"I earnestly recommend the prompt repeal of the provisions of the act passed July 14, 1890, authorizing the purchase of silver bullion, and that other legislative action may put beyond all doubt or mistake the intention and the ability of the Government to fulfill its pecuniary obligations in money universally recognized by all civilized countries [gold]."
Grover Cleveland
August 8, 1893.
---calling congress to an extra session to enact the wishes of bankers
senate bill #1, page 211/207
The Senate having under consideration the bill (H.R. 1) to repeal a part of an act, approved July 14, 1890, entitled "An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes"---
Mr. Sherman said:
Mr. President: The immediate question before us is whether the United States shall suspend the purchase of silver bullion directed by the act of July 14, 1890. It is to decide this question the President has called Congress together in special session at this inconvenient season of the year. If this was the only reason for an extraordinary session, it would seem insufficient. The mere addition of 18,000,000 ounces of silver to the vast hoard in the Treasury, and the addition of fourteen millions of Treasury notes to the one thousand millions of notes outstanding, would hardly justify this call, especially as Congress at the last session neglected or refused to suspend the purchase of silver. The call is justified by the existing financial stringency, growing out of the fear that the United States will open its mints to the free coinage of silver. This is the real issue. The purchase of silver is a mere incident. The gravity of this issue can not be measured by words. In every way in which we turn we encounter difficulties.
If we adopt the single standard of gold without aid from silver, we will greatly increase the burden of national and individual debts, disturb the relation between capital and labor, cripple the industries of the country, still further reduce the value of silver, of which we now have in the Treasury and among our people over $593,000,000, and of which we are the chief produces, and invite a struggle with the great commercial nations for the possession of the gold of the world.
---[Why should we adopt gold standard ? who is asking for gold standard ? $500million silver coins are enough to enforce specie payment and require banks to pay out silver coins only and withdraw from existence their notes. You don't like that Mr. paper money senator.]On the other hand, if we continue the purchase of 54,000,000 ounces of silver a year, we will eventually bring the United States to the single standard of silver --a constantly depreciating commodity, now rejected by the great commercial nations as a standard of value; a commodity confessedly inconvenient by its weight, bulk, and value for the large transactions of foreign and domestic commerce, and detach us from the money standard now adopted by all European nations, with which we now have our chief commercial and social relations. In dealing with such a question we surely ought to dismiss from our minds all party affinities or prejudices; all local and sectional inter
................................I do not believe in that kind of management, buying silver from our people and then coining the same amount and having a large profit, as it is called. If it is a profit it is an outrage. If it is not a profit it is a fraud, and I think it is a fraud to call our purchases of silver bullion profitable because we can coin more dollars out of it, having the supreme power to do it, than we pay for the silver bullion. Now, Mr. President, with these remarks I shall for a brief period (for I will not take very long) refer to another subject I think I am bound to do by every obligation of honor and duty.
Coinage Act of 1873.
---[John Sherman did commit the crime of 1873, on January 17, 1873. He did lie to Casserly and the whole Senate:I wish now to call attention of the Senate to the coinage act of the United States, and especially to the act of 1873, which has been the subject of so much misrepresentation and falsehood in this debate. I propose, not on my own account, but for the benefit of the distinguished officers of the Government who participated in this legislation, to show, in the most unequivocal manner, the deception and falsehood, largely the result of cowardice, that has been uttered in respect to the act I refer to.
When the coinage ratio was fixed by Alexander Hamilton of 15 ounces of silver as the equivalent of 1 ounce of gold, it was substantially equivalent to the market ratio, but the constant tendency of silver to decline in relative value had been going on for years and continued in an almost imperceptible degree, so that when the French standard was fixed at 15½ to 1, the little gold then in the United States was exported, and silver alone was the coin in circulation.
Mr. Mills. About what time was the French standard fixed at 15½ ?
Mr. Sherman. It was in 1803, I understand. At that time, and for many years, foreign silver coins were largely circulated as money in the United States, mostly in worn and depreciated coin, worth less than its nominal value. This caused the silver dollar, then coined in small quantities, to be melted, as more valuable than the coin then in circulation.
Up to that time I believe the whole amount of silver dollars was less than $2,000,000. I am quite sure of it. Mr. Jefferson, in 1805, discontinued the coinage of the silver dollar, and for thirty years not a dollar was issued. Our currency was either the paper of State banks, fractional coins, or depreciated foreign silver coins. A friend of mine here said he knew of a large payment being made for a farm in silver dollars during this period; but I soon satisfied him that that was a mistake. However, the Spanish milled dollar and the Mexican silver dollar still continued to be the legal standard of money in this country until 1873, some of it at least.
Mr. Cockrell. Up to 1857, the Senator will remember.
Mr. Sherman. To 1857, but I think some of it was kept until 1873.
Mr. Cockrell. It was full legal tender up to 1857, and being such was not recoined.
Mr. Sherman. So the only dollars then in circulation in this country were dollars of foreign manufacture. After the action in 1835, etc., they were beginning to be coined more or less, but almost entirely for the Chinese trade. They were exported there during and since our civil war, at the time when specie payments were suspended in all parts of our country except in California. Practically no gold coin was then in circulation. This continued until une 28, 1834, when, in order to secure gold in circulation, the ratio was changed to 16 of silver to 1 of gold. The object of this change was distinctly stated, especially by Mr. Benton, who said:
".... to enable the friends of gold to go to work at the right place to effect the recovery of that precious metal which their fathers once possessed; which the subjects of European kings now possess; which the citizens of the young republics to the south all possess; which even the free negroes of San Domingo possess; but which the yeomanry of this America have been deprived for more than twenty years, and will be deprived forever unless they discover the cause of the evil and apply the remedy to its root."
By the act of 1834, superadded to by the act of 1837, the ratio of 16 to 1 instead of 15 to 1 was adopted. The result was that gold coins were largely introduced and circulated; but as 16 ounces of silver were worth more than 1 ounce of gold, the silver coins disappeared, except the depreciated silver coin of other countries, then a legal tender. To correct this evil Congress, February 21, 1853, provided for the purchase of silver bullion. That was the first time the Government had ever undertaken to buy bullion for coinage purposes, so far as I now remember. It provided for the purchase of silver bullion and the coinage of subsidiary silver coins at the ratio of less than 15 to 1.
As the value of these coins was less than gold at the coinage ratio, they were limited as a legal tender to $5 in any one payment. They were, in fact, a subsidiary coin made on Government account, and, from their convenience and necessity, maintained in circulation. They are the very coins now in use, revived and reënacted by the resumption act of 1875.
