Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 52

I may say that has been acted upon by every great Christian nation.

Russia and Austria have not yet gold coinage at all, but still they have their values based upon gold.

"Fourth. That the demonetization of silver tends to add to the value of gold, and that though the relative value ebbs and flows it is more stable compared to gold than any other metal, grain, or production. Its limit of variation for a century is between fifteen to seventeen for one in gold.

"Fifth. That both coins are indispensable, one for small and the other for large transactions.

"Sixth. That the causes of the decline of silver are temporary.

It is still used by a great majority of mankind as the standard of value. Its use in France and the United States will, on resumption, more than counteract its decline in Germany.

"Seventh. The general monetizing of silver now, when it is unnaturally depreciated, would be to invite to our country, in exchange for gold or bonds, all the silver of Europe, and at last it would leave us with a depreciated currency.

"Eighth. The decline of silver enables us now to exchange silver coin of the old standard for fractional currency, leaving the exchange optional with the holder, until we have the courage, as we now have the ability, to redeem it in gold.

"Ninth. More silver can be maintained at par than we have now of fractional currency.

"Tenth. The redemption of a part of our currency would advance its purchasing power, while the silver in circulation will counteract the contraction of the currency."

This bill became a law on the 17th of April, 1876. The second section provided:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed to issue silver coins of the United States of the denomination of ten, twenty, twenty-five and fifty cents of standard value, in redemption of an equal amount of fractional currency, whether the same be now in the treasury awaiting redemption, or whenever it may be presented for redemption; and the Secretary of the Treasury may, under regulations of the treasury department, provide for such redemption and issue by subst.i.tution, at the regular sub-treasuries and public depositaries of the United States, until the whole amount of fractional currency outstanding shall be redeemed. And the fractional currency redeemed under this act shall be held to be a part of the sinking fund provided for by existing law, the interest to be computed thereon as in the case of bonds redeemed under the act relating to the sinking fund."

A joint resolution for the issue of silver coin was introduced in the House by Mr. Frost, of Ma.s.sachusetts, on the 1st of May, 1876.

The object of this resolution was to expedite the issue of minor coin and the retirement of fractional currency. It was referred to the committee on finance, reported favorably and pa.s.sed with amendments June 21. The House disagreed to the amendments of the Senate, and a committee of conference was appointed composed of John Sherman, George S. Boutwell, and Louis V. Bogy, managers on the part of the Senate, and H. B. Payne, and Samuel J. Randall, managers on the part of the House. The report of the conferees was agreed to, and the bill having pa.s.sed both Houses it was approved by the President on the 22nd of July. It provided:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury, under such limits and regulations as will best secure a just and fair distribution of the same through the country, may issue the silver coin at any time in the treasury to an amount not exceeding ten million dollars, in exchange for an equal amount of legal tender notes; and the notes so received in exchange shall be kept as a special fund, separate and apart from all other money in the treasury, and be reissued only upon the retirement and destruction of a like sum of fractional currency received at the treasury in payment of dues to the United States; and said fractional currency, when so subst.i.tuted, shall be destroyed and held as part of the sinking fund, as provided in the act approved April seventeen, eighteen hundred and seventy-six."

It also provided: "That the trade dollar shall not hereafter be a legal tender, and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to limit, from time to time, the coinage thereof to such an amount as he may deem sufficient to meet the export demand for the same."

It also provided that the amount of subsidiary silver coin authorized should not exceed $50,000,000. The silver bullion was to be purchased from time to time at market price by the Secretary of the Treasury from any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, and any gain or seigniorage arising from the coinage was to be paid into the treasury.

These provisions in respect to subsidiary coin were in a large measure executed prior to the 4th of March, 1877, and tended, in my opinion, to facilitate the progress of the resumption of specie payments on the 1st of January, 1879. The debate on these measures occupied a large portion of the time of both Houses of Congress, and presented in every possible aspect all the financial questions involved in coinage, resumption and refunding. Anyone desiring a full knowledge of the view then taken of the act revising the laws in respect to coins and coinage, approved February 12, 1873, will find in the debate a full history of that act, given at a time when it was fresh in the memory of the great body of Senators and Members.

