of debts and a universal fall in values, resulting in a general transfer of the properties of the debtors to the creditors in final liquidation of the debt.  The country would be one scene of indiscriminate ruin and desolation;  the condition of the people would be intolerable, and their just indignation would be visited upon every man and upon any political party who had any part or lot in bringing upon the heads of the people such an irreparable and overwhelming disaster.

Now, let me call the attention of this House to the classes in the community upon whom first would fall the weight of this monstrous iniquity.  Of the debt that would be confiscated, more than two thousand millions are in the form of accumulations to meet policies of life insurance.  Need I ask this House whether it is the rich or the poor to whom these policies have been issued ?  We all know that it is the professional man, the clerk, the tradesman, who, earning their living from day to day, endeavor thus to provide for their families when the sustaining and the laboring hand is at length laid low in the grave.  Thus, then, it is that the bill proposes to despoil the desolate widows and the helpless orphans of $360,000,000 of that fund, vast in the aggregate, but limited in each individual case, which society has slowly and patiently accumulated as the barrier against suffering and want for the widows and orphans of the nation.

Again, it is estimated that there were $5,000,000,000 invested in bond and mortgage, of which this bill will confiscate $900,000,000. Now, who are the large holders of these mortgages ?  Not the rich mainly,  but the savings-banks, who bold in trust the scanty earnings of the poor. Upon the day-laborer, upon the industrious servant girl, upon the frugal mechanic, therefore, will fall this unparalleled and incredible loss of the means accumulated against a rainy day.

This expected but fallacious "relief to tho debtor" therefore would be at the expense of those who, too poor to get in debt, have with the patient industry which characterizes honest labor and humble station, accumulated a provision against the ills of life, the decay of old age, and the dreaded refuge of the poor-house. It is the old story of the poor sacrificed to the demands of the needy speculator and the grasping adventurer. The only protection against such robbery and such disaster lies in the good sense and solid integrity of the American people, who have only to be made acquainted with the effects of this legislation to set upon it the seal of their just condemnation.

Now let us examine the grounds upon which this monstrous proposition is sought to be justified.

We are told that prior to 1873 it was the right of the Government and of private individuals to discharge their debts either in gold or silver at the option of the debtor, and that this right was taken away without their knowledge and consent, in fact by covert legislation, the effect of which was not intended or appreciated by the Congress which enacted it.

The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] on the 2nd instant stated that the coinage act of 1873 "was passed surreptitiously and without discussion, and was one of the grossest measures of injustice ever inflicted upon any people."  The honorable Senator from Nevada [Mr. Jones] and the honorable gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Holman] have made similar statements, and these statements have been reiterated by the press of the country and repeated again to-day by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Bland] and the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Fort.]  In answer to these charges I propose, at the risk of being tedious, but in order to refute them once for all, to give, in a note at the end of my remarks, the history of the coinage act of 1873, as shown by the records of the Treasury Department and of Congress.

I have felt it necessary to make this weary statement in order to prove that the legislation of 1873 was not surreptitiously enacted, traveling over ground that has been occupied in part by other members who have addressed the House, and in part by the daily press, because there is nothing so unpalatable to the American people as "tricks" in legislation, of which the Committee on Mines and Mining will be fully conscious when it comes to be generally understood how far they have exceeded the legitimate line of their duty in bringing forward this bill, which could never have been reported from the Committee on Banking and Currency, to which it properly belonged.

Power of Congress to Remonetize Silver.

But admitting that there was nothing underhand in the legislation of 1873, it will be asked whether it is not true that prior to that date debts might have been discharged in silver dollars weighing 412.5 grains;  and, if so, have we not a legal and moral right to restore the dollar to circulation in order that debts contracted prior to that date may be paid in such dollars ?  To this question I reply that certainly prior to the passage of the law of 1873 debts might have been paid in such silver dollars, but now we have neither the legal nor the moral right to pay debts in silver dollars worth less than the value of the standard gold dollar, which is now the sole unit of value. We have an undoubted right to remonetize the silver dollar, and it may be wise to do so, but if we do it we are legally and morally bound to put in it enough silver to make it equal in value to the gold dollar. Not to do this is to violate equally the plain provisions of the Constitution and of the moral law.

What are the provisions of the Constitution in regard to money ?  No power is anywhere granted to Congress to make gold and silver, or indeed anything whatever, a legal tender. The language of the Constitution, article 1, section 8, is:

That Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.