It was not the intention of the framers of this law to demonetize silver, because they were openly avowed bimetallists, but it limited coinage to silver bought by the Government. They saw in this expedient a way in which silver could be more generally utilized than in any other. Mr. R.M.T. Hunter, an avowed bimetallist, in a report to the United States Senate, said:
"The mischief would be great indeed if all the world were to adopt but one of the precious metals as the standard of value. To adopt gold alone would diminish the specie currency more than one-half; and the reduction the other way, should silver be taken as the only standard, would be large enough to prove highly disastrous to the human race."
He evidently did not consider the purchase of silver bullion at its coinage value by the Government, instead of the free coinage of silver, as monometallism.
---[Hunter was a senator cut from the same cloth as Sherman, he moved the bill through the senate without debate or discussion; he is not an authority, his report has no value. The latin league got along fine on silver standard; by this time enough silver was unearthed in the United States to supply sufficient number of coins for an exclusively silver circulation ---a real specie payment; so the United States could have prospered on a silver standard. In the House, future president Andrew Johnson clearly saw that by reducing the silver content of two half dollars to 384 grains while the $1 coin contains 412 grains, the movers of the bill were purposely generating a future problem.After the passage of the act of February 21, 1853, gold in great quantities, the product of the mines in California, was freely coined at the ratio of 16 to 1, and was in general circulation. If, then, the purchase of silver instead of the free coinage of silver is the demonetization of silver, it was demonetized practically in 1835, and certainly in 1853, when the purchase of silver and its use as money increased enormously. In 1852 the coinage of silver was less than $1,000,000. In the next year the coinage of silver rose to over $9,000,000, and reached the aggregate of nearly $50,000,000 before the beginning of the civil war. Then, as now, the purchase of silver bullion led to a greater coinage than free coinage.
---[But those silver coins did not go into circulation, because the act of 1853 made the $1 silver coin to contain more silver than two 50-cent coins and was worth more than a $1 gold coin. Somebody started the demonetization of silver (and gold, too) in 1852, when silver was becoming plenty ---printing-press money-corporations are highly opposed to plenty of specie.]This was the condition of our coinage until the war, like all other great wars in history, drove all coins into hoarding or exportation, and paper promises, great and small, from five cents to a thousand dollars, supplanted both silver and gold.
Now we come to the act of 1873, which dropped from the coin the silver dollar. The charge has been made over and over again that this was surreptitiously done; that it was done under cover in some way. That has been clearly disproved by the exhibition of the public records, and it seems to me that every intelligent man ought now to have seen that fact. But there has been a repetition of that imputation. It was an imputation against the whole mass of the Forty-second Congress, and yet in conventions no doubt of honest and good people --I do not in the least disparage them-- they denounced the act of 1873 as a fraud and as a crime; yes, it was the crime of 1873.
Not only that, but we have innuendoes of various kinds made on this floor in respect to it. and I must confess I was greatly affected and surprised when the honorable Senator from Indiana [Mr. Voorhees] got up and applied the words he did to that law, describing it as the "stealthy and treacherous" law of 1873.
Mr. Voorhees. Mr. President, I desire to say that nothing could possibly have been further from my purpose or intention than to say a disagreeable word to the Senator from Ohio. I have my views as to the character of the act of 1873, but I thought the Senator from Ohio had three or four years ago so thoroughly extricated his own name from any improper connection with the act that he was not in my mind at all, as I beg to assure him, when those words were uttered; and inasmuch as they have given him a single moment's disagreeable feeling, or have been in the slightest degree offensive to him, I express my regret that they were uttered at all; they were not necessary to me in the description I was giving. I beg to say that I am thoroughly incapable of inflicting an affront unprovoked upon any gentleman either in this body or anywhere else, and nothing was further from my purpose than to say an irritating or disagreeable thing to any Senator, certainly not to the Senator from Ohio, on the occasion to which he alludes.
Mr. Sherman. I certainly have no desire to say anything more about the matter than what is stated by the Senator from Indiana. This statement is entirely satisfactory, and I know it was purely some of his exuberant eloquence, for he was very eloquent that day, and I supposed probably had forgotten.
But, Mr. President, I wish to assure you that while I do have some feeling about this matter, it is not on my own account. I do not believe any man here present would suppose that I would mislead deliberately the Senate of the United States in the passage of a great public measure; but the charge having been made among the people it does tend to bring into contempt and ridicule the great body to which we belong. These charges, repeated over and over again by innuendoes, do tend to disgrace and dishonor the body of which we are members.
My name is not mentioned in these accusations, but I was chairman of the Committee on Finance, and had charge of the bill here; and I prefer to show exactly what was done. But the great act of 1873 is thus stained by the imputation of our own countrymen, and I intend to produce the public records and make this matter plain and clear, that the whole history of that law from beginning to end was honorable to Congress, free from corruption, open and ingenuous, frank and full. I will place it upon the public records, and hereafter when any man makes such an imputation I will simply say that it is a falsehood, and I brand it so now in advance.
What is the history of that bill ? I have here the original bill. It was a bill framed in the Treasury Department. It did not come into Congress in the ordinary way, but it was framed in the Treasury Department by a distinguished body of experts, every one of whose names is now borne with honor wherever it is mentioned. Most of them are dead, but some of them are living. Mr. Pollock, long a Director of the Mint; Mr. Secretary Boutwell, who, as I shall show you, claims to be the author of the bill, and properly so, because he was at the head of the Department; Mr. John Jay Knox, who held the office of Deputy Comptroller of the Currency; Mr. Linderman, who was Director of the Mint; Mr. Patterson, who was Superintendent of the Mint at Philadelphia, and a whole host of other experts, framed that bill after a most elaborate correspondence, which is contained here in the official documents communicated to Congress at the time.
So the whole matter was open. They circulated thousands of copies of the bill to everybody who desired to read it or could be prevailed upon to read it, in order to get the sense and judgment of the experts of our country in respect to the coinage, and those answers are here printed in a public document communicated to Congress upon the call of the House of Representatives before a single step was taken on the bill.
Mr. Aldrich. That was in 1870 ?
