united states notes.
speech of hon. J.W. Crisfield,
of Maryland,
In the House of Representatives,
February 5, 1862.

Mr. Crisfield[John Woodland Crisfield (1806-1897), Unionist slave-owner, Maryland] said:  Mr. Chairman, I move to amend the pending bill by striking out from the first section the words "and for all salaries, debts, and demands owing by the United States to individuals, corporations, and associations within the United States;  and shall also be lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States;"  and inserting in the last clause in lieu of these words "legal tender, in payment of debts public and private," the words "receivable for all debts and demands due the United States."

Sir, it would have been prudent in me to avoid throwing myself into this debate.  I feel that it is an act of temerity to enter into an arena already occupied by the best talent of this House;  and I know that it is a still greater act of temerity in one so recently a member of this body, so inexperienced in financial affairs, to attempt to discuss so grave a question as that now submitted for the consideration of this House.  Sir, I would gladly avoid this if I could;  but I have the honor to represent a constituency patriotic, devoted to the preservation of the Constitution and the maintenance of the Union -- a constituency vigilant and observant of what is going on here;  and they expect me not merely to represent them in my vote, but to enter upon the records of this House the reasons for my action, in order that they may judge them.

I approach the consideration of this subject free from all party bias.  I may almost say I have no party.  I was brought up in the old Whig school, and have learned its lessons so perfectly that I cannot forget them;  and I find it difficult to incorporate any new principles into my creed.  I have never ceased to lament the fall of that old party.  I have never quite forgiven those within its bosom who contributed to its dissolution;  and I never felt quite at home with those with whom, since its demise, I have felt it to be my duty to act.  When these troubles began they found me standing alone;  and here this day I know no party except that broad, national, catholic party, which includes the whole Union within its embrace, and seeks peace on the basis of the Union and the restoration of the Constitution as our fathers made it and as our fathers understood it.

Sir, I did not contribute to bring this Administration into power.  I had known the President in former years, and personally I liked him.  I knew him to be honest, I believed him to be brave, and I hoped that he was patriotic.  As my knowledge of him has increased, this belief and this hope have grown and are still growing.  I had no affinities with the principles upon which he was presented to the American people.  From the peculiar and distinctive features of the platform of his party I differed, and still differ.  I lamented his election, not so much on his own account as of the disturbance I knew it would occasion.  But, sir, he is here.  He has been elected President of the United States.  I recognize him as legally invested with all the constitutional powers of that high dignity;  and it is as well a constitutional obligation as a dictate of patriotism to give his Administration, in this hour of evil, a fair, impartial, active, and energetic support.  Many things have been done under his Administration which I do not approve;  some things, I think, are positively wrong.  Yet I do recognize in his public conduct an honest effort to maintain this Union of the States with unabridged privileges, and restore the Constitution to its ancient and rightful supremacy.  I desire to support him in this great work.  I believe that it is the duty of all good citizens to sustain him.  I shall, therefore, give his Administration, in all of its efforts in this great work, a fair, candid, honest, and unreserved support.  Especially do I desire to support him in his financial policy.  I desire to support him in that, because that of all others is the most important to national safety.  If that fails, all else must fail.  If you fail to obtain the requisite means your Army is disbanded, the Union is destroyed, the Constitution overturned, the country ruined, and our national life will be entirely destroyed.  Hence, sir, I am disposed to view with the utmost candor, with favorable predisposition, every measure of finance presented for my acceptance, having for its purpose the national safety, and the restoration of the Constitution to its just authority.

Mr. Chairman, the exigencies of the times have created an unusual want of money on the part of the Government.  The ordinary expenses of the Government amount to $70,000,000 a year, and now, in one year, they have suddenly run up to $600,000,000.  This exigency cannot be met by the ordinary revenues.  The ordinary revenue is scarcely one tenth of the expenditures.  Those expenditures cannot be met by taxation, for the reason that the people of the country cannot pay in one year the amount required to meet the expenditure of the year;  and, even if they could bear it, it could not be produced in time to answer the demands or the Government.  We are obliged to borrow money, therefore, and to create a public debt;  and to create a public debt without enormous loss, we are bound to raise by taxation the sums necessary to meet the ordinary expenses of Government, and to meet with certainty and punctuality, in coin, the interest on the amount we desire to borrow.  Not only that, but to handle the vast amount of means necessary for the prosecution of this war, to enable the people to pay in and the Government to pay out, we must have a larger and more abundant currency than we have heretofore found to be necessary.  The accustomed currency is wholly inadequate.  The Government has for many years used only gold and silver for this purpose, and it is deeply to be lamented that it is obliged to depart from this desirable standard.  But we are left no option.  The supply of the precious metals is inadequate to our wants.  If all the gold and silver in the country were placed at the control of the Government, it would be received and paid out twice in the course of one year.  It is, therefore, impossible for the Government to pay in coin.  The business of the Government and the business of the country require some substitute for coin.  We must therefore create a new or vastly enlarge the existing currency.  We must therefore create a public debt, establish a currency, and impose new taxes.