There is no other grant of power in regard to money whatever;  and if under this provision Congress has the power to deal with the question of legal tender at all, there is no limitation whatever upon that power, and it has the right to select any material besides gold and silver as a legal tender for the payment of debts;  but there is a restriction upon the States, article 1, section 10:

No State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, and no State shall pass a law impairing the obligation of contracts.

Taking these two provisions of the Constitution together, their intention would clearly seem to be as follows:  Individuals may make contracts payable in dollars. Such contracts cannot be impaired by any action of any State government, and the dollars represented in the contract must be either gold or silver dollars. These dollars must be provided by Congress and the value thereof must be regulated by Federally.

Now what is meant by the word "value ?"  Is it the true or false value ?  Could it have been intended by the framers of the Constitution that Congress should have power to give to either gold or silver a fictitious and unreal value ?  If so, what is meant by the word "regulate ?"  This word is derived from the Latin "regula," a rule of length. Worcester defines the word:  "To adjust by rule or by method;  to put or to keep in order."  Webster defines the word:  "To put in good order;  as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances."

Congress is therefore to measure the value of the money it coins not once for all, but is to regulate it and adjust its relative value from time to time as with a rule, according as necessity or occasion may require. That this is the intention of this provision is evident from its collocation with the words "and fix the standard of weights and measures."  Money was to be "regulated;"  that is, measured and adjusted;  but the standard of weights and measures was to be fixed;  that is, not changed and altered from time to time. The reason is obvious;  the standards of weights and measures may be fixed by the eternal standards of nature, such as an arc of the meridian;  but gold and silver, depending for their value upon supply and demand, must fluctuate in relative value, and must, therefore, be regulated as to each other in order that no injustice may be done in the current transactions of commerce. This view, which is too plain to admit of doubt, is confirmed by the insertion of the words "and of foreign coin," which, being dependent for standard and weight upon the action of foreign powers, must necessarily be regulated from time to time with reference to their intrinsic value, and not fixed as is the case of the standard of weights and measures.

It is plain, therefore, that the power of Congress under the Constitution is limited to the coining of money, and that it is the duty of Congress to regulate the value of the money which it may coin, according to its intrinsic worth as determined by its value as bullion in the markets of the world, and that if this value changes enough to produce disturbances in business, to inquire into and regulate the value of "money" according to the state of facts as developed by the inquiry.

That this is the true view of the constitutional power and duty of Congress is made apparent by one other consideration not often perceived.  The amount of "money" in actual use and being is always small compared with the volume of business.  It is the measure of value, however, for all transactions.  If the measure be false, there will be injustice done in each transaction.  The loss resulting from the re-adjustment of value in the measure will be trifling, therefore, compared with the whole volume of transactions.  The settlements of a single day at the New York clearing-house amount to nearly $50,000,000, which are effected by the actual transfer of less than $2,500,000.  Now, if the measure be wrong to the extent of 5 per cent., the daily loss to some one will be greater than the whole amount required to effect the daily payment of balances.  It was the perception of this truth which led the government of William III to recall the clipped and worn silver coinage in 1695 and replace it with full coin of standard weight, and to charge the cost thereof up to the nation and not leave it upon the innocent holders of the depreciated coin.  The total cost of this operation was £2,415,140, a sum less than the losses caused by the depreciated coin in business operations of every year, possibly of every month.  The force of this rule increases directly with the volume of business, so that in modem times, when it becomes necessary to re-adjust the values of outstanding coin, it is accepted that the nation, and not the individual holders, must bear the loss.  This rule is now being applied to the replacement of the German coinage.

Fortunately we have now no such loss to meet;  but the statement of the principle serves to indicate what must have been the solution of the difficulty if we had found ourselves compelled to deal with a large stock of silver dollars in the presence of the recent depreciation of silver.  We could only have called them in and replaced them with new dollars containing the necessary additional silver to have restored them to their equivalency with the gold dollar.  The loss of this operation would have been insignificant compared with the stupendous losses which would otherwise have occurred in the settlement of existing indebtedness.

This doctrine of equivalency must prevail in all countries maintaining the double standard, which cannot exist without it, and in practice does not long exist anywhere, because it involves too frequent changes in the weight of coins.  The cessation of the coinage of silver by Switzerland and its limitation by the Latin Union is a practical abandonment of the double standard for the time being, and its restoration cannot be safely attempted until the relation between the value of gold and silver shall have once more become stable.

History of American Coinage.

