increased facilities for it. How? Now, when a corner in money is made, it is locked up for the time being; no interest is drawn upon it at all; but under this bill they may put their money in five per cent. bonds, and get a good living interest upon it, and produce the contraction that is desired.

"Mr. President, we have had unparalleled prosperity in this country for the last four or five years. There has been less speculation in the last four years, I undertake to say, than in any period in the history of this country since

1837."

Mr. Sherman: "Far more."

Mr. Morton: "Because business has vastly extended, and it is ten times what it was twenty-five years ago; but I speak of speculation in products. I say there has been less of it, and there has been more stability in the prices of the breadstuffs of this country, of the necessaries of life, in the last five years, than there has been in any preceding five years in our history. I have no hesitancy in saying that. Of course there are fluctuations; but they are created by demand and supply. A short crop may produce them; an increased foreign demand may produce them; but there has been less of fluctuation resulting from speculation, I undertake to say, in this country during the last four years, than in any five years since 1837.

"Why is it that there has been such stability? Why is it that there has been such prosperity? And why is it that there is so much confidence now in the finances of the country? There is more confidence now than there ever has been before. Why? One great leading cause is that the whole country knows how much currency there is abroad, and that that currency cannot be increased except by an act of Congress, which must advertise the whole country in regard to it. Now, if that currency may be contracted by allowing a man to fund greenbacks in five per cent. bonds, how shall the business men of the country know any thing about it? The mischief is done before they know it. The first news they get of it is in the contraction of the currency. If ten millions are funded this week, how will the country know it? They will be first advised of it by its effect upon business; but, if it is done under an act of Congress, everybody knows of it weeks and months before it takes place.

"I do not know that I shall make objection to free banking when specie payments are absolutely and certainly restored beyond all peradventure; but it never ought to be ventured upon before that time, and I am not sure that it should then. Why? Because, when banking is free and everybody can bank that desires to do so, the currency may be inflated scores of millions before the country knows scarcely any thing about it. Now, banks are formed here and there; they throw out their currency; the volume of it is increased; the country is not advised of it; and the first intel

ligence they get is from its influence on business. That is one of the very evils I am arguing against.

"Now, I desire to call the attention of the Senate to the amendment offered to this bill by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Thurman). He proposes to strike out five per cent.' and insert two per cent.,' so that the Secretary of the Treasury shall have the option of redeeming the green backs in coin or in two per cent. bonds as he pleases. Does the Senator from Ohio think that would bring about specie payments? Does he believe that two per cent. bonds will be at par in this country? They will be when the rate of interest is no greater than that, and money is only worth two per cent.; but that is not the case now. The issuing of two per cent. bonds, or authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to redeem greenbacks in two per cent. bonds, is making no provision whatever for a return to specie payments. If the issue of bonds in the redemption of greenbacks is to be a means of resuming specie payments, that bond must be put at such a rate of interest as will make it equal to par value in gold, so that when the Secretary offers to the holder of the greenbacks a bond, that bond is equal in value to the gold for which it is offered as a substitute.

"Let me say one thing further, Mr. President. If this proposed resumption of specie payments is not to depend entirely, or almost entirely, upon the issue of five per cent. bonds, there should be some provision for getting gold into the Treasury in sufficient quantities to redeem these notes. This bill makes no provision for that. It does not provide for reserving the gold in the Treasury until the time comes when redemption shall begin."

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Nye in the chair): "The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Thurman) to strike out the word 'five' and insert the word 'two.'"

Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, said: "Obviously the proposition of the Senator from Ohio is intended to defeat the whole bill, and therefore those who shall vote for it will vote for it with a view of killing the bill. The chief point in the bill is to have something that will be better than the present legal tender, and a two per cent. bond or a two per cent. certificate would hardly be better than the present greenbacks. The amendment would destroy the symmetry of the bill so far as the five per cent. bonds are concerned which it is proposed to issue in order to have a uniformity of bonds that may be issued in the new series. I trust, therefore, that the amendment will not prevail. I ask for the yeas and nays upon it."