I supported the coinage of the old silver dollar in a speech in the Senate made on the 8th of June, 1876, two years before the appearance of the "Bland bill," or the "Allison bill." Silver bullion was then declining in market value. The resumption act provided for the gradual replacement of fractional currency by silver coins of the character and form provided for by the coinage act of 1853. When that act pa.s.sed the old silver dollar was not coined or in circulation. It was more valuable in the market than a dollar in gold, and, if coined, would have been exported as bullion. In the revision of the coinage laws of 1873, it was dropped from the list of coins, and its further coinage was prohibited by a clause providing that no coins should be made at the mint except those provided for in that act. The history of this act and the reasons for prohibiting the coinage of the old dollar have been fully stated in a previous chapter of this work. In place of the old dollar the trade dollar, containing 420 grains of silver, was provided for. This trade dollar, coined for, and at the expense of, the owner of the bullion deposited at the mint, was, in the revision of the laws of the United States, unintentionally made a legal tender for five dollars, the same as the minor coins issued by the mint on government account. As silver declined in value, the trade dollar became less valuable than a dollar in gold, and the owners of bullion deposited it in the mint, and received in exchange trade dollars costing less than a dollar in gold, but, being a legal tender for five dollars, it could be forced upon the people of California, then upon the gold standard, at a profit to the owner of the bullion. Mr. Sargent, a Senator from California, early in the session introduced a bill enlarging the limit of legal tender of minor coins, and repealing the legal tender quality of the trade dollar. This bill was referred to the committee on finance, and was reported with an amendment to strike out all after the enacting clause, and insert:

"That section 3586 of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and hereby is, amended to read as follows:

"The silver coins of the United States, except the trade dollar, shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one payment."

This simple bill was made the text of a long debate in the Senate that continued during the greater part of that session. The provision that "the trade dollar shall not hereafter be a legal tender" was transferred to the joint resolution already mentioned which became a law on the 22nd of July.

In my speech on Mr. Sargent's bill I said:

"This bill proposes to restore the old silver dollar, and with it and the subsidiary coins of the United States to redeem the United States notes and fractional currency. The dollar to be restored is the same dollar that had existed from 1792 to 1873; and the subsidiary coins to be issued are the same in form and value as have been issued since 1853. I have already stated in my remarks, made on the 11th of April last, the history of these silver coins and the relation of silver and gold to each other, not only in the United States, but in the countries with which we have the most extensive commercial relations.

"The two main questions are:

"First. Shall silver coin be exchanged for United States notes as well as for fractional currency? And,

"Second. Is it wise to recoin the old silver dollar with a view to exchange it for United States notes?"

In this speech I favored the restoration of the silver dollar of the precise character and description of the dollar that existed from 1792 to 1873, but, as the market value of the silver in this dollar had greatly fallen, I insisted that the dollar should be coined from bullion purchased by the government at market price, so that the people of the United States would receive the difference between the cost of the bullion and the face value of the coin, the same principle that was adopted in what is known as the Bland- Allison act of 1878. I did not, however, propose the full legal tender quality that was given to the dollar by the act when adopted, but that it should be placed among the other silver coins, and be a legal tender only for twenty dollars.

The plan proposed by me was to set aside a portion of the surplus revenue or sinking fund of each year applicable to the payment of the public debt, for the purchase of silver bullion to be coined into silver dollars of the old standard. I said:

"The bill reported by the committee on finance thus provides for an immediate resumption of specie payments in silver coin, and thus completes the first and most difficult step of the problem. It neither disturbs nor deranges business, nor stirs up the phantom of contraction. It is in exact accordance with existing law, and leaves the silver coin, as now, a subsidiary coin, a legal tender only for limited amounts.

"The next question presented by this bill is, shall we return to our silver coinage the old silver dollar. And here I am met by the objections of the Senator from Vermont, but his objections are rather to the amendments proposed by the Senator from Missouri, than to the report of the committee. The committee propose the silver dollar, not as a legal tender for gold contracts, but only as a tender for currency contracts not exceeding twenty dollars in any one payment. I would prefer to leave the silver dollar and stand upon its intrinsic value as a legal tender the same as the smaller coin; but there is no injustice in enlarging the limit to twenty dollars, and but for the reasons I will state hereafter there is no injustice in making it a legal tender for all currency contracts. The silver dollar has that intrinsic value which in all periods of our history has made it a favorite coin, not only for domestic uses but for exportation. It furnishes silver bullion in a shape and form more convenient for handling than any other form of coin.

"When the old silver dollars are issued at par with the United States notes, a large amount of them will be taken as a reserve by the people to meet future needs, with or without a legal tender quality. As their issue is not peremptory, and the aggregate cannot exceed the surplus revenue or sinking fund, there is no danger of an overissue, while their existence among the people will be the best reserve when gold alone becomes the full standard of value.