The money history of the United States has been in strict accordance with this doctrine.  At the foundation of the Government the dollar in use was the standard Spanish milled dollar.  All contracts for hard money were payable in these dollars.  In order that no injustice might be done to debtors or creditors it was necessary to determine the quantity of silver contained in these dollars.  Hamilton undertook the task, and after an elaborate investigation, including careful assays of average specimens, fixed upon 371¼ grains of pure silver as the standard value.  This formed the basis of our system of coinage.

He next determined the equivalent in gold at its then market value of 371¼ grains of silver, and fixed it at 27 grains.  Owing to an error in the calculation the gold was slightly undervalued, and never, therefore, came into use, but the cheaper medium, the silver dollar, was the actual standard of value.  This was the era of the silver dollar, and it continued to be the sole medium of legal tender in use until 1834.  At that time the best financial minds of the country, such as Gallatin, Ingham, and others, came to the conclusion that the interests of the nation required that gold should be brought into circulation.  It was a legal tender but it did not circulate, because it was undervalued.  For that reason the owner of gold bullion did not bring it to the Mint to be coined.

And just here it will be well, Mr. Speaker, to call the attention of the House to the true functions of the Mint as at that time prescribed by law.  These functions have been largely overlooked, forgotten, and misunderstood in the confusion which has grown out of the substitution of legal-tender paper money for gold and silver coin.

The Mint of the United States was never an institution in which the Government manufactured money on its own account and supplied it to the public at a profit.  It was merely a factory, to which citizens brought their bullion and plate and had it converted into coin or money at a fixed charge, which sufficed merely to cover the cost of the operation.  The stamp of the Government was merely a certificate of value, and no more, impressed by the Government upon the property of the citizen.  The Government did not buy the bullion and sell the coin, it merely received the bullion, stamped it, and returned it to its lawful owner.  Hence new light is thrown upon that provision of the Constitution which requires Congress "to coin money and regulate the value thereof," for it was the property of individuals which was to be coined and the value of which was be regulated by the Government, which had no other interest or duty to but to impress upon it the true and not a fictitious value.

Now, as the value which the law required the Mint to stamp upon gold was less than its commercial value, no gold was brought to the Mint to be stamped.  The commerce of the world, and especially of the most progressive nations, such as England and Holland, was mainly carried on in gold.  All bills of exchange settled in London and Amsterdam, the principal financial marts of the world, were payable in gold.  Our own commerce was then in a rapid state of development, and our statesmen perceived that we needed a gold unit of value for its lubrication and growth.  What did they do ?  They let silver alone, because it was the existing unit of value in all contracts.  To change it would work injustice to debtors and creditors alike.  They therefore brought the weight of the gold dollar down to the value of the silver dollar, and, in order to make it circulate, a bare trifle below it.  Thus they did exact justice to debtors and creditors, or rather so little injustice that its effect was imperceptible and of no consequence compared with the advantages of securing the circulation and establishment of a gold unit of value in harmony with the currency of the nations with whom we had large commercial relations.

Thus and then ceased the first or silver era and began the second or golden era of the American coinage.  Silver dollars slowly but surely disappeared from circulation, because they were slightly undervalued as coin, and it paid to export them or melt them up.  The gold dollar weighing 25.8 grains took the place of the silver dollar, and from 1837 until the passage of the paper legal-tender act in 1862, gold dollars were the sole unit of value in the United States.  Although gold and silver dollars were equally a legal tender for the payment of debts, in fact for more than a generation, nearly forty years, gold only was the metal in use for payments exceeding $1;  and when the legal-tender act was passed the value of the notes issued under it was referred to the standard of gold, and gold only.  This was still the case in 1873, when the silver dollar was demonetized.

No one referred to silver as the standard of value, because the silver dollar was then more valuable than the gold dollar, being worth $1.03, and had not been in use for forty years.  Hence in the revision of the coinage laws it was treated, and properly so, as an obsolete coin, which had not been in use for a generation, and which in the ordinary course of things would never come into use again.  No one desired it for the payment of debts, for all debts had in effect been contracted on the basis of the gold dollar, and no one expected either to receive or give anything else in payment where coin was to be paid.  The abolition therefore of the silver dollar in 1873 did no injustice to any human being;  and even if the allegation were true, as I have shown it not to be, that it was done in the dark, it was a deed by which no one was injured and no existing right impaired.

Equivalency of Value.