The yeas and nays were ordered; and being taken, resulted-yeas 11, nays 31.

So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. Buckingham: "I now move to amend

the amendment of the committee in section one, line nineteen, by striking out the words 'to the same amount either to purchase or redeem the public debt or,' and inserting after the word 'service,' in line twenty-one, the words and the principal of any United States bonds bearing interest payable in coin shall, on demand by the holder thereof, be paid by the Secretary of the Treasury in legal-tender notes and the interest thereon in coin.'

"I have but a very few words to say on this amendment, because I have presented my ideas on the question of this amendment to the Senate before. The first part of this section requires the Secretary of the Treasury to issue bonds when they are demanded by men holding currency to the amount of $1,000. That is a contraction of the currency; it is a funding of a portion of the public debt. Now, my judgment is that, while there should be contraction or the power of contraction, there should also be ability to expand; and this amendment proposes that whenever men have bonds, and they want currency more than they want bonds bearing interest, they shall have the privilege of going to the Treasury and obtaining currency. It is an interchangeability between coin and bonds and between bonds and coin."

Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, said: "Mr. President, the proposition submitted by the Senator from Connecticut is not entirely new to the Senate. So far as its practical operation would go, it would not advance us a single step in the resumption of specie payments. It would give as much opportunity for going backward as for going forward. The object to be attained, as stated by the Senator from Connecticut, is, to enable a manufacturer, who finds he wants more currency, to go to the Treasury Department and exchange bonds for it. Let me say to the Senator from Connecticut that any man who has bonds to give for security can obtain money in any quarter of our country at one, two, three, and four per cent. less than anybody else. There is absolutely no difficulty whatever for a man, who has bonds to give as security, in obtaining money.'

Mr. Fenton, of New York, said: "Mr. President, I ask the consent of the Senate, if agreeable to the chairman of the Committee on Finance, who reported this bill, to consider the amendment of the Committee on Finance as the bill before the Senate."

The Presiding Officer: "Is there any objection to the proposition of the Senator from New York? The Chair hears no objection, and that course will be taken."

Mr. Fenton: "I move to amend the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut by adding:

"Provided, That twenty per cent. of the notes so received for the said bonds shall be retained and permanently retired from circulation: Provided also, That said twenty per cent. shall not exceed in the aggregate the sum of $3,000,000 a month.

"One word only, Mr. President. This bill, with the amendment of my friend from Connecticut, ignores the vital consideration in the work of resuming specie payments. Senators do not seem to have in view that the value of currency depends upon its volume and the value is determined by its exchangeability into coin. Believing, then, that it is impossible within any reasonable period to reach specie payments and maintain them without a moderate reduction of the currency of the country, I have offered this amendment in good faitli to that end. This amendment incorporated into the bill, with the postponement of the period when it will take effect, as suggested by the honorable Senator from Indiana (Mr. Morton), it would doubtless in time accomplish the work of resumption which we all so much desire."

Mr. Schurz, of Missouri, said: "Mr. President, I have followed this debate with a good deal of attention, and I discover that the further we go the oftener we strike upon rocks. The Senator from Connecticut offered an amendment which is to obviate a great danger, consisting in the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury to flood the market with currency whenever currency has accumulated in the Treasury of the United Statesthe same topic to which I took the liberty of calling attention yesterday. The Senator from Vermont sees in the amendment offered by the Senator from Connecticut another danger, which consists in putting it into the power of Wall Street speculators to empty the Treasury of greenbacks and to use them for their own speculative purposes.