The necessity being admitted, the only question is, how can these objects be accomplished with the least prejudice to the people and the greatest convenience to the Government ?  This is a grave question -- the gravest which these times present.  It is a question which lies at the foundation of all the other questions;  and on its solution depends our success in every other enterprise.  The Committee of Ways and Means have presented us one proposition, with a promise to present us two others, to complete the system.  They propose to levy a tax which, with the present revenue, will raise $150,000,000 per annum;  and both Houses by joint resolution are pledged to pass it.  How it is to be raised the committee have not yet informed us.  What their scheme is and what the machinery by which it is to operate, and what its efficiency, and how it may affect the business and property of the country, remain yet to be seen.  They also propose to provide a currency, partly by the Treasury notes authorized by this bill and partly by a national currency based on public securities, through the agency of the banks as reommended by the Secretary of the Treasury.  And then, as a means by which all that is to be brought into active use, they propose by this bill to issue Treasury notes fundable in public six per cent. stocks.

Mr. Chairman, it is a matter of deep regret that the committee has not presented the whole scheme in one bill.  We then would have seen the whole at one view, and have been better able to adjust its parts and have rendered it homogeneous.  It seems to me that we are beginning at the wrong end.  The measure which we are now considering ought, in its natural order, to be the last in the series.  It is the thing which is necessary to render practical and available the more important and potential elements of the scheme.  We are committing the absurdity of beginning at the top of the structure to build downward to the foundation.  Why did not the committee report the tax bill;  why not lay in the first place the broad foundation of a tax on which the whole superstructure of public credit must be erected, if it is expected to be permanent ?  It is by far the most delicate and difficult part of the plan, and requires the most thought and care in its adjustment.  But I have no disposition to carp, or too closely to criticize the course of the committee.  I must suppose they have not reported such a bill for some good reason.  I must have faith that in their own good time they will perform their work.  I must suppose that they intend to report a bill which, if carried out, will, with the revenue from existing laws, raise $150,000,000 per annum;  and meaning to treat them with all fairness and candor, I will assume that such a bill will be, as early as possible, presented to the consideration of the House and of the country.  And so with the measure to create a national currency.  Why did not that precede this ?  The Committee of Ways and Means has, I repeat, begun at the wrong end.  But I will not cavil.  I shall not attempt to look for bad motives.  I will assume that there is no other purpose than the broad, national one of sustaining the credit of the Government.  I shall consider this proposition as it is presented, and give it the full benefit of the promise with which it is accompanied.

Now, sir, what is this proposition ?  It is to issue $100,000,000 of Treasury notes, without interest, payable at the pleasure of the United States, to be receivable for all public dues, and by all the creditors of the Government.  These notes are declared to be money, and are made a legal tender for all public and private debts.  It provides that these notes, at the pleasure of the holder, may be funded in bonds of the United States bearing six per cent. interest, which it authorizes to be issued to the amount of $500,000,000.  The bill makes no provision for the payment of the interest on such bonds except in Treasury notes.

The general object of this plan for supplying the wants of the Treasury I approve.  If carefully adjusted, I am of opinion it will be efficient and successful.  If we are wise in shaping its details the plan will bring relief to the Treasury and enable the Government with ease to prosecute the war to a successful termination.  But to some of the provisions of this particular bill I have insurmountable objections.