It is now demanded that the silver dollar be restored;  and let it be conceded for the sake of argument, as may possibly be found to be the fact, that it is expedient to yield to this demand.  Upon what basis of value shall it be restored ?  How many grains of silver shall it contain ?  The Committee on Mines and Mining say 412.8 grains, worth with silver at fifty and three-fourths per ounce about eighty-four cents in gold.  Let it be noted that the old silver dollar only contained 412.5 grains, so that the committee do not adhere to it.  Why do they make any change if they plant themselves on the old silver dollar ?  The Constitution says that Congress shall "coin money and regulate the value thereof."  They propose to make a new coin, a dollar which does not now exist and as reported by them never known to the law.  They must regulate its value.  They cannot shut their eyes to this duty.  They cannot shirk it.  They must regulate its value.  By what standard ?  There is but one standard of value in existence, which is the gold dollar or unit of value.  The new coin or silver dollar must therefore be regulated by the gold dollar now in use, and with reference to it alone, for there is no other standard or unit of value known to the law.  No act of Congress can make 412.8 grains of silver worth a dollar in gold when a dollar in gold will purchase, as it can to-day, 480 grains of silver in the open market.  If Congress should attempt to do this in the face of large purchases daily made by the Director of the Mint at the rate of 480 grains to the dollar, the Supreme Court of the United States would be bound to hold that Congress had not regulated the value of the new coin, but had given it a false value, and violated the express provisions of the Constitution.  This much is clear;  but whether the Supreme Court might not go further and decide that in making this silver dollar a legal tender for the payment of debts, except to and from the Government, Congress had exceeded its authority, I am not the person to venture an opinion;  but I can find no authority in the Constitution for such legislation.

Having thus, as I believe, clearly demonstrated that Congress has no legal right to make a creditor receive 412.8 grains of silver in lieu of a gold dollar which will purchase 480 grains, it seems to me quite superfluous to attempt to show that it has no moral right to do so.  A man may voluntarily take less than he is entitled to, but to force him to receive less than his money would purchase in open market is a manifest wrong which requires no elucidation.  No wrong was done to the debtor in 1873 by the abolition of the silver dollar then worth more than the gold dollar, and which had not been in use within the existence of the present generation.  All that it did was to take away the unexpected and unseen possibility of paying the creditor in less value than either party expected or in reality contracted to pay.

The operation of a law which would make 412.8 grains of silver a legal dollar cannot be better illustrated than by following through the purchase of silver by the Director of the Mint for the manufacture of subsidiary coin under the recent legislation of Congress.  The Government sells one million of 5 per cent. bonds for par in gold.  This gold is sold for legal-tender notes at a premium of 12 per cent. and produces $1,112,000 in greenbacks.  These purchase, with silver at fifty and three-quarter pence per ounce, about $1,200,000 in standard silver.  Now, suppose the seller of the silver to have kept his legal-tender notes on deposit. until after the passage of the proposed bill;  the notes will then be payable in silver instead of gold, but as they are not at present redeemable in anything, they will fall to a discount as compared with silver equal to the present discount as compared with gold;  that is, about 12 per cent.  The seller of the silver would therefore be able with his greenbacks to purchase only $1,000,000 of silver to replace the proceeds of the $1,200,000 which he had sold to the Government shortly before, thus losing two hundred thousand dollars' worth of silver by act of Congress, and without any fault of his own, except the belief, which he has shared with all the world, that the legal-tender notes would be redeemed in gold and not in silver.

Perturbations in the Value of Silver.

If, therefore, we legislate upon this subject at all, we are bound by the express directions of the Constitution, as well as by the dictates of common honesty, to adopt the true and not a false ratio of value between the two metals.  But who can tell what is the true ratio ?  To-day silver is selling at 51d. per ounce, and a week ago it was selling at 40d. per ounce.  On the 16th of March last, when I had the honor to address the House upon this subject, the price was 53d. per ounce.  In the month of January last it was 56d. per ounce, and the extreme low point which it has reached in 1876 is 18 per cent. below the average value of 1875.  These perturbations can only be compared to the variations of the thermometer during the last week.  This, then, is a time when no man of wisdom in monetary affairs can determine the true ratio of value between gold and silver, as required by the Constitution.  It is therefore a time absolutely unsuitable for legislation upon this subject.  It is an epoch of perturbation in the price of silver more marked than has ever before occurred in the history of the precious metals.  In the long period of time for which we have authentic data, from 1687 to 1872, the variations in the relative value of gold and silver were between 14.74 and 15.83;  and during our whole political history of one hundred years the ratio ranged between 15 and 16 until the present year, when the range has been between 16 and 20, involving a fall of 18 per cent. in the value of silver in a single year.  Now, where is the man who can tell us whether silver is going up or going down relatively to gold ?  Who can tell us whether the present ratio is likely to be permanent or whether there is to be a sudden rise in the value of silver or a fall still greater than that which has occurred ?