Mr. Sherman. Yes; I will give the dates in a moment. These were men of untarnished character. It was a scientific bill, a bill that we members of Congress do not care much about handling, because if we are lawyers we are not metallists; if we are business men we do not know anything about the mystery of coinage, one of the most subtle and careful sciences. These were men who would rather "pore over a table of logarithms or study a problem in geometry or do something of that kind than do anything to tarnish their name and their fame. They prepared this bill at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury, and it was communicated to Congress. Here is the first communication conveying the bill to me as chairman of the Committee on Finance to be submitted to the Senate:
Treasury department, April 25, 1870.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a bill revising the laws relative to the Mint, assay offices, and coinage of the United States, and accompanying report. The bill has been prepared under the supervision of John Jay Knox, Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, and its passage is recommended in the form presented. It includes, in a condensed form, all the important legislation upon the coinage, not now obsolete, since the first mint was established, in 1792; and the report gives a concise statement of the various amendments proposed to existing laws and the necessity for the change recommended. There has been no revision of the laws pertaining to the Mint and coinage since 1837, and it is believed that the passage of the inclosed bill will conduce greatly to the efficiency and economy of this important branch of the Government service.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. John Sherman, Chairman Finance Committee, United States Senate.
Geo. S. Boutwell,
Secretary of the Treasury.
The bill contains seventy-one sections. Sections 15 and 18 of the bill are the only ones to which this imputation has ever been made. I have here sections 15 and 18 as originally introduced by the Secretary of the Treasury and sent to the Committee on Finance. Here are the original sections:
---[Sadly you are correct; but more than that. Those senators and representatives were asleep and did not comprehend, either, that section 14 changed the standard from silver to gold. From 1792 to 1873 the $1 silver coin was the "Dollar or Unit." Section 14 declared that the 25.8-grain $1 gold coin shall be the "unit of value." This made silver --even if there was a 384-grain $1 silver coin-- a gold standard-based coin. Representative Potter seems to be the only one who noticed this change, he mentioned it to the whole House, but no one in there cared to comprehend it.]Sec. 15. And be it further enacted, That of the silver coins, the weight of the half dollar, or piece of 50 cents, shall be 192 grains; and that of the quarter dollar and dime, shall be, respectively, one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half dollar. That the silver coin issued in conformity with the above section shall be a legal tender in any one payment of debts for all sums less than $1.
This is a literal copy, word for word, from the act of 1853, except that it drops the 5-cent piece, I believe it is.
Mr. Mills. The act of 1873, the Senator means ?
Mr. Sherman. No; I say the bill that was sent to us reenacts the law of 1853, and is an exact copy of it; but as the law of 1853 applied only to the fractional coins, in this draft they added to the four or five sections fixing the gold and silver and other coins the following section:
Sec. 18. And be it further enacted, That no coins, either gold, silver, or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the Mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth.
Under that section the dollar was dropped from the coinage, a dollar that had scarcely been used for nearly seventy years except to put silver in form for exportation. But I will allude to that more hereafter.
These sections in the three years that the bill was pending in Congress were changed either in the House or Senate in only one or two unimportant particulars. The House of Representatives thought it was necessary to provide a dollar. They knew that the dollar was dropped out, as everybody else must have known, because the gentlemen who framed the original bill give the history of that act, and, as I shall show you in a moment, this matter was pointed out by them. It was discussed and the reasons given, and I will furnish in a moment the extract.
I have here the form which these two sections assumed when the bill was finally passed. Here is the difference:
Instead of a trade dollar, and omitting the dollar of 412½ grains ---nobody proposed such a dollar--- the House of Representatives put on a dollar of 384 grains, and that was to be, like the half dollar, a subsidiary coin. It was to be of the exact weight of two half-dollars. That was put on by the House of Representatives, because they wished to keep the form of a dollar, and it contained 384 grains.
Mr. Mills. Was it a full or a limited legal tender ?
Mr. Sherman. A limited tender to $5. There, if at all, the dollar of 412½ grains being out of use, the dollar was reduced down to a subsidiary coin, just as our smaller coins had in 1853 been reduced from their full legal tender quality.
Mr. Frye. The Senator, I think, has not stated when the Boutwell bill was first introduced in Congress.
Mr. Sherman. I gave the date.
Mr. Frye. In 1870 ?
Mr. Sherman. Yes, in 1870.
Mr. Frye. Then it is the action of 1870 of which the Senator is now speaking ?
Mr. Sherman. This is the bill as it was passed into a law.
Mr. Cullom. That was in 1873.
Mr. Sherman. In 1873. It was pending during three different sessions of Congress. The dollar of 384 grains was inserted when it came to us from the House. The bill of 1870 having passed the Senate, failed in the House of Representatives for want of time. In the following Congress the same bill was taken up in the House, there considered, passed, and sent to the Senate. The Senate then, upon the demand of the people of the Pacific coast and the petition of the State of California, which I had read here in open Senate some years ago, inserted, instead of the 384-grain dollar, the trade dollar containing 420 grains. The Senate also dropped out the word "grains," which had been introduced in the House, and in that form it finally passed. Throughout all these changes this provision remained:
Sec. 17. That no coins, either of gold, silver, or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth.
It is thus shown at from the first introduction of the bill, April 25, 1870, until its final passage into a law, February, 1873, the silver dollar of 412½ grains was dropped from the silver coins, and by section l7 was prohibited.
In the report accompanying the introduction of the bill, under date of April 25, 1870, Mr. John J. Knox, Comptroller of the Currency, gives the history of the silver dollar and the reasons for its discontinuance.
The dollar unit, as money of account, was established by the act of Congress April 2, 1792, and the same act provides for the coinage of a silver dollar, "of the value of a Spanish milled or pillar dollar, as the same is now current." The silver dollar was first coined in 1794, weighing 416 grains of which 371¼ grains were pure silver, the fineness being 892.4. The act of January 18, 1837, reduces the standard weight to 412½ grains, but increases the fineness to .900, the quantity of pure silver remaining 371¼ grains as before, and at these rates it is still coined in limited amount.
He then says:
Silver Dollar---its Discontinuance as a Standard.
The coinage of the silver-dollar piece, the history of which is here given, is discontinued in the proposed bill. It is by law the dollar unit, and, assuming the value of gold to be fifteen and one-half times that of silver, being about the mean ratio for the past six years, is worth in gold a premium of about 3 per cent (its value being 103.12) and intrinsically more than 7 per cent premium in our other silver coin, its value thus being 107.42. The present laws consequently authorize both a gold-dollar unit and a silver-dollar unit, differing from each other in intrinsic value. The present gold-dollar piece is made the dollar unit in the proposed bill, and the silver-dollar piece is discontinued. If, however, such a coin is authorized, it should be issued only as a commercial dollar, not as a standard unit of account, and of the exact value of the Mexican dollar, which is the favorite for circulation in China and Japan and other oriental countries.
Note.---"Assuming the value of gold to be fifteen and one-half times that of silver, the French 5-franc piece is worth about 96½ cents (96.4784); the standard Mexican dollar 104.90, our silver-dollar piece 103.12, and two of our half dollar pieces 96 cents."