I hold that, in its present form, it is inconsistent with the Constitution, and destructive of public credit.  The provision making the notes proposed to be issued a legal tender in the settlement of all debts, public and private, is, in my judgment, a palpable violation of the Constitution.  I have listened, Mr. Chairman, with great anxiety to the debates on this floor, in order to have that objection removed.  I should have been glad to have found my own judgment erroneous.  But, sir, this debate has only confirmed and strengthened my convictions.  Gentlemen have failed to point to the clause of the Constitution authorizing in express terms, or by reasonable implication, this exercise of power.  The Attorney General, in his letter read by the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Spaulding] says there is no inhibition in the Constitution on making Treasury notes a legal tender in payment of debts, public and private, and hence it may be made.  The gentleman from New York [Mr. Spaulding] adopted the same view, and says that the Government possesses all the power necessary to maintain itself;  that Congress is to judge of what is necessary for the maintenance of the Government, and may enact into law whatever it so judges to be necessary.  The Secretary of the Treasury assumes that it is constitutional;  but he assigns no reason.  The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. HOOPER] assumes that it is constitutional, but assigns no reason.  The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham] thinks that the power to make notes a tender in payment of debts is an incident to the power to regulate commerce, and is not prohibited by the Constitution.

This is a fair, candid, and full exposition of the arguments made on this floor to persuade us that this provision is constitutional;  and it is all that has been made.  No other gentleman has spoken upon the point.  The committee has made no report proving, or attempting to prove, its constitutionality;  indeed, it is understood that the committee is equally divided on the point, and therefore could make no report.  No authority has been quoted in favor of it;  the opinion of no commentator on the Constitution, of no statesman or public man, living or dead, has been found to favor it;  and we are left to construe the Constitution for ourselves, with no lights to aid us to discover this power but those I have already referred to.

The sum of the whole argument that has been made in favor of the constitutionality of the power of Congress to declare the Treasury notes contemplated by this bill a legal tender in the payment of all debts, public and private, may be stated in these three propositions:  first, Congress may declare these notes a legal tender because it is not inhibited;  secondly, the Government must maintain itself, and Congress may exercise all the power and adopt any measure it judges necessary for that object;  and, thirdly, that the power to declare these notes a legal tender is a means necessary and proper to the full execution of the power to regulate commerce.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot but express amazement that a Cabinet minister, the first law officer of the Government, should venture to risk his professional and official reputation on an avowal that a proposition is constitutional because it is not inhibited.  The Constitution does not, and was not intended to, restrict the powers of this Government.  That was not its purpose.  It made the Government;  it called Congress into existence, and gave it all the power it can rightfully exercise.  Congress is not sovereign.  It has no inherent power.  Its authority is entirely derivative.  What was not granted is not possessed.  When a power is claimed, the grant must be affirmatively shown.  And such are the express words of the Constitution itself.  By the tenth additional article it is provided:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This is a general inhibition of all power to Congress not granted.  When, therefore, I am told a power is not inhibited, it is a conclusive answer to say it is not granted.  And it is happy for the country it is so;  for otherwise the discretion of Congress would be the sole limit of its power, and the most calamitous consequences might well be apprehended.

And the same may be said of the second proposition urged in support of this provision, that Congress, to insure the public safety, may adopt any measure it may judge necessary.  It is a claim of unlimited authority.  The gentleman from New York [Mr. Spaulding] says the power to make these notes a legal tender is derived from the power of the Government to maintain itself, and that Congress is to be the judge of the means.  Why, sir, this broad construction of the Constitution would allow you to do anything;  it would authorize the monstrous proposition which the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] announced upon this floor the other day, that this Congress had the power to establish a dictator if, in its judgment, the maintenance of the Government required it.  Sir, if that is to be the limit of constitutional power, what may not be expected to be done ?  If Congress has unlimited discretion, upon the plea that the public safety requires it, your Government itself will cease to exist.  No such construction can be admitted or acted on for a moment without giving up every power of the Government.  The Government itself could not last for an hour under it.  Your whole theory of government would be overturned.  Every restraint would be taken away, and we should exist upon no more solid security for our rights and liberties than the mercy or caprice of those who happened for the hour to hold the reins of the Government.

But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham] says this power to make paper a legal tender in payment of debts is to be found in the power of Congress to regulate commerce.  Mr. Chairman, I admit that the power to regulate commerce is one of the powers granted to Congress in express words;  I admit that included in that grant is the grant of power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying it into execution;  and I admit, further, that Congress may judge what laws are appropriate and best calculated to produce that end;  and then the question presents itself, is the making of paper a legal tender in the discharge of debts necessary and proper to enable Congress to regulate commerce ?  Allow the most liberal interpretation to be given to the words "necessary and proper," and even then you fail to arrive at the conclusion that the substitution of paper for gold, as a standard by which its exchanges are made, tends, or in any degree aids Congress to regulate or promote commerce.  The discretion vested in Congress by which it is to choose the means to execute its granted powers is not an arbitrary or capricious discretion.  It is judicial in its nature, and is to be exercised by fixed rules.  Congress may choose the means to effect the end, but the means chosen must be such as are necessary and proper to effect the end;  that is, they must be such as tend to its accomplishment, and the choice must be made in good faith.  The power is incidental to the execution of the express grant, and cannot be rightfully used for any other purpose.