Who can determine the duration of the causes which have produced this fall ?  First of these comes the yield of the American silver-mines, now estimated at $40,000,000 yearly, and there is every reason to believe that the product of the American mines will steadily increase.  The second cause, the demonetization of silver begun in Germany, will have spent its force when the stock of silver on hand in that country shall have been disposed of.  And this is a striking evidence of the sensitiveness of the market for silver, that the attempt to sell so small an amount as $40,000,000, not more than the product of the American mint's for a single year, should cause a fall in the price of silver in London of from five to eight pence per ounce.  The third agency producing the fall in the value of silver is the present apparent saturation of India and China with that material;  in other words, those countries no longer absorb the surplus silver of the world.  Now who can tell how long these causes will continue to operate ?  Even if Germany should relieve itself of its surplus silver, what policy will the Latin Union adopt in regard to their silver ?

The Double Standard.

The whole course of commerce points to the adoption of the single gold standard throughout the civilized world for all purposes except subsidiary coinage.  The difficulties in the way of a double standard, always serious, would appear to be insuperable in view of the extraordinary fluctuations in the value of silver, and it would be only possible to preserve the double standard by frequent changes in the value of silver coin, involving through its recoinage such confusion in the current business of society that it would become an intolerable nuisance.  Nor would this confusion be abated by the adoption of the silver standard alone.  So far as foreign commerce is concerned, settlements would have to be made in the gold standard, and the fluctuations of exchange would be aggregated by the daily fluctuations in silver.  The views of John Stuart Mill upon this subject are so clearly stated, that I do not see how they can be regarded otherwise than as decisive.

§ 1.  Though the qualities necessary to fit any commodity for being used as money are rarely united in any considerable perfection, there are two commodities which possess them in an eminent and nearly an equal degree, the two precious metals, as they are called: gold and silver.  Some nations have accordingly attempted to compose their circulating medium of these two metals indiscriminately.

There is an obvious convenience in making use of the more costly metal for larger payments and the cheaper one for smaller;  and the only question relates to the mode in which this can best be done.  The mode most frequently adopted has been to establish between the two metals a fixed proportion;  to decide, for example, that a gold coin, called a sovereign, should be equivalent to twenty of the silver coins, called shillings;  both the one and the other being called, in the ordinary money of account of the country, by the same denomination, a pound;  and it being left free to every one who has a pound to pay, either to pay it in the one metal or in the other.

At the time when the valuation of the two metals relatively to each other ---say twenty shillings to the sovereign or twenty-one shillings to the guinea--- was first made, the proportion probably corresponded, as nearly as it could be made to do, with the ordinary relative values of the two metals, grounded on their cost of production;  and if those natural or cost values always continued to bear the same ratio to one another, the arrangement would be unobjectionable.  This, however, is far from being the fact.  Gold and silver, though the least variable in value of all commodities, are not invariable and do not always vary simultaneously.  Silver, for example, was lowered in permanent value more than gold by the discovery of the American mines;  and those small variations of value which take place occasionally do not effect both metals alike.

Suppose such a variation to take place, the value of the two metals relatively to one another no longer agreeing with their rated proportion, one or the other of them will now be rated below its bullion value and there will be a profit to be made by melting it.

Suppose, for example, that gold rises in value relatively to silver, so that the quantity of gold in the sovereign is now worth more than the quantity of silver in twenty shillings.  Two consequences will ensue.  No debtor will any longer find it his interest to pay in gold.  He will always pay in silver, because twenty shillings are a legal tende1 for a debt of one pound, and he can procure silver convertible into twenty shillings for less gold than that contained in a sovereign.  The other consequence will be that unless a sovereign can be sold for more than twenty shillings all the sovereigns will be melted, since as bullion they will purchase a greater number of shillings than they exchange for a coin.  The converse of all this would happen if silver instead of gold were the metal which had risen in comparative value.  A sovereign would not now be worth so much as twenty shillings, and whoever had a pound to pay would prefer paying it by a sovereign, while the silver coins would be collected for the purpose of being melted and sold as bullion for gold at their real value, that is above the legal valuation.  The money of the community, therefore, would never really consist of both metals, but of the one only which at the particular time best suited the interest of debtors;  and the standard of the currency would be constantly liable to change from the one metal to the other, at a loss on each change of the expense of coinage on the metal which fell out of use.