I shall, without reading, quote from public records ---for on this subject I shall not put one word in my speech except what I quote from public records--- the statement made in this correspondence by Mr. Robert Patterson, of Philadelphia, who is confessedly one of the ablest scientists and best metallists in the United States, and probably in the world. He has a great reputation. He discussed the proposition for and against. Here is what he says:
[Ex. Doc. H.R. No. 307, second session Forty-first Congress.]
Silver dollar, half dime, and three-cent piece discontinued. Coins less than a dime of copper-nickel legal tender. One-cent piece of one gram in weight.
The silver dollar, half dime, and three-cent piece are dispensed with by this amendment. Gold becomes the standard money, of which the gold dollar is the unit. Silver is subsidiary, embracing coins from the dime to half dollar. Coins less than a dime are of copper-nickel. The legal tender is limited to the necessities of the case, not more than a dollar for such silver, or 15 cents for the nickels.
Computation of Silver-Coinage Profits.
The difference is called profit and so credited to the silver profit and loss account. But if the silver dollar is abolished (as seems to be agreed on, and properly so), a new normal or standard must be agreed on to estimate profit.
These were statements communicated to us with the bill by Dr. H.R. Linderman, formerly Director of the Mint, whose character and standing is known by all Senators. Dr. Linderman says:
Section 11 reduces the weight of the silver dollar from 412½ to 384 grains. I can see no good reason for the proposed reduction in the weight of this coin. It would be better, in my opinion. to discontinue its issue altogether. The gold dollar is really the legal unit and measure of value. Having a higher value as bullion than its nominal value, the silver dollar long ago ceased to be a coin of circulation, and, being of no practical use whatever, its issue should be discontinued.---[ "Being of no practical use" ??!!! ---what a well-paid scum this doctor is. Money talks and these theologians walk. What was the reason that in spite of silver's becoming plenty the $1 coin disappeared from circulation ? The mouth-piece does not want to go into that.
J. Ross Snowden, formerly superintendent of the mint at Philadelphia, says:
The Present Silver Dollar should not be Discontinued.
I see it is proposed to demonetize the silver dollar. This I think inadvisable. Silver coins below the dollar are now not money in a roper sense, but only tokens. I do not like the idea of reducing the silver dollar to that level. It is quite true that the silver dollar, being more valuable than two half dollars or four quarter dollars, will not be used as a circulating medium, but only for cabinets and, perhaps, to supply some occasional or local demand; yet I think there is no necessity for so considerable a piece as the dollar to be struck from the metal which is only worth 94 cents. When we speak of dollars let it be known that we speak of dollars not demonetized and reduced below their intrinsic value, and thus avoid the introduction of contradictory and loose ideas of the standard of value.
---[You definitely should have read this to the Senate on January 9, 1871; and Kelley to the House on January 9, 1872. But neither of you did, and ye had good reason: those slumbering placeholders would have been forced to awake and understand (and newspapers and writers would have had to comment on your ideas and plans)]
Hon. William E. Chandler, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, says:
"The necessity of such a revision has been apparent to everyone connected of late years with the Treasury Department. The work has been admirably performed by you. You have happily secured and availed yourself of the suggestions of others, while impressing upon codification that unity and completeness which can only result from the operations of one thoroughly informed mind. If the law is enacted it will result most beneficially."The abolition of the coinage charge, and the adoption of the metrical system, with a view to an international system of coinage, are so clearly apparent that can not believe that Congress will delay action much longer.
"I am pleased with your report and compendious statement of useful information connected with the coinage system. The table on page 26, showing the weight, fineness, and tolerance of all the United States coins, together with the amount in which such coins are legal tender, is especially valuable. I believe the very best results will follow from your work." ---[yes; give him a handjob and swallow it, too.]
Mr. President, the Finance Committee carefully examined that bill. We were not in any hurry about it. It was sent to us in April, 1870. In December, l870,the Committee on Finance, after a careful examination, after having the bill printed and sent by the order of the Senate to everyone who desired to read it or look over it, reported it unanimously.
That committee was composed of Messrs. Sherman, Williams, who was from Oregon, Cattell, Morrill, Warner, Fenton, and Bayard.
The bill was reported to the Senate December 19, 1870, after lying in our committee room for eight months. The nature of the bill I have already described. The dollar was dropped from the coinage in the bill framed in the Treasury Department. It was then an unknown coin. Although I was quite active in business which brought under my eye different forms of money, I do not remember at that time ever to have seen a silver dollar. It was an unknown quantity. Probably if it had been mentioned to the committee and discussed, it would have been if thought, as a matter of course, scarcely worthy of inquiry. If it was known at all, it was known as a coin for the foreign market.
No one proposed to reissue it. The Pacific coast had six intelligent, able and competent Senators on this floor, representing a population then of not more than a million, if that much. They would have carefully looked out for the interests of silver, if the bill affected them injuriously. But the silver dollar at that time was worth more than the gold dollar. California and Nevada were on the gold standard.
As I said, the bill was printed over and over again, finally reported, and brought before the Senate. It was debated here for three days ---[two, actually; January 9 and 10.], and I have the voluminous record upon the subject. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] took a leading part in that debate and every Senator from the Pacific coast spoke upon the measure. Representing the committee I presented the questions as they occurred from time to time until finally we diferred quite seriously upon the question of charging for the coinage of gold. The only yea-and-nay vote in the Senate occurred on the 10th day of January, 1871, and I shall read the vote:
In favor of the bill, Messrs. Bayard, Boreman, Brownlow, Casserly (from the pacific slope), Cole (also from California), Conkling, Corbett (from Oregon), Davis, Gilbert, Hamlin, Harlan, Jewett, Johnston, Kellog, McCreary, Morton, Nye (from Nevada), Patterson, Pomeroy, Pool, Ramsey, Rice, Saulsbury, Spencer, Stewart (from Nevada), Stockton, Sumner, Thurman, Tipton, Trumbull, Vickers, Warner, Willey, Williams, Wilson and Yates --36
Every one of the six members from the Pacific coast voted for the bill after full debate.
I know that the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] questioned somewhat the accuracy of the statement of my neighbor here, the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar], in regard to his vote; but his vote is on record. If the Senator desires to look at it here it is [exhibiting paper].
Mr. Stewart. I shall in due time reply to the Senator and state how it was, so that it may be all understood.
Mr. Sherman. Very well. Strange to say, that against this bill were:
Messrs. Abbott, Ames, Anthony, Buckingham, Carpenter, Chandler, Fenton, Hamilton of Texas, Harris, Howell, Morrill of Vermont, Pratt, Scott, and Sherman --14.
