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by means of this currency. The legal-tender part of Mr. Chase's plans has not a shadow of authority in the Constitution, so far as it requires individuals to take it. It deprives the people of their legal rights under contracts, whether entered into before or after the law was passed. Mr. Chase's financial plans have been the means of not only needlessly increasing our public debt, but also of unnecessarily doubling our taxes. If a man dies, his children cannot inherit and possess his property without paying a heavy tax. The country will not outgrow Mr. Chase's financial bungling in a hundred years. His national bank schemes, the second chapter of blunders, we shall notice elsewhere.

Another consequence of an alarming kind, flowing from this depreciated currency, is manifesting itself, creating distrust and largely disturbing the public mind. The Legal Tender Act of February 25, 1862, provided that greenbacks "shall be received the same as coin, at their par value, in payment for any loans that may be hereafter sold or negotiated," and that they should be convertible into a six per cent. stock at the option of the holder, which has been done to an immense amount. These stocks are held in various European countries and through all parts of the United States. There has been unnecessarily precipitated upon the country the question whether the Government shall pay the principal of these stocks in gold or greenbacks, the bonds generally not stating how they should be paid. The agitators say that the Government only received greenbacks, and it is inequitable for the holders to ask for repayment in a better currency than they paid.

To this it is answered:

1. That the bonds issued are in the same form, so far as principal is concerned, as in all past loans which have been paid principal and interest in coin.

2. The currency of the world is gold and silver coin, and, up to the time of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, such coin was demand able in this and all civilized countries, although nothing was said about payment being in coin.

3. That the Government, under the Legal Tender Act, expressly declared that the greenbacks should be received the

same as coin, and were, of course, considered as good when received.

4. That the Secretary of the Treasury, who represented the Government in construing these loan laws, informed the public that the Government was bound to pay the principal of these loans in coin.

5. That the public, in loaning, acted under this construction as they had a right to do.

6. In construing these loan obligations, all the surrounding circumstances are to be considered-such as the past acts and practices of the Government in paying off bonds, the forms and terms used in the transaction, the construction by the Government at the time, and the conclusions that the lender would naturally draw from what passed, and the subsequent acts of the Government-to show its understanding of the contract.

7. The act making greenbacks a legal tender contained a provision under which the holder had a legal right to fund them in a six per cent. stock, having not less than five nor more than twenty years to run, with interest semi-annually in gold. If greenbacks were a legal tender for the principal of these bonds, they must be of this exact kind. But the Government has repealed this right of funding, and thereby very essentially diminished the value of the greenbacks issued since the repeal. There is now no compulsory way of obtaining pay, or any thing for greenbacks, the act of March 3, 1865, leaving every thing at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.

8. Congress, in issuing legal-tender greenbacks sufficient to pay off the bonds not expressly required by statute to be paid in coin, would further depreciate them, and would, therefore, by its own act, diminish the value of what it paid, which would be highly unjust. The extent of the injury would depend upon the extent of the issue and depreciation.

9. It is untrue that all the stocks issued were paid for in greenbacks. Some were paid for in certificates of indebtedness, and others in other obligations of the Government, and there are no means now of distinguishing them from those paid for in greenbacks. If it were legal and just to pay greenbacks where

they were received, it would be the height of injustice to extend it to these other cases.

10. If equity requires those who paid in greenbacks to receive their pay in the same currency, it would apply only to the original party, and, like similar defences to promissory notes and bills of exchange, cannot be applied to a subsequent innocent holder, taking in good faith. The greater portion of all these bonds have passed into second, third, and subsequent hands, and, since the repeal of the law conferring the right to fund greenbacks, at prices sometimes as high as fourteen per cent. premium. These prices are a fair index of the depreciation of greenbacks, by taking away the right to fund them. Nothing could be more unjust than to compel those who bought these bonds in good faith at a premium to receive paper depreciated as much as these greenbacks are and will be.

11. This attempt to avoid the effect of an obligation upon a mere quibble is unworthy of our Government, and is a cowardly mode of repudiation to the extent of the depreciation of greenbacks.