It appears, therefore, that the value of money is liable to more frequent fluctuations when both metals are a legal-tender at a fixed valuation than when the exclusive standard of the currency is either gold or silver.  Instead of being only affected by variations in the cost of production of one metal, it is subject to derangement from those of two.  The particular kind of variation to which a currency is rendered more liable by having two legal standards is a fall of value, or what is commonly called a depreciation;  since practically that one of the two metals will always be the standard of which the real has fallen below the rated value.  If the tendency of the metals be to rise in value, all payments will be made in the one which has risen the least;  and if to fall, then in that which has fallen most.

§ 2.  The plan of a double standard is still occasionally brought forward by here and there a writer or orator as a great improvement in currency.  It is probable that with most of its adherents its chief merit is its tendency to a sort of depreciation, there being at all times abundance of supporters for any mode, either open or covert, of lowering the standard.  Some, however, are influenced by an exaggerated estimate of an advantage which to a certain extent is real, that of being able to have recourse for replenishing the circulation, to the united stock of gold and silver in the commercial world, instead of being confined to one of them, which, from accidental absorption, may not be obtainable with sufficient rapidity.  The advantage without the disadvantages of a double standard seems to be best obtained by those nations with whom one only of the two metals is a legal tender, but the other also is coined and allowed to pass for whatever value the market assigns to it.

When this plan is adopted, it is naturally the more costly metal which is left to be bought and sold as an article of commerce.  But nations which, like England, adopt the more costly of the two as their standard resort to a different expedient for retaining them both in circulation ---namely, to make silver a legal tender, but only for small payments.  In England no one can be compelled to receive silver in payment for a larger amount than forty shillings.  With this regulation there is necessarily combined another, namely, that silver coin should be rated, in comparison with gold, somewhat above its intrinsic value;  that there should not be in twenty shillings as much silver as is worth a sovereign;  for if there were a very slight turn of the market in its favor would make it worth more than a sovereign, and it would be profitable to melt the silver coin.  The overvaluation of the silver coin creates an inducement to buy silver and send it to the mint to be coined, since it is given back at a higher value than properly belongs to it;  this, however, has been guarded against by limiting the quantity of the silver coinage, which is not left, like that of gold, to the discretion of individuals, but is determined by the government, and restricted to the amount supposed to be required for small payments.  The only precaution necessary is not to put so high a valuation upon the silver as to hold out a strong temptation to private coining. ---Principles of Political Economy.

What are we asked to do.

I need not tell the House that the question of the value of silver is a disturbing element at the present time, not only in this country, but throughout Europe;  that the fall in value has produced great distress throughout the eastern world, and India is said to be in a state of general bankruptcy in consequence of the inability of debtors to discharge their obligations even though the money in which they were payable has fallen in value, because capital has taken fright and sternly locked itself up until a calm judgment can be formed as to a future market for silver.  Fortunately the United States have escaped these great evils.  Owing to the suspension of specie payments and the demonetization of silver in 1873 we are not forced to deal with the question of the depreciation of our coinage.  We are thus relieved from the difficulties which beset England in its Indian Empire, France and the Latin Union in regard to their double standard, and Germany in its effort to establish a single gold standard.  But the proposition of this bill is that, being free from the embarrassment of the question, we shall deliberately load ourselves down with its difficulties, and by making a market for the surplus silver which has produced all these disastrous consequences, transfer to ourselves the burden of the settlement of this difficult problem.  And, as I have already shown, we are asked to take all these consequences upon our shoulders without the slightest obligation on our part to do so, and without the possibility of any benefit either to the country or to the producers of silver.

How it would Affect the Government.