If, under the pretext of regulating commerce, a law is passed to accomplish a different purpose, foreign to and perhaps destructive of commerce, it would be a fraud on the Constitution.  How can the banishment of gold and silver, the most stable in value of all known substances, and the substitution of paper, the most fluctuating, as tender in payment of debts, either regulate or promote commerce ?  So far from regulating and promoting, its direct and certain effect is to disturb and destroy it.  And in this case we know the object is not to regulate commerce.  To say so would be a mere subterfuge.  As a matter of fact, we know that the making of these notes a tender is not to regulate commerce;  but to give the notes themselves a currency, and to compel the community to receive them.  The effort, therefore, to deduce the power to make Treasury notes a legal tender from the grant in the Constitution to regulate commerce utterly fails;  and I venture to affirm that the effort of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham] yesterday, is the first that ever was made in any deliberative assembly, or by any public man, for that purpose.

Mr. Chairman, under the power to regulate commerce, it is undoubtedly true that Congress may adopt measures to create, enlarge, or improve tile currency.  Commerce cannot be regulated, much less promoted, without a sufficient and sound currency.  It was mainly under this grant that Congress discovered and exercised the power to charter the Bank of the United States.  One of the principal offices of that institution was to improve and enlarge the currency, and thus facilitate the commerce and business of the country.  I think it is a power which Congress may properly exercise.  But the power to enlarge and improve the currency is a very different thing from a power to make anything it may see fit a legal tender in the payment of debts.  The essential element of a currency is a fixed and unvarying standard of value.  That is found only in gold and silver.  Of all metals they have the greatest intrinsic worth, and are least liable to fluctuation.  Their value with respect to all other things has been determined by the common consent of mankind.  Hence they have been selected by the whole world as the ultimate standard by which all settlements are to be made.

Congress, under the Constitution, has power to coin money, and to determine the value of each coin;  that is, express its value in the nomenclature of the country.  But the coinage is not sufficient for all purposes of commerce, and if it were, it is too ponderous and otherwise inconvenient to be handled.  Hence the necessity of some device to represent coin, multiply its power, and avoid the inconvenience of its transmission.  This is done by paper representing coin, and always convertible into it.  To enlarge and improve the currency means simply to devise a means by which paper shall represent coin, and may be certainly and readily exchanged for coin.  The paper has no intrinsic value, and becomes worthless when it ceases to represent and be convertible into coin.  To make paper a legal tender in the discharge of contracts is quite another and dissimilar thing.  The one is to bring paper up to the value of coin, the other is to reduce all contracts which represent coin to the level of irredeemable paper.  The one enlarges and improves the currency and multiplies the power and utility of coin;  the other contracts, deranges, and weakens the currency, and drives coin into its hiding places.  The one regulates, improves, and invigorates commerce;  the other prostrates and must ultimately destroy it.

The Constitution found gold and silver coin the medium in which all contracts were to be settled.  It recognized, but did not seek to disturb it.  It gave Congress no power to disturb it, and inhibited the States from making anything else a tender in payment of debts.  And we have no power to alter what the Constitution chose to leave untouched.  We have no constitutional power to pass this bill.  Sir, the argument of my friend from Ohio [Mr. Pendleton] upon this point was conclusive.  It has not even been assailed, and cannot be.  All the efforts of gentlemen upon the other side of the House have failed in even breaking down the weakest of his outposts.  They have not touched his argument, and they cannot touch it.  It is unanswerable.  His position is impregnable.  I am not going to repeat that argument.  It was better stated by him than it can be by me;  but there are some thoughts which occur to me in support of the position assumed by him which will perhaps aid to some extent in demonstrating its conclusiveness.