So, that on the only vote which was ever taken upon this floor, the Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] voted for it, and I the "devil fish," [laughter] voted against it. It was not on account of demonetizing the silver dollar. I did not do it because of that, but I did it because gold was then only coined for the benefit of the private depositors; we were not using gold except for limited purposes. Gold was the standard in California, and we thought they ought to continue to pay the old and reasonable rate for coinage of one-fifth of 1 cent to the dollar. Because we were beaten upon that proposition, the majority of the Committee on Finance voted against the bill which was reported, not because it left out the silver dollar, but because it struck out the charge for mintage of gold; and every member from the Pacific coast voted for it.
The Vice-President. The Senator will suspend. The hour of 2 o'clock having arrived, the Chair lays before the Senate the unfinished business, the title of which will be stated.
The Secretary. A bill (S. 453) to provide for the issue of circulating notes to national banks.
Mr. Manderson. I ask that the unfinished business may be temporarily laid aside by unanimous consent, so that the Senator from Ohio may proceed.
The Vice-President. Is there objection ? The Chair hears none. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. President, the continuation of the history of that bill through the House of Representatives and through all of its stages until it finally passed into the hands of the committee of conference is so clearly and distinctly stated by the report of Mr. Knox, which has already been published, that I shall ask to have it embodied in my remarks, so as to relieve me from the necessity of reading it. Every statement contained in this report I have had verified by the public records. It is, therefore, a mere quotation of the proceedings of Congress.
This bill went to the House of Representatives. The official record shows that it was carefully considered there, especially section 16, dropping the old dollar. It is sometimes said that nobody explained that the dollar was demonetized. Here is the statement made by Mr. Hooper, who had charge of the bill, one of the most eminent men who has been furnished the House of Representatives from the State of Massachusetts. I will ask that the Secretary read what Mr. Hooper said in the debate pending that bill.
The Vice-President. The Secretary will read as requested. The Secretary read as follows:
Mr. Hooper said, April 9, 1872 (Congressional Globe, part 3, second session, Forty-second Congress, page 2306):
"Section sixteen reënacts the provisions of existing laws defining the silver coins and their weights respectively, except in relation to the silver dollar, which is reduced in weight from four hundred and twelve and a half to three hundred and eighty-four grains; thus making it a subsidiary coin in harmony with the silver coins of less denomination, to secure its concurrent circulation with them. The silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and a half grains, by reason of its bullion or intrinsic value being greater than its nominal value, long since ceased to be a coin of circulation, and is melted by manufacturers of silverware. It does not circulate now in commercial transactions with any country, and the convenience of those manufacturers in this respect can better be met by supplying small stamped bars of the same standard, avoiding the useless expense of coining the dollar for that purpose. The coinage of the half dime is discontinued for the reason that its place is supplied by the copper-nickel five-cent piece, of which a large issue has been made, and which, by the provisions of the act authorizing its issue, is redeemable in United States currency."
Mr. Sherman. If any man could make a clearer statement of this matter than Mr. Hooper did when it was pending, I do not know how it could be done.
---[You are good, obviously much better than the people around you !Mr. Daniel. Was that the Congress at which the bill finally passed ?
Mr. Sherman. As a matter of course, it was the same Congress.
Mr. Daniel. But it was at another session of that Congress, was it not ?
Mr. Sherman. It was the first session of that Congress. The bill finally passed in the second session.
Mr. Stewart. Mr. Hooper did not state in the extract which has been read the provision that limited the legal-tender quality to $5. The change of weight was the only change he explained, as I understand.
---[You don't seem to understand anything; you expert on coins and hard money ! Apparently everything has to be spelled out for you slowly. You didn't bother to comprehend section 14 in 1871, and, with your pants down, voted against silver. You were unwilling to read and understand written text, and now you are not willing to own up to it.]Mr. Sherman. It was put in as a subsidiary coin, as stated here expressly by this gentleman, in the same section, a section which itself provides that these coins shall be only a legal tender for $5. If there was any demonetization of the silver dollar, here was a humiliation of it. Instead of being a legal tender for all debts, public and private, it was reduced to a subsidiary coin by the House of Representatives, upon the motion of the chairman of the committee, after as distinct a statement as could be made. The old dollar must have blushed then in its old age, that after one hundred years it should not be better placed.
Mr. President, that shows that it was done openly and fairly, that attention was called to it, and that it was debated; but, as a matter of course, the full history of the transaction will be given in the extracts which I have already quoted. The bill finally passed the House of Representatives on the 27th of May, 1872. It came to the Senate, was referred to the Committee on Finance, and not reported until December 16, 1872. We were not in a hurry about it. It was a great measure, a heavy measure. It was finally brought before the Senate, and the Senate, instead of providing for a dollar of 384 grains, struck that out and inserted the trade dollar, with the history of which the Senate is quite familiar. That trade dollar was only a legal tender for $5. It was not until years after, when that trade dollar came into general circulation here, that finally the legal tender quality was given to it. The Senator from Nevada was a Senator at that time, too.
---[You, of course, know that you are lying now. The exact same Record which you are using to support your this here version of events, clearly shows that there was no mention of eliminating the 384-grain $1 silver coin and the inserting of the 420-grain trade dollar. The amendment was not read, the Senate was not called to act upon it, Senators did not vote on it; it just appeared by your magic touch in the final version of the bill, and the conference committee, headed by you and Hooper, approved it.]Mr. President, there is another thing. I have here a statement made recently by Mr. Boutwell, which I will ask to have read, he being about the only survivor of the men who participated in framing that law. He comes out now in a broad declaration, not only giving the history of the law, but avowing himself as the author of it; and he was the author of it. It was he who communicated it to Congress, and he, being the head of the Department which sent it to us, manfully came out and avowed his authorship, and it is true to my certain knowledge. Mr. Boutwell, in a statement published in the Boston Herald, Sunday, July 9, 1893, says:
Any statement by me touching the financial condition of the country compels a reference to my policy and acts while I was at the head of the Treasury Department, and while I acted as a member of the silver commission of 1876.
The act known as the act for the demonetization of silver was passed in 1873, and upon a distinct recommendation made in my annual report to Congress in December, 1872. The statement so often made and so generally believed, that the provision was introduced and passed surreptitiously, was without any foundation, as will appear from quotations from my report, which I shall incorporate in this article.
The country had due and full notice of the policy proposed, and if the friends of a silver currency were ignorant of the movement the fault was their own. Not only was there no concealment, but, on the other hand, the change proposed was announced early and definitely. For myself, I can say that I never hesitated to avow the authorship of the measure, and I have been ready always to assign the reasons by which I was influenced.