It is alleged, it is true, that the effect of the passage of this bill will be to raise the price of silver, and that we ought to pass it because silver is a domestic product.  This is putting the doctrine of protection to a new use.  If silver is to continue to be one of our exports, it can be sold abroad at its current commercial value;  but it will not go abroad unless we are prepared to sell it at that price.  But it is alleged that this bill will command a use for it at home and gradually raise its price here.  If this be true, it would surely make a market for the surplus German silver, and all the silver which is now weighing down the markets of the world, would simply be poured in upon our market and be sold to the Government at the rate of 412.8 grains to the dollar, when in fact a dollar should purchase 480 grains.  Our gold would be thus driven out of the country and everything of value which could be exchanged for silver would follow the gold, just as happened in Japan under similar conditions, and the Government would become the owner of an enormous stock of silver bullion, upon which in fact it would have to pay the interest and levy it in the form of taxes upon the people and the industries of the country.  For the bullion so purchased, the coin notes would be issued.  These coin notes being receivable for public dues, the Government would have no revenue except in the shape of coin notes, which it could pay out only in the purchase of bullion, because the Constitution confers no authority on the Government to make them legal-tenders from the Government to its creditors, and the bill before us now does not attempt it.  How, then, would the Government meet its current expenses ?  It must either borrow money by the issue of bonds bearing interest or it would have to sell its accumulated silver which it had purchased at the rate of 412.8 grains to the dollar at the best price it could get for it in the markets of the world.  To-day it might sell it at the rate of 480 grains to the dollar, which would involve a loss of 15 per cent., but inasmuch as there would be no other market for it except at such rates as would permit its use in the arts, it is manifest that the price would fall very much below the lowest limit which it has yet touched.  Nor could any remedy for this embarrassment be found in increased taxes, for they would be paid in these coin notes, which could only be used for the purchase of more bullion.

The whole proposition, therefore, simply resolves itself into an attempt on the part of the owners of the silver-mines to sell their entire product to the Government of the United States at a price 15 per cent. above its present market value for their own personal profit, with the dead certainty that Government could not resell the accumulated bullion, not only of our own markets, but of the world, except at a frightful loss, which must be borne by the tax-payers of this country.

The Coin notes cannot Circulate as Money.

This proposition is so plain that I am overcome with astonishment at the audacity of its authors, whoever they may be, and the failure of the Committee on Mines and Mining to comprehend the fatal bearings of the bill which they have reported.  But we shall be told that these coin notes would circulate as money and drive out the legal-tender notes.  As no provision is made for the retirement of the legal-tender notes I cannot see where they would be driven to, and if both classes of notes should, in effect, continue in circulation, the result would be inflation to the extent of the whole amount of the coin notes issued.  But this result is impossible, for the legal-tender notes becoming redeemable in silver instead of gold, and not being payable on demand, would at once fall to a discount upon the price of silver equal to the present discount upon the price of gold.  In other words, they would be at a discount of 12 per cent. upon the value of the silver-coin notes.  They would therefore be the inferior currency, and, being a legal-tender for the payment of debts, would continue to circulate to the exclusion of the coin notes, which would only be used for the payment of the duties upon imports.  The only effect they could have, would be to drive out all the gold from the country, because there would be no longer any use for gold, the duties being payable in silver, which tho Government would be expected to use by the advocates of this bill for the payment of interest upon the public debt.

How Shall We Pay the National Debt ?

Thus we are brought face to face with the proposition that the public debt shall be paid principal and interest in silver coin at the rate of 412.8 grains to the dollar, which has had no existence in law since 1873, and had no existence in fact since 1834.  And we deliberately propose to adopt this mode of payment because silver has fallen below its value at the time of the contract, and we can thereby make a profit at the expense of the national creditors.  If the authors of this scheme reflected that it will be at the expense of the national credit;  that it will be regarded by the whole civilized world as an act of deliberate robbery;  that it will be henceforth impossible to convert any more of our 6 per cent. bonds into new bonds bearing a lower rate of interest;  that on the fourteen hundred millions of debt yet remaining to be provided for we should thus lose at least 2 per cent. annually, amounting to $200,000,000 per annum, and that we should practically isolate ourselves from the commerce of the globe as much as China was formerly shut in from the civilized world, and that we should be regarded as a nation incapable of comprehending the first principles of common honesty, they would take pause and shudder at the disastrous consequences involved in the ill-considered bill which they have reported "to utilize the products of the gold and silver mines" at the expense of the prosperity and the honor of the country.  Let it not be forgotten that "Honor's train is longer than his foreskirt."

Who will be Profited.