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham] says that Congress has power to make anything it pleases a legal tender in payment of debt.  He says that Congress may, if it think fit, make leather a legal tender in payment of debt.  Now, let us examine for a moment that proposition.  What was the object of the Constitution ?  It was, among other things, "to form a more perfect Union, to establish justice, and to insure domestic tranquillity."  The object was to prevent a conflict of jurisdiction between the different States, and between them and the General Government.  It was to insure uniformity of legislation.  It was, among other things, to insure that there should be no conflict of legislation or authority upon this subject.  Now, what does the Constitution do ?  It provides that "no State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debt."  In other words, they may not make any thing else a tender, but they may make gold and silver coin a legal tender.  Every State in this Union has made gold and silver coin a tender, by which all contracts made within its jurisdiction are to be discharged and canceled.

The power of the States to make such legislation is clear.  It is an express grant of the Constitution.  Every State in the Union may exercise it.  Let us see how the matter will work.  The State of Maryland has made gold and silver a tender in payment of debts.  Congress, under the wise and sagacious counsels of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham] makes leather a legal tender for that purpose.  You profess to act for the whole people of Maryland;  you profess to act for all, wherever the jurisdiction of the United States Government extends, and to declare that leather shall be a legal tender in payment of debt.  But the State of Maryland says, "the Constitution of the United States has given me an express grant to make gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debt within my limits, and in pursuance of that grant, I have established gold and silver as the only legal tender."  Which law, Mr. Chairman, are the people of Maryland to obey ?  Are your laws to have supremacy ?  Maryland points to the Constitution, and there reads that she may not make anything else, but that she may make gold and silver a legal tender.  Are her people to be the victims of this conflict of jurisdiction ?  Is this conflict of jurisdiction consistent with the declared objects for which the Union was formed and the Constitution was established ?

Mr. Chairman, the very statement of this palpable and inevitable consequence at once and forever dissipates every argument which has been, or can be, presented by gentlemen upon the other side of the House.  This Government has no power to declare anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in the discharge of debts.  Congress is not inhibited from making anything else a tender, for the simple reason that no power was ever granted to make anything else a tender;  and if Congress attempted to follow the counsels of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham] this Government early will find itself involved in fearful conflicts of jurisdiction with every State in the Union.

Mr. Harrison.  Will the gentleman allow me to make an inquiry ?

Mr. Crisfield.  I decline to be interrupted.  I mean no discourtesy;  but I must decline to be 'interrupted.

Now, Mr. Chairman, there are other provisions in the Constitution which show quite as clearly that Congress has no power to disturb the accustomed medium, which is the final measure of all financial values.  What, let me ask you, will be the practical operation of this scheme ?  You throw aside gold and silver, and make Treasury notes a legal tender.  These notes will fall ten, fifteen, and, it may be, twenty or fifty per cent. below the standard of gold and silver.  You require me to take them in payment of a debt which has been contracted to be paid to me in gold and silver.  Is it not taking from me my property, and turning it over to my debtor ?  And where, let me ask, do you derive the power to take from me my property, against my consent, and transfer it to an other ?  You are inhibited from the exercise of such a power.  By the express words of the Constitution you can take the property of no man, except by due process of law.  It can be done only as the penalty of some crime, or as a forfeiture for the violation of some law;  and then only upon trial, conviction, and judgment, in some court of competent jurisdiction.  Yet those who support this bill march forward to their purpose in utter disregard of the obligation of contracts, in utter disregard of the spirit and the very langauge of the Constitution.

Mr. Chairman, I have no doubt that this provision of the bill is unconstitutional, and if it be retained, I must adhere to my constitutional obligations, and, be the consequences what they may, vote against the bill.  I shall regret to do so;  but, sir, I can see no necessity for violating the Constitution.  The particular provision is not necessary for any public purpose.  The public credit does not require and will not be improved by it.  And I beg and implore the House to pause in the course upon which they are now entering, and take another and a different one.

This provision is as inexpedient as it is unconstitutional.  It is a legislative declaration of national bankruptcy.  It is saying to the world that this Government is unable to meet its obligations at their real value;  and must compound with its creditors at a discount.  It is the resort of every failing debtor, and even worse, for he only requires a release on his creditors' voluntary acceptance of a dividend of his estate;  but this clause obliges him to accept what the Government chooses to offer in full discharge of his debt, and that, too, before it has exhausted its resources.  Sir, it is disgraceful to the country.  Public credit reposes on public confidence.  It is a thing which cannot be compelled by law.  It results only from fair contracts, fairly, fully, and certainly discharged.  The man who pays most promptly is the man who has most credit.  And it is so with Governments.  But how, in the face of this provision, can credit be expected ?  Now discredit your own securities;  declare by necessary implication that they are not worth what they import, and you compel all men, by force of law, to receive them.  Can you expect confidence under these circumstances ?  Will men deal with you ?  Sir, this provision strikes down public confidence, destroys credit, and shames us before the world.  What nation has ever resorted to it ?  It is a system of repudiation and forced loans in the worst form.  It not only destroys our financial credit, but it will be a stain on our national character, which ages will not obliterate.