"I think both these difficulties exist; but there seems to be still another one which affects the whole system as designed by the author of this bill, the honorable chairman of the Committee on Finance. If I understand him correctly, he wants to bring us back to specie payments, an object in which I sincerely sympathize with him. In his speech he described to us the dangers and inconveniences arising from irregular fluctuations of value. His aim and object are very laudable indeed. The bill provides that on the 1st of January, 1874, you or I may go to the Treasury of the United States and present legal tenders there and receive coin in return. That is specie payments. It will also put gold and silver into circulation again. But the bill provides also that when the gold in the Treasury is exhausted, or when the Secretary of the Treasury deems it wise not to redeem in gold any longer, he may use the interest-bearing securities of the United States and may redeem the legal tenders with bonds. That, if I may say so, is no longer specie payments, but that is a suspension of specie payments again, is it not? The chairman of the Committee on Finance nods assent; he has said so in his opening speech. In fact, the whole bill seems to have been devised to institute specie pay

turn to a currency which is based upon coin, there can be no permanency in values; there must be fluctuations; there must be expansions and depressions in the money market. But the question is, Will the measure proposed effect the object contemplated? I have some misgivings upon that point. What is the provision? The provision is to retire the greenbacks, or the legal-tender notes, by the payment of coin when the Treasury is in receipt of coin sufficient for that purpose, and, when not in sufficient receipt of coin to do that, to substitute the bonds of the Government bearing five per cent. interest.

Now, let us look and see whether there is any probability that sufficient coin will be substituted in place of the greenbacks to render the currency of the country much better than it is at present. There is, I believe, about $350,000,000 of greenbacks now in circulation. Within twelve months, under the operations of this bill, those greenbacks will be presented to the Treasury for redemption. Will the Secretary of the Treasury have a sufficient amount of gold on hand to redeem any large proportion of that amount? I apprehend at farthest that he could not appropriate exceeding $50,000,000 toward the redemption of the $350,000,000 of greenbacks, and as a consequence there must be about $300,000,000 of bonds issued as a substitute for the greenbacks which are canceled or redeemed. There will then be $50,000,000 that will be in gold that will be furnished in lieu of the $350,000,000 of greenbacks which are taken up. The bonds which are issued as a substitute for them will not become a part of the circulating medium. They will be held as investments; and thus the circulation of the country will be curtailed by the amount of bonds which are issued in lieu of the gold.

That must be the effect if the operation stops there. If there is no reissue of these greenbacks, the consequence must be to curtail the circulating medium to the amount that bonds are issued in their place. That must be one of the effects of this bill, I say, if it stops there; but there is a provision in the bill for a reissue of these greenbacks. I am aware of that. What is to be the effect of that? Suppose you issue those greenbacks; will they form, after they are issued, a part of the circulating medium? I think not. Though they may be issued a dozen times by the Secretary, they will not become a part of the circulating medium of the country, but will be bought up for the purpose of being carried to the Treasury with a view of demanding new bonds; and this operation will be repeated time and again. The notes will be returned to the Treasury and the gold demanded for them, or if not gold then bonds must again be reissued, and thus this process must necessarily go on until there is an accumulation of the public debt of the country.

"Now, I think a better measure for the relief

VOL. XIII.-12 A

of the people, and which will at the same time protect the Government against an increase of indebtedness, could have been devised; and, though it may subject me to the criticism of being a novice in financial affairs, I shall venture to say that if the Finance Committee had brought in a bill providing for the retirement of a certain amount annually of the national banking currency, leaving the greenback currency to stand as at present-to retire annually a certain amount of the national banking currency by replacing it with gold, and thus mixing up gold with the national banking currency-it would have had certainly the effect of relieving the Government from any increase of indebtedness, and it would have had another effect: it would have, with proper provisions, curtailed the obligation of the Government to the national banks. For instance, if they had called in one-eighth or one-tenth from each bank annually of its circulation of the notes which have been furnished to them by the Government, giving them gold at their relative values, and crediting the Government by that amount upon the bonds which she holds, you would have reduced the amount of interest paid to the national banks, and you would have prevented any possibility of an increase of the indebtedness of the country. That would virtually, as I think, furnish all the circulation which we at present have, while it would curtail the obligation of the Government to pay interest to the national banks in proportion to the amounts of their circulation which she had redeemed."