And now let us consider for a moment who is to profit by this monstrous proposition.  So far as the country is concerned, it is evident that there can only be loss, without any corresponding justification or advantage whatever, and the end must be such a general destruction in the values of property as to plunge the nation into difficulties and distress which it would required the patient efforts and the wise statesmanship of a whole generation to repair.  But, in the process of this transfer of property and this destruction of values, the speculator and the gambler would have abundant opportunity to profit at the expense of the whole community.  Pass this bill, and the rise in gold would be measured by the exact difference between the market value of silver and the fictitious value which is imparted to it by the provisions of the bill.  The rise would be from 15 to 20 per cent., according to the fluctuations in the price of silver.  On every million of dollars on which the gold-gamblers have gone "long," there would be a profit of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand dollars, and the number of millions to which this fraternity would go "long" are only to be estimated by the number of victims who can be found to take part in this game of "heads I win, and tails you lose."

Again the owners of the Bonanza mines, who, by the fall in the value of silver, are receiving $6,000,000 annually less than they expected to get, would, by reason of the expected advantages of the legislation, be enabled to impart new life to their decaying stocks, and thus transfer to a confiding public, at high prices, property which is becoming too precarious for these sagacious operators longer to retain.  Thus only have I been able to explain for myself, and I trust I have made it plain to this House, and that the country will understand, how it has been possible to get this bill reported from a committee which is not charged under the rules with the consideration of financial bills of any kind whatever, much less of one which unsettles the whole financial system of this country and attacks the foundations upon which public and private credit has hitherto securely rested.  It proposes a revolution before which all political questions sink into insignificance;  it undertakes at the heels of the session, and practically without debate, the decision of one of the greatest and the gravest questions now before the world;  one which has already involved the indian Empire in disaster and bankruptcy;  one upon which a British commission has been in session for months;  one upon which a committee of the House of Peers of the French Republic has been and is still in session;  one which seriously disturbs the German fiscal system and has caused the Latin Union to stop its coinage;  one upon which the wisest and best political econon1ists of the world are in doubt and at variance.  This great question, which affects every household throughout the civilized globe, is sought to be disposed of by an inappropriate committee of this House as the Doorkeeper would brush away a cobweb from one corner of this Hall.

Reference to a Commission.

If these gentlemen really desire to deal intelligently with this great question, let them withdraw their bill and support the concurrent resolution now pending for the appointment of a commission of competent experts to consider this matter in all its bearings, political, financial, and social, and to report the results of the investigation at the next session of Congress;  when they can be discussed with deliberation, good temper, and calm judgment, so that the really serious interests involved may be cared for with wisdom and with statesmanship.

Conclusion.

It would seem to be clear, then, that the proposed legislation is not in the public interest, but in furtherance of private speculation at the expense of the public welfare, whereby the property of creditors will be needlessly confiscated, involving debtors and creditors in one common ruin;  whereby the savings of the poorer classes will be despoiled by the shrinkage in their value, and the provision made for widows and orphans through the beneficent agency of life-insurance will be impaired;  whereby it will become impossible to fund the public debt at a lower rate of interest, thus perpetuating the heavy burden of taxation;  whereby American credit will be ruined at home and abroad, and an irreparable check will be given to our slowly returning prosperity;  whereby a precedent will be set, dangerous to the commonwealth and fatal to our liberties, of using the sovereign power to coin money for the express benefit of private and individual interests, which if followed up must end in the destruction of free government.

Summing up the whole matter, I conclude that the demonetization of the silver dollar in 1873 was not effected by surreptitious or improper legislation;  that while it is competent for Congress to order the coinage of a new silver dollar, it has no right in law or morals to give it any other value than one which conforms strictly to the value of the existing standard of value, which is the gold dollar;  that the debtor class will not only not experience any relief if the proposed legislation should be enacted, but would be hopelessly ruined;  that this legislation would not reduce the burden of national, State, and municipal taxation, but would make it heavier to be carried;  that labor would not be benefited, but that the return to better times would be indefinitely postponed, in consequence of the flight of capital from the walks of industry to regions where it will be safe from spoliation.

I do not conclude, however, that it may not be expedient to remonetize the silver dollar at its real value when it can be determined and upon proper conditions;  or that it may not be wise to re-establish the double standard, if it be found to be practicable, which I doubt;  or that it may not be the wisest course of all to have but a single standard of silver, which is certainly feasible.  Upon these points I reserve my judgment until we can have the report of a competent commission, such as was contemplated in the bill which I had the honor to introduce, the substance of which is incorporated in the concurrent resolution reported by the Committee on Banking and Currency and is now before the House, in favor of which I shall record my vote, as the only statesman-like method to deal with a question which puzzles the wisest heads.