This provision attempts the impossible thing of giving to paper the value of gold.  The experience of the world is against it.  Law can regulate exchanges, and may indirectly affect values;  but law can never give an artificial when there is no real value.  Law cannot convert paper into gold.  Paper is valuable only when it represents gold, and may be exchanged for it.  Take away the gold, and the paper is worthless.  All the laws of all the States, with the Continental Congress to help them, making the issues of that body tenders for debts, would not keep up their value to the standard of par;  they sank, notwithstanding, and continued to sink, until it required $100 of that money to buy a poor soldier a poorer breakfast.  And this is the experience of every nation that has tried the silly experiment;  and such will be our experience.  We may manage to pay off existing liabilities with such paper, because we can use the force necessary to compel its reception;  but how will we make new purchases ?  Can it be supposed that prices will not rise just as much above the specie standard as the notes fall below it ?  The result is inevitable;  all experience proves it;  and all the laws you can make will not make it otherwise.

Look for one moment at the consequences the measure will bring upon the country.  All existing indebtedness was created upon the specie standard, and all coin contracts are to be settled in gold and silver.  Who can estimate the amount of this indebtedness ?  Think but one moment of its vastness.  There is your own debt of five hundred millions or more;  there are the debts of the States, probably quite as much;  there are your city debts, corporation debts, bank debts, and debts of individuals, amounting to many thousands of millions, all payable in gold and silver.  By this bill, you require them all to be settled in paper, which you declare is worth less than gold.  How much less ?  In the face of the bill, certainly not less than the present market rate of your bonds is below their par value.  They are now, at least, at ten per cent. discount, and soon may be at twenty, and you, with one dash of your pen, sweep one tenth, probably one fifth, nay, it may be one half, of this immense indebtedness out of existence.  Are you prepared for the consequences ?  Think you that no suffering will follow this gigantic confiscation ?  Are you prepared for the wail of the widow, whose mite, at best, scarcely sufficient to keep hunger from the door, is made less by your reckless legislation ?  Are you prepared to behold the orphan gnaw his meager crust, shortened by your improvidence ?  Are you prepared to receive the frown of an injured and indignant people ?  Think you there will be no retribution ?  Think you that an outraged people will not hurl you from this Hall.  Nay, more, do you imagine that a Government which inflicts such wanton and wide-spread mischief will be long tolerated by a free and intelligent people ?

But, again: this provision will necessarily destroy all private credit and, of course, all commerce.  A steady and unvarying currency is essential to credit.  No man will credit his neighbor, unless there is some fixed standard of value by which the payment is to be made.  Hence, gold and silver, which are less fluctuating than any other known substances, have been selected by the common consent of mankind as the standard by which all settlements are to be made.  Their excellence consists in their uniformity of value.  Now it is proposed to substitute Government notes in their place -- of all things the most fluctuating in value.  The issue of a battle, or even a skirmish, the appointment of a Cabinet minister, the result of some State election, perhaps a speech in this House, or even an editorial m the London Times, will cause them to rise or fall.  Now, how is credit possible when payments are to be made in such a medium ?  Who will sell an estate on time when payment is to be made in such an unstable medium ?  Who will order from abroad a ship-load of coffee to be exchanged by such a standard ?  Who can calculate what will be the worth of these notes at any future day ?  Sir, this proposition destroys all credit, and with it all commerce.  Then what will become of the business of the country ?  What will become of all your industrial interests ?  Where will your operatives go ?  What will become of your agricultural productions ?  What will real estate be worth ?  Sir, your factories must stop, your ships must rot at the wharves, your fields must be given to the thistle and the briar, and your laborer starve or maraud !  And when commerce ceases the public revenue also ceases;  and then your poisoned chalice, in just retribution, will return to your own lips, and the life blood of the nation cease to flow.