Mr. Thurman: "Believing that this bill cannot pass, and that it cannot be perfected in open Senate so that it ought to pass, and that any further discussion of it will only be a loss of time, for the purpose of testing the sense of the Senate I move that the bill lie on the table, and I ask for the yeas and nays on that motion."

The Presiding Officer: "The Senator from Ohio moves that the bill lie on the table."

The yeas and nays were ordered; and being taken, resulted as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Alcorn, Blair, Cole, Davis, Edmunds, Fenton, Gilbert, Goldthwaite, Hamilton of Texas, Harlan, Hill, Hitchcock, Johnston, Kelly, Machen, Morton, Norwood, Pool, Ramsey, Ransom, Rice, Robertson, Schurz, Sprague, Stevenson, Thurman, Tipton, West, and Windom-29.

NAYS-Messrs. Ames, Bayard, Boreman, Buckingham, Casserly, Chandler, Clayton, Cooper, Corbett, Cragin, Ferry of Connecticut, Ferry of Michigan, Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Nye, Patterson, Pratt, Flanagan, Hamilton of Maryland, Hamlin, Morrill of Saulsbury, Scott, Sherman, Stewart, Vickers, Wil

son, and Wright-27.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Brownlow, Caldwell, Cameron, Carpenter, Conkling, Frelinghuysen, Howe, Lewis, Logan, Osborn, Pomeroy, Sawyer, Spencer, Stockton, Sumner, and Trumbull-17.

So the motion was agreed to, and the bill was ordered to lie on the table.

In the House, on December 16th, Mr. Cox,

Whereas, The State government of Louisiana is now administered by orders from the Federal courts supported by Federal bayonets, which condition of things is subversive of the civil government of said State and dangerous to liberty: therefore

Resolved, That the President of the United States is hereby requested to inform this House at the earliest day possible why the Executive of the United States interfered in the affairs of the State of Louisiana, giving all the facts; and he is further requested to give to this House all the information he has on this subject relative to the conduct of E. H. Durell, one of the judges of the United States in Louisiana; so that this House may determine what steps, if any, should be taken in consequence of his interference in the political affairs of said State.

Mr. Cox: "With the permission of the House I will strike off the preamble, and will insert in the resolution after the word 'requested,' the words 'if not incompatible with the public interest.' If gentlemen on the other side cannot vote for personal or public liberty without some scruples, I wish to accommodate

them."

Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, said: "I hope the gentleman from New York (Mr. Cox) will not insert in his resolution the words 'if not incompatible with the public interest.' It seems to me there can be no such incompatibility in a matter of this kind. Congress must be entitled to know by what right or authority the President interferes in such a case as this. The Constitution points out the only manner in which the President can intervene in such cases; and it should appear to us and to the country by what authority he does so."

Mr. Cox: "I have inserted in the resolution the words 'if not incompatible with the public interest,' so that the resolution may pass without any partisan or acrimonious discussion. What I want is that the facts shall come out. I think that with the resolution, as now couched, we may get the facts. We do not want a simple expression of opinion from this or the other side of the House. We want the

whole basis for the action of the President in this most important matter."

Mr. Sypher, of Louisiana, said: "We deny that the President has interfered in any way in Louisiana matters, except to order the execution of the mandates of the United States courts. That is the whole question."