We were then on a gold basis as far as the use of the metals had a part in our financial affairs; we were a principal producer of gold, and the most important steps had been taken in the work of bringing the Treasury note to the standard of gold coin.
In the same report I advised the coinage of a silver dollar, known as the trade dollar, in value superior to the Mexican dollar, which was then in used almost exclusively in the commerce of China and the East Indies. This coin, which was not current in the United States, became the means of a very considerable export of silver to the East.
My discussion of the Contest of 1876 will be ended by the use of one additional extract from my report, in which I made a summary of my views:
"At present the gold dollar of the United States, which contains 25.8 grains of standard gold, will purchase a larger quantity of pure silver than is contained in the dollar of 412.5 grains of standard silver.
"The superior value of the gold dollar would prevent its use, and the gold coin and the gold bullion of the country would at once be exported to other countries, and silver in exchange would be returned, and, when coined, it would be introduced into the circulation of the United States. The demonetized and discarded silver of every other country would flow to the United States, and there can be no doubt that after the first effect of its remonetization had passed away, it would steadily depreciate in value.
"Nor can there be a doubt that our unfortunate experience would furnish an argument against the remonetization of silver by the commercial nations of the world.
"It is contended by those who advocate a bimetallic standard for the United States, without regard to the policy of other countries, that its use by us would so advance its value in the markets of the world that it would be at a par with gold. It can only be said in answer to this assumption that there is no evidence that such would be the result, while, on the contrary, it is reasonable to anticipate that the demonetization of silver in Germany, the limitation of its coinage by the nations of the Latin Union, its reduced value in India, and the large production in America would counteract the effect of an increased demand for coinage in the United States, and that in a period of of ten years its relative value to gold would be less than it now is."
The evils thus anticipated in 1876 have been realized with fearful augmentation in this year 1893.
The bill was brought up again before the Senate for final consideration. No doubt the Senate was somewhat weary of it. It had already passed the Senate in the previous Congress, had been read in full in all its copious length, and was then taken up and considered as such a bill is very apt to be which has once passed the Senate of the United States. Finally, after debate upon several amendments, it was passed unanimously, and then, at last, I was charged with the responsibility for it, when I merely voted with all others for the bill.
Mr. Mills. I desire to ask the Senator if he has stated that at one time before, about 1805, Mr. Jefferson stopped the coinage of the silver dollar ? Did he give any reasons for it ? Is the Senator familiar with that ?
Mr. Sherman. The best statement of his reasons that I have seen is contained in the report of Mr. Ingham, who was the Secretary of the Treasury of General Jackson, I think, about the time they were beginning to formulate for passage the bill of 1833. Mr. Ingham gives an interesting statement of the action of Jefferson, saying that Mr. Jefferson found that the silver dollar being bright and clean and new, and containing a trifle more silver, and of more value than the Mexican dollar, should not be issued; that it was a waste of time, the Mexican dollar being also a legal tender; and for thirty years after that not a single dollar was issued.
The action of the Senate was unanimous. The only important amendment made, I think, to this section, or to any section of the bill, was the substitution of the trade dollar for what was called the franc dollar. I believe the dollar provided for by the House was precisely the equivalent of 5 francs, or two half dollars of our subsidiary coin. Then it was made a legal tender for only $5. On final action on that bill, the conferees on the part of the Senate were Messrs. Sherman, Scott, and Bayard. We went into that conference, and every matter was settled promptly, quickly, and decisively.
There never was a bill proposed in the Congress of the United States which was so publicly and openly presented and agitated. I know of no bill in my experience, which was printed, as this was, sixteen times, in order to invite attention to it. I know no bill which was freer from any immoral or wrong influence than this act of 1873. Not one single word of that act has been impugned, but there has been the false allegation made that the silver dollar was surreptitiously omitted from the coinage. No fact can be proved more clearly and fully than that is a falsehood and a lie by whomsoever uttered.
Mr. President, there has been an invention of a story in connection with Ernest Seyd. I suppose Senators have often heard of the story. Some fellow --some man, I will call him, for it might insult him to call him a fellow-- whose name I do not recall, made an affidavit that he knew Ernest Seyd; that he had often met him at his own table; had often dined with him, and at one time, when they were in conversation, he said that the Parliament of Great Britain was corrupt. Mr. Seyd then said "They are nothing like the Congress of the United States; that is the most corrupt body that ever existed." He then went on in a confidential conversation, according to the statement of this man, whoever he is. Seyd said he would tell him a secret, if he would pledge himself never to reveal it while he (Seyd) lived. He promised to wait until Seyd died. Thereupon, Seyd said to him that he had raised a fund of £100,000 in the winter --now, mark the time-- of 1872-'73 to bribe Congress to demonetize silver; and, with a wink, he conveyed the idea to this man, whoever he was, that he had done it, and said that that was a greater act of corruption than had ever occurred in the British Parliament.
Three or four years after Seyd died this man revealed this important secret, which has made all this turmoil, and which has disturbed the country about the act of 1873.
Mr. President, such a story as that, told under these circumstances, would be hooted at by any lawyer or any honest man. Unfortunately for him, the man, as all rogues are apt to do, gave himself away; for in the end of this letter he declares himself an anarchist, opposed to all governments and all property: and yet he made an affidavit of this kind, which had no legal force or effect. It is falsified in every single line and word.
In the first place, according to all the information I can get, Mr. Seyd was a gentleman, and probably one of the finest writers upon the subject of metallism in the world. I never saw him, and only know him by his works. I have here a book which I obtained from the library, of the date of 1871, in reference to the metallic currency of the United States of America by Ernest Seyd, a member of the council of the Statistical Society of London. I venture to say that there is not upon this class of subjects a work of greater accuracy, of more thoroughness, and clearer, sounder views than are contained in this little book of Ernest Seyd, who is now dead and gone, and whom this man, whatever his name may be, misrepresents.
This whole book was written in 1871, after the time when the Senate passed the bill in the first instance, a bill which dropped out and demonetized the silver dollar. Every page and line of it shows that Mr. Seyd was a bimetallist and as extreme as any man within the sound of my voice. His views are stated in language so forcible as almost to convince anyone not familiar with the subject and who has no set views upon it.
From the whole book, from the surrounding circumstances, and from what I can hear of Mr. Seyd, he was a gentleman and a scholar. Whether he was here or not, I do not know; but it was certain that his letter came here, and that letter I have here also, which shows that Mr. Seyd had, at the request of Mr. Hooper, examined the bill which was then pending. Mr. Hooper was not satisfied with the scrutiny it had had by American metallists, and, attracted by the reading of this book of Mr. Seyd, he wrote to a friend of that gentleman to get the views of Mr. Seyd in regard to the bill.