Mr. Chairman, if this provision be confined to contracts hereafter to be made, as has been suggested, it will be quite as unconstitutional, and just as fatal to the credit of the Government and the business of the country as it is in its present form.  But this provision is not necessary.  The wants of the Treasury do not require it.  These notes will be quite as current and answer all the purposes of the Government just as well without this offensive provision.  Indeed, I think they would have more credit without, than with it.  Make them receivable for all public dues and redeemable in six per cent. bonds;  establish a national currency based on the public securities through the agency of the banks, with proper checks, and provide by adequate taxation for the certain and prompt payment of the interest on your bonds, and they will have a real value and will find a general circulation.  Why should they not ?  The banks do not pay specie, and yet their notes have their accustomed circulation.  These notes, thus sustained, will be worth more than bank notes.  Bank issues are secured only by their capitals, and even this security is shared both by the bill-holder and the depositor, and is at the hazard of the want of faith and want of skill of their directors.  These notes are secured by the bond of the Government for which the property of the whole country is bound.  Bank issues must depend on the credit of the particular institution for their circulation;  these notes are backed by the whole property of the nation, and are made by law receivable in payment of $150,000,000 of taxes, one and a half times greater than the whole amount of notes at any time in circulation, even if the Secretary should avail himself of the extreme limit of the law.  Then why will they not find circulation ?  They never can sink below the value of the bonds, for they are fundable at the option of the holder;  and the bonds can never fall much below par, if such provision is made for the punctual payment of the interest in coin as inspires the public with confidence that it will be made.

Mr. Chairman, the success of this and of every other scheme at all practicable and likely to be efficient for the relief of the Treasury depends upon the taxes you may levy.  If you will make the interest on these bonds payable in specie, and provide means to render that certain, can any man doubt why the notes should not attain a greater and broader circulation than bank paper ?  To accomplish anything, by any device to supply the public demand for money, such a tax must be laid.  Can it be done, and how ?  Can the wealth of the country bear it ?  Have we the sagacity, wisdom, and, above all, the courage required to develop the resources of the country ?  Will the people submit to be taxed to the extent necessary to meet the exigency of the times ?

Sir, this is a period that tries the mettle of men.  Legislation has its perils as well as the battle-field.  It demands even a more heroic courage;  we must meet its dangers without the excitement of the conflict, and with no hope of the glories of victory.  We must not shrink from the responsibility.  Everything depends upon us.  With self sacrificing devotion to the cause of the Republic, we must apply ourselves to the development of the resources of the country, and with firm and steady hand turn the stream of national wealth into the public Treasury to reinvigorate the national life.  If from a weak and pusillanimous fear of consequences to ourselves we fail in this high and holy work, our constituents and posterity will hold us responsible for that national degradation which is sure to follow.

It is estimated that a revenue of $150,000,000 annually is necessary to meet with certainty the demands on the Treasury, and to put the public credit on a sure and solid basis.  Our present revenue laws will yield $60,000,000 or more, and there remains to be raised, from new taxes, not much short of $90,000,000 a year.  Can the country bear this tax ?  I think it can and that without serious inconvenience, if it be laid with prudence and judgment.

The country is rich and rapidly increasing in wealth.  Its population, in round numbers, is thirty-one millions.  In 1850, as appears from the census report, the property of the country was found to be a fraction over $7,000,000,000;  and in 1860, by the same authority, it was found to be over $16,000,000,000 -- an increase of nearly $9,000,000,000, or over one hundred and twenty six per cent, in ten years, equal to more than twelve and a half per cent. per annum.  At the same ratio of increase for the next ten years, the property of the country will, in 1870, have run up to over $35,000,000,000, equal to an annual increase of $1,900,000,000, or more than twenty times as much as is now required to meet the wants of the Treasury.

These statements may appear extravagant, and it is possible they exceed the actual increase of national wealth, but they are official statements of the Census Bureau, and they stand uncontradicted.  It may be true, and no doubt is, that from the withdrawal of the southern States from the Union, the diversion of a large portion of labor from productive industry to military service, and the general disturbance to the business of the country by the war, the annual increase of national wealth will be greatly lessened;  but, after all proper allowances are made for each of these causes, the great fact stands broadly out, palpable to every apprehension, unquestioned and unquestionable, that the regular ordinary annual increase of national wealth exceeds by many hundred millions the sum now required, or likely hereafter to be required, for the wants of the Treasury, and to place the credit of the country on a solid foundation.