The question was taken; and it was decided in the negative as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Acker, Adams, Archer, Arthur, Barnum, James B. Beck, Bell, Austin Blair, Boarman, Boles, Braxton, Bright, Brooks, Carroll, Comingo, Cox, Critcher, Crossland, Davis, Dodds, Dox, DuBose, Duke, Eldredge, Farnsworth, Henry D. Foster, Getz, Giddings, Griffith, Hancock, Handley, Harper, John T. Harris, Hereford, Herndon, Hibbard, Holman, Kendall, Kerr, King, Lamison, Leach, Lewis, Manson, Marshall, McClellan, MeCormick, McHenry, McIntyre, McKinney, Merrick, Benjamin F. Meyers, Morgan, Niblack, Hosea W. Parker, Perry, Price, Read, John M. Rice, W. R. Roberts, John Rogers, Sion H. Rogers, Sherwood, Shober, Slater, Speer, Stevens, Storr, Swann, Terry, Tuthill, Van Trump, Waddell, Wells, Whitthorne,

NAYS-Messrs. Ambler, Ames, Barber, Beveridge, Bingham, Buffinton, Burchard, Burdett, Roderick R. Butler, Clarke, Cobb, Coghlan, Conger, Cotton, Crocker, Dawes, Donnan, Duell, Dunnell, Eames, Esty, Farwell, Finkelnburg, Charles Foster, Wilder D. Foster, Frye, Garfield, Hale, Harmer, George E. Harris, Havens, John B. Hawley, Joseph R. Hawley, Gerry W. Hazelton, John W. Hazelton, Hoar, Hooper, Houghton, Kelley, Kellogg, Ketcham, Lamport, Lansing, Lowe, Lynch, Maynard, McCrary, McGrew, McJunkin, McKee, Merriam, Monroe, Moore, Morey, Leonard Myers, Negley, Orr, Packard, Packer, Palmer, Peck, Pendleton, Perce, Peters, Platt, Poland, Porter, Rainey, Ellis H. Roberts, Rusk, Sargent, Sawyer, Scofield, Sessions, Shanks, Sheldon, Shellabarger, H. Boardman Smith, John A. Smith, Snapp, Sprague, Starkweather, Stevenson, Stoughton, Sypher, Taffe, Washington Townsend, Turner, Twichell, Tyner, Upson, Wakeman, liams of Indiana, and Jeremiah M. Wilson-99. Waldron, Wallace, Walls, Wheeler, Willard, Wil

NOT VOTING-Messrs. Averill, Banks, Barry, Beatty, Erasmus W. Beck, Bigby, Biggs, Bird, James G. Blair, Buckley, Benjamin F. Butler, Caldwell, Campbell, Coburn, Conner, Crebs, Creely, Darrall, De Large, Dickey, Elliot, Ely, Forker, Garrett, Golladay, Goodrich, Haldeman, Halsey, Hambleton, Hanks, Hay, Hays, Hill, Killinger, Kinsella, McNeely, Mitchell, Morphis, Isaac C. Parker, Potter, Prindle, Randall, Edward Y. Rice, Ritchie, Robinson, Roosevelt, Seeley, Shoemaker, Slocum, Vaughan, Voorhees, Walden, Warren, Whiteley, Sloss, Worthington C. Smith, Snyder, Stowell, and John T. Wilson-63.

the House refused to suspend the rules and So (two-thirds not voting in the affirmative) pass the resolution.

Mr. Stevenson, of Kentucky, said: "I move to suspend the rules to pass the following resolution.

The Clerk read as follows:

Resolved, That the President of the United States is hereby requested, if not in his judgment incompatible with the public interest, to communicate to this House such information as he may have relative to the condition of affairs in Louisiana; and what, if any, action he has taken with regard thereto. President said: "The Senator from Ohio In the Senate on January 7th the Vicehim. The Secretary will report the resolumoves to take up the resolution offered by tion."

The Chief Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

Resolved, That the Committee on Privileges and Elections is directed to inquire and report to the Senate whether the recent election of electors for President and Vice-President has been conducted in the States of Louisiana and Arkansas in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States, and what contests, if any, have arisen as to who were elected as electors in either of said States, and what measures are necessary to provide for the determination of such contests and to guard against and determine like contests in the future election of electors for President and Vice-President. That for the purpose of speedily executing this resolution the said committee shall have power to send for persons and papers, to take testimony, and at their discretion to send a sub-committee of their own number to either of said States with authority to take testimony; and, if the exigency of this service de