Mr. Seyd. in a letter which, thank God, we have now here be fore us, showed that he retained his views upon bimetallism, and that he never could have uttered such language as this obscure anarchist and enemy of mankind attributes to him. It stamps the statement of that man as a lie made out of whole cloth, to arouse and aggravate the good, sensible, honest people of this country. Wherever he is, if he is alive, I brand him here as a liar, so proved by evidence which can not be gainsaid. Yet upon such stuff as that the members of the Congress of the United States are to be assailed as corrupt; men who would not stain their honor for all the gold in the world are to be held up before popular audiences as corrupt and dishonest, with hands and hearts stained with bribery.
Mr. President, I say that such things ought not to exist, and I hope now that the good people of the United States, as I shall put all this evidence in form, will read it, and banish forever the belief that Congress can be corrupted.
Before the time this man says Mr. Seyd came here, that law had passed both Houses with the silver dollar dropped from the coins of the United States. Mr. Seyd was against the exclusion of the dollar, and in his book he criticises specially the acts of 1834 and 1837 and the act of 1853, because they surrendered the principle of bimetallism.
This bill passed the House in April, 1872. It first passed the Senate, I think, in February, 1871. It again passed the Senate and became alaw in 1873.
My friend from Nebraska [Mr. Manderson] calls my attention to an important fact, which is, that the letter of Mr. Seyd was dated February 17, 1872, at 1 A Princess street, Bank, London. So that Mr. Seyd must have been in London in February, 1872, and wrote there against the very clauses which it is charged were corruptly put in the bill, induced by bribes paid by him.
Mr. McPherson. Will the Senator have that letter published with his remarks ?
Mr. Sherman. It is almost too long.
Mr. Manderson. It has already been printed in the Record.
Mr. McPherson. Very well; if it has been already published, that will answer.
Mr. Sherman. The letter is dated long before Mr. Seyd is said to have come here. Mr. Hooper probably invited him to come here, but it must have been after this letter was written. He came here a known bimetallist, who had committed himself not only in a book but by letter; and now, according to this anarchist, he came here and bribed Congress in the winter of 1872-'73 with $500,000 to do what both Houses had done long before ! That is the way the thing stands now, because the bill had passed both Houses before Seyd could have come here, and he was opposed to it absolutely, and in clear and forcible language depicts the consequences which would follow the demonetization of silver by the countries of Europe and by the United States.
It is sometimes said that Gen. Grant did not know of the demonetization of silver. Well, what of it ? Gen. Grant was not a financier nor a metallist nor a monetary expert, but he was a brave, strong, noble man. He might truly have said this, but he could also have said, if he had seen fit, that his Secretary of the Treasury, his chosen officer, in a document only second in importance to that of a message of the President of the United States, had, in December, 1872, just before the passage of this act, urged Congress to pass the act, and gave as a reason that, unless it was passed, we would be disturbed by the falling of silver in the markets of the world. Gen. Grant might have said that he did not read the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, but how can members of Congress make such a plea as that ? Their business is to watch and guard the interests of their constituents as well as the common good of the whole people of the United States.
Sir, I would rather stand this day before you defending a law which has been denounced and vilified, as this has been, boldly avowing that I did read the law and that I knew its contents, than to plead the baby act, and say I did not know what was pending here before us for two or three years as an act of legislation. That legislation dropping out the silver dollar was in that bill from the beginning to the end, and never was erased from it. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] said he did not remember. Very well. It seems to me that, representing 53,000 intelligent, active, industrious people whose whole fortunes were involved in the mining of silver and gold, he ought to have known whether the dear dollar of the daddies was dead and gone or not. [Laughter.]
---[John Sherman ran circles around these Senators]I take him, however, at his word. The law was passed in February, 1873, and I do know that within a year from that time the Senator from Nevada knew that silver was demonetized, because he said so; and he said it February 11, 1874, as will appear in the document which I have before me, and to which I gave him reference, so there can be no mistake about it. On page 1392, volume 2, part 2, of the Congressional Record, first session 43rd Congress, he said:
"The only way to relieve the country is to move right back to specie payments; let every man in the country know what the value of his money is; leave no margins to put up gold or to put down gold, to put up greenbacks or to put down greenbacks as compared with gold; leave no speculations of that kind. Let everybody know what a dollar is worth. Then the man who goes West to buy produce will be under no necessity to insure himself against the fluctuations of the currency. He can pay the full value of the wheat then without the fear that a change in the price of gold will break him down before he gets back to New York. The farmer then will know how to measure the difference in price between his wheat in Illinois and the wheat in Liverpool. It will be the transportation and the necessary commissions, without any insurance on account of a fluctuating currency. The wheat will be measured by the same standard --gold-- in Illinois as it is in Liverpool, and any man can figure it up. But now it mystery; the whole subject of finance is a mystery; and what do we see every day ? We see those who devote their attention to it making large fortunes out of this mystery. Let us do as all the people of the world have been doing from the beginning, measure our values by gold, adopt the standard that all can understand, and get rid of this mystery.
Mr. [Black-jack] Logan. What does the Senator want ?
Mr. Stewart. I want the standard gold, and no paper money not redeemable in gold; no paper money the value of which is not ascertained; no paper money that will organize a gold board to speculate in it.
The only men who are getting rich in this country are those who have skill enough to manipulate this fluctuating currency, and nobody else can make any money. They make their hundreds of millions per annum, which were formerly made by the farmers themselves. If the farmers would get rich, they have got to become skilled in this fluctuating currency and make corners and manipulate the market; and if they do that, they cannot farm. It is a science, and it has got the smartest men in the world in it, and they are making all the money that is made in America. I hope that there will be no more issues of greenbacks, on the plea that it is going to help the producers."
Again, only a week or two after this, on the 20th of February, to be found in Congressional Record, volume 2, part 2, page 1677, when he was speaking in favor of the resolution instructing the Committee on Finance to report a bill providing for the convertibility of Treasury notes into gold coin or 5 per cent bonds, he said:
" 'that the Committee on Finance be, and they are hereby, instructed to report a bill providing for the convertibility of United States Treasury notes into gold coin or 5 per cent. bonds of the United States.'---[ This gives the impression that in February 1874, Senator Stewart couldn't care less about silver and the $1 silver coin. We know that on March 15, 1869, Mr. Stewart voted big-fat YES to the credit strengthening act. On April 9, 1866, he walked out of the Chamber before the vote on the reduction of currency bill was taken, but his vote on a proposed amendment a few minutes earlier, indicates that he would have voted yes. ]Now, I want to know if there is anything dishonest or wrong in that proposition, taken by itself ? The United States have agreed to do this very thing; and their agreement has stood repudiated for the last twelve years, and it has been the principal thing that has brought reproach upon the country. It is the only instance in the last forty years. This resolution proposes to do that very thing. Senators say it will cost something to do it. It costs something to be honest; it always costs something to pay your debts; but it is better for the United States to pay its debts than to lose its honor. Of course it will cost something, but it will not cost the laboring man a cent.