111.-MR. CHASE'S BANKING SYSTEM.

For more than seventy years the States had conferred charters upon companies to engage in the business of banking, permitting them to issue their notes to a certain extent, but requiring them to redeem them in coin. Each State had made such provisions to secure prompt redemption as it deemed necessary for the security of the bill-holders. These laws were satisfactory to the people of the different States, and secured them a sound convertible currency, deemed as good as gold itself, because at the will of the holder he could convert it into gold. These banks were located wherever business seemed to require them, and were amenable to the laws of the States where situated, and could be brought before their courts when necessary, with the same facility as an individual. Few of these banks had a political character, or meddled in party politics. The people of the States were satisfied with them. In 1863 Mr. Chase gave them a blow, which was followed up in 1864, which knocked nearly every one of them

out of existence, substituting in their place a cumbrous and unconstitutional system of irresponsible national banks, calculated to work in concert in the political field. This act is a direct assault upon the dignity and rights of the States, and an attempt to cripple and humble them as members of the Union. The time was when New York and her people determined when and where banks should be located, and how conducted, but now a subordinate in the Treasury Department at Washington decides these and many other things. Formerly, if a bank refused to perform its duty, the courts of the State could compel obedience. Now the principal remedies can only be applied for at Washington, at a great loss of time, and at a heavy expense, with great uncertainty as to the result. The people of the great State of New York must now seek justice in a corner of the Treasury, instead of demanding it as a right in her courts at home. The act authorizes the appointment of a Comptroller of the Currency, who determines upon applications for the formation of banking associations. It is expected he will be able to supervise and keep in order nearly two thousand banks scattered from Maine to Oregon, which no one man, or one hundred can do, and consequently we see them smash up without his being able to control or prevent it.

The capital of these banks is nothing but debt, the bonds of the Government, which vary in value in market with the political breezes which selfish men put in motion. These bonds, deposited with the Comptroller of the Currency, or Treasurer, bring them six per cent. interest in gold, which is a good return for the capital invested. In addition, they receive from the Government nearly the amount of their capital in national currency bills, which they loan at interest, thus making great profits upon their capital, because invested in Government bonds, and favored by the action of the Comptroller of the Currency. Bonds of the States, although as good or better, are not to be received. These are unequal privileges, which none but the favored few can enjoy. The Government makes these bills a legal tender to itself, and among the banks themselves, the same as greenbacks. But there is no way to compel these banks to pay a dollar in coin, the green

backs being made for them a legal tender, while their capital is exempted from State taxation. At the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, these banks are made depositories of public money, which has led to their having sometimes millions on deposit, without interest, while the Government pays them interest on their capital, and on such interest-bearing national securities as they choose to hold. These deposits are usually invested by the banks in national bonds, so that the Government, in legal effect, pays interest on its own deposits in these banks. This right to use these banks as depositories for public money is the only pretence of constitutional ground to stand upon, the Supreme Court having held that Congress had a right to create a corporation to aid in the fiscal operations of the Government. That ruling was long since exploded, as the Constitution does not authorize Congress to create an artificial being in order to have a person to hold office. The national Constitution never contemplated or authorized any such thing. It expects citizens, who can take an oath of office, who have consciences, and can be indicted or impeached, should hold all the offices created under it. Citizens feel responsibilities, but soulless corporations do not. But, if one artificial being can be needed as a fiscal agent, is it possible that nearly two thousand can be? No fair mind can pretend it. These banks were contrived for a purpose-to secure political ascendency through active agents managing them to aid the Republican party by moving in phalanx-in concert, when required to do so, with the Comptroller of the Currency for captain. It was for this purpose that the State banks were taxed out of existence under the Internal Revenue Law, by a ten per cent. tax upon their circulation, when none was imposed upon that of the national banks. Nothing could be more clearly unconstitutional, or unjust. Institutions closely interwoven with the business and interests of the country, with a capital amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, were all crushed by one blow, to appease the rapacity of partisans, with no escape except by conforming to the requirements of an unconstitutional law, and becoming national banks. It is fortunate for the country that some of these decline assessments, or political action, according to the

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