The country is therefore able to bear the tax, and the only question is how is it to be laid with the least inconvenience to the people and the greatest facility of collection and certainty of payment.  To meet these objects it should be laid on productive industry, rather than on property;  it ought to be indirect rather than direct.  By this method the Government is brought into contact with the fewest people, and collects its revenue from the fewest sources.  The tax is paid by the producer, and is returned to him by the consumer, in the shape of an increase in the price.  It is equal upon all, for each contributes in proportion to his consumption of the products of industry.  It is cheerfully and voluntarily paid, for each may avoid the tax by ceasing to use the article.

I look to indirect taxes as the proper mode of supplying the public necessities.  The land tax is unequal, difficult to collect, and brings the Government into conflict with every citizen.  It is always reluctantly paid, and keeps up a constant antagonism between the Government and the people.  And the same may be said, with more or less appropriateness, of all taxes on specific articles of property.  Especially of the income tax it may be said with tenfold emphasis, from the fact that it makes the Government an inquisitor into the private affairs of each individual, upon whose declaration it is obliged after all to rely, and practices the impolicy of setting the duty and interest of contributors in opposition, and makes them profit by concealing or perverting the truth.  We ought to rely on excise and stamp duties and taxes of that nature.  They are the most productive, fall most equally on all, and are most easily and willingly paid.

We have unfortunately no statistics in this country by which we can determine what will be produced by any given system of excise and stamp duties.  But we know enough to be sure that even at moderate rates such duties will raise a very large amount.  In the United Kingdom of Great Britain, with a population not greatly exceeding our own, there were raised in 1860 from excise duties alone £18,188,605, or over $90,000,000, and from stamps upwards of £8,000,000, or over $40,000,000.  In Great Britain there is no tax on domestic tonnage or passengers transported on railroads and canals, and by steam and other ships and vessels in their domestic waters.  This is a rich mine of wealth, and if properly worked will yield immense revenue, and that without proving a burden to those who pay it.  In Great Britain they do not tax bank notes, telegraphic dispatches, or gas companies, all of which may be made largely to contribute to the revenue without inconvenience to the people.  With these sources of revenue, in addition to those taxed in Great Britain, may we not expect to derive a sum not much short of what she receives ?  Our population is not greatly less than hers;  our people are as active and industrious as hers;  consumption per man is as great here as there;  and no just reason can be assigned why our revenue from these sources will not bear the same proportion to hers as our population bears to hers.  It certainly cannot fall much below it.  At all events, it is safe to assume that from these sources we can raise the amount now required to make the annual revenue equal to the present and prospective demands of the Treasury.

Mr. Chairman, we ought at once to devise a proper system of taxation;  we ought at once, with a firm and steady hand, to tax the sources of national wealth, and to allow their currents to flow to the support of national life.  Never was there a period in our history when it was more necessary.  Our very existence is imperiled.  Insolvency stares us in the face;  insolvency is dissolution;  and dissolution is death.  Let us rise to the level of the occasion, abandoning all the low arts of the mere broker, the shifts of the failing debtor, the false pretenses of the needy borrower;  let us rise to the dignity of true statesmanship, and make known to our constituents, with manly boldness and honest freedom, the dangers and necessities of the country, and demand of them, what they alone can give, the means of national salvation.  Let us do our duty, and leave the responsibility to them.  But, sir, no fear of them.  They know the value of their institutions.  They can appreciate the danger and the necessity.  They know the value of representative government, and they are willing to pay the price of its preservation.  They are willing to be taxed.  They know it is necessary;  and however much they may lament that necessity, however indignant they may be at the blunders and crimes of those who have created it, they are ready and willing to meet its responsibilities, and pour out their wealth to preserve the national existence and honor.  They are not willing to have their means squandered by corrupt officials, by faithless contractors, by wild, reckless, profitless extravagance;  they are not willing to contribute to wars prosecuted for unconstitutional objects;  they are not willing to contribute under any pretended scheme of finance which poisons all the channels of trade, overturns the measure of value, and destroys what it does not take;  but they are willing to lay upon the altar of their country whatever is fairly and in good faith required to preserve the Government and restore to the Constitution its just and proper authority.  But if, sir, unfortunately they should not be willing to make the sacrifice, then are the days of the Republic numbered.  A people who will not pay the just expense of the preservation of their liberties, cannot appreciate the priceless value of representative government, and will not long be permitted to enjoy it.