But Senators say this is contraction. I doubt very much whether it would be contraction. At all events, under it we can have all the money that we can earn and pay for; there is no limitation and no monopoly. If by means of this process greenbacks are funded, it will be because they are worth less than 5 per cent. per annum in the hands of the people, for if they are worth more than 5 per cent. per annum, they will never go into these bonds. If they are worth in their hands more than 5 per cent. per annum, they will keep them. But if it is really true that this money is not worth 5 per cent. per annum in the hands of the people, let us exchange it for something that is worth more. Then these greenbacks will be delivered up if they are worth less than 5 per cent. per annum, and not otherwise.
What will be done with the capital that goes into the bonds ? You can deposit those bonds and establish a national bank anywhere you please. Delivering them up will not destroy your capital. With it you buy bonds, and with those bonds you can establish national banks. By this process the Government of the United States will redeem a pledge which it has solemnly made, in which its honor is involved. By this process the greenbacks, if they are worth less than 5 per cent. per annum, will be delivered up. By this process the monopoly of national banks will be disposed of, and we shall have free banking open to everybody. By this process we shall come to a specie basis, and when the laboring man receives a dollar it will have the purchasing power of a dollar, and he will not be called upon to do what is impossible for him or for the producing classes to do, figure upon the exchanges, figure upon the fluctuations, figure upon the gambling in New York; but he will know what his money is worth. Gold is the universal standard of the world. Everybody knows what a dollar in gold is worth.
Mr. Logan. The Senator says he is in favor of specie payments. If he is in favor of specie payments, why does he wish to insert a redemption by bonds in this bill ? Why not redeem in specie ?
Mr. Stewart. I wish to do it, because we have agreed to pay this debt in specie, but we have not got the gold to pay it. If we have not got the gold to pay it, let us give our note bearing interest. Let us not repudiate our debt because we have got poor, because we have not the money; but let us adopt the alternative, and give our note bearing interest. I do not propose to pay the bond by starting a printing press; I do not propose to pay the bond by issuing irredeemable currency; I propose to pay the bond with value; I propose to pay it in gold, from the earnings and taxation of the people; and that is the only way it can be paid.
I do protest against a further repudiation of the promises of the Government. I do protest against any attempt to pay debts with irredeemable paper, because it is false in theory, false in fact, false in principle. We have resources abundant to get the gold. Forty million people can furnish all the money that is necessary. They will get it. When gold is invited to a country like this, with such an industrious people as we have, with our industry and our resources, I say there will be no difficulty about getting sufficient gold. Why, sir, everything you have got is measured by gold. Your greenbacks are measured by gold.
You have legislated gold out of your country. Invite it back, and forty million people will get you all the gold you want. Then with paper issued by the Government of the United States, redeemable in the first instance by the banks, you will have a currency that is better than any you ever had before. You will have gold you need as a regulator, as a basis for your currency, and it will come very shortly. Then we shall have prosperity based upon a certainty."
Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada, in making these declarations, fairly and truly represented the people of his State, because, from the beginning of the war up to this hour they have refused to take anything but gold coin of the United States. I have here two documents. One is the Virginia (Nev.) Chronicle of Saturday, August 12, 1893, only a short time ago. There is contained in this newspaper nearly half a page, or perhaps a third of a page, of advertisements by various mining companies calling for assessments "payable in United States gold coin;" every one of them has the stipulation "payable in United States gold coin."
They do not take paper money, or at least they advertise that they do not, nor silver money, although they require us to buy all the silver they produce at its market value and complain because we do not pay $1.29 an ounce for it in gold when worth in the market only 73 cents; and yet they demand of their own people --their own stockholders-- the payment of these assessments in gold coin.
The same practice exists in California. I have here the San Francisco News Circular. The whole of that page of this circular [exhibiting] contains assessment notices of silver-mining companies, and every one of them requires the assessments to be paid in United States gold coin. Therefore I must defend the Senator from Nevada from any imputations which might be made that he has not represented his constituents. He is representing them, not only in demanding gold coin for everything that is paid to them, but tendering silver broadly at its ratio price to anybody to whom they want to sell it. Now, they are sharp; they are keen. I have always heard that the miners of the West are about the keenest men in the country; and from the specimen we have around us I am rather inclined to think they are too sharp for a Buckeye Yankee. [Laughter]
I have some observations upon the causes that have produced the decline of silver. They are substantially embodied in the statement made by Mr. Leech, late Director of the Mint, in the Forum, and are very clear and far more concise than I could state them. I will ask leave to incorporate them in my remarks without going over them at all.
Now, Mr. President, to resume for a moment the history of the act of 1873: It was framed in the Treasury Department after a thorough examination by experts, transmitted to both Houses of Congress, thoroughly examined and debated during four consecutive sessions, the information called for by the House of Representatives and printed six times by order broadly circulated, and many amendments were proposed, but no material changes were made in the coinage clause from the beginning to the end of the controversy. It added the French dollar for a time, but that was superseded by the trade dollar, and neither was made a legal tender but for $5. It passed the Senate on the 10th of January, 1871 ---36 yeas and 14 nays--- every Senator from the Pacific coast voting for it.
It was introduced in the House of Representatives by Mr. Hooper at the next session. It was debated, scrutinized, and passed unanimously, dropping the silver dollar as directly stated by Mr. Hooper. It was reported, debated, amended, and passed by the Senate unanimously. In every stage of the bill, and every print, the dollar of 412½ grains was prohibited, and the single gold standard recognized, proclaimed, and understood. It was not until silver was a cheaper dollar that anyone demanded it, and then it was to take advantage of a creditor.
Now, it has always been within the power of Congress to correct this error, if error was made; but Congress has refused over and over again to do it. When the controversy arose about the Bland bill and the House of Representatives proposed the free coinage of silver, the Senate rejected it after a deliberate contest and substituted in place of it what is called the Bland-Allison act, which required the purchase of silver bullion at its market value and its coinage to a limited amount. Every effort has been made from that time to this to have the Congress of the United States pass a free-coinage act.