"Every argument already mentioned in favor of subsidiary silver coins is equally potent in favor of the silver dollar. It will be eagerly taken in payment of United States notes. It is purely a voluntary exchange. It is the cheapest mode in which we can redeem United States notes. It is specie resumption in the old time- honored standard of silver dollars of full weight and fineness.

It will accustom our people to distinguish between the real dollar that pays where it goes and a paper dollar which only promises to pay. It will prepare the way for full resumption in gold. To the extent proposed by the committee, and to be used as a purely voluntary approach to a full specie standard, it is open to no objection or criticism, and should be a.s.sented to by gentlemen who have differed with each other on the present resumption law or on the merits and dangers of contraction and expansion."

The vital difference between the free coinage of silver, and the limited coinage of that metal on government account, is that with free coinage the standard of value would be the cheaper money.

With silver at its present price in the market the dollar would be worth but a little over fifty cents. The coinage being free to the holders of silver bullion no other coins would be made except the cheaper coins of least purchasing power. On the other hand, the coinage of silver on government account enables us to maintain the silver coins at par with gold, without respect to the market value of the silver bullion. Any nominal profit from this coinage inures to the benefit of the whole people of the United States and not merely to the producers of silver bullion. This distinction has always appeared to me so marked and clear, and the argument so strong in favor of limiting the coinage of silver to the amount demanded as a convenience of the people for the smaller transactions of life, that I cannot sympathize with a policy that aims merely to secure the cheapest money for the discharge of obligations contracted upon more valuable money.

Among the measures that became a law at this session was a concurrent resolution, introduced by me in the Senate on the 5th of July, 1876, to provide for the completion of the Was.h.i.+ngton monument.

On the morning of the 4th of July, 1876, the 100th anniversary of American independence, I was making some preparation for the celebration of that day in the vicinity of Was.h.i.+ngton. Animated by the patriotic feeling inspired by the day, and sitting in view of the unfinished monument of George Was.h.i.+ngton, I felt that the time had come when this monument should no longer continue a standing reproach to a patriotic people. Shortly after the death of Was.h.i.+ngton, a resolution providing for the erection of a monument to his memory, was agreed to by both Houses of Congress. Subsequently, on January 1, 1801, a bill was pa.s.sed by the House of Representatives appropriating $200,000 for this purpose, but, in the political excitements of that day, the Senate failed to concur. In the absorbing public questions that ensued, resulting in the War of 1812, the subject was dropped in Congress for the time.

In 1833 the "Was.h.i.+ngton Monument Society" was formed, with Chief Justice Marshall as its president. This society proposed to raise the necessary sum to erect such a monument by voluntary subscriptions of individuals, and in 1854 it had, by such means, constructed about one-third of the height of the monument and then suspended work. Thus it had remained for years for want of means to complete it, a glaring evidence of failure. The portion of the monument already reared to the height of 156 feet stood in rude outline, an abandoned failure in the midst of a reservation partly covered with water and broken stone. The society was incorporated by Congress in 1859, but no further progress was made. It was manifest that the work could not be completed by the existing organization, and doubts were expressed whether the foundation was sufficient to bear the superstructure. Under these conditions, on the 100th anniversary of the declaration of American independence, it occurred to me the time had arrived when a great country like ours should complete this unfinished monument to George Was.h.i.+ngton. Under the inspiration of this thought I wrote this resolution on the morning of the 4th of July, and on the next morning offered it for adoption in the Senate:

"Whereas, It has pleased Almighty G.o.d to guide the United States of America safely through one hundred years of national life, and to crown our nation with the highest blessing of civil and religious liberty, Therefore,

"The Senate and House of Representatives in Congress a.s.sembled, in the name of the people of the United States, in reverent thankfulness acknowledge the fountain and source, the author and giver of all these blessings, and our dependence upon His providence and will; and,

"Whereas, We recognize, as our fathers did, that George Was.h.i.+ngton, 'first in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,' was one of the chief instruments of Divine Providence in securing American independence and in laying broad and deep the foundations of our liberties in the const.i.tution of the United States:

"Therefore, as a mark of our sense of the honor due to his name and to his compatriots and a.s.sociates, our revolutionary fathers,

"We, the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress a.s.sembled, in the name of the people of the United States at this, the beginning of the second century of national existence, do a.s.sume and direct the completion of the Was.h.i.+ngton monument in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, and instruct the committees on appropriations of the respective Houses to propose suitable provisions of law to carry this resolution into effect."

In submitting this resolution I said:

"I desire to offer at this time a concurrent resolution I wish to say before it is read that I believe if it were pa.s.sed to-day it would be a matter of profound satisfaction to the great body of the people of the United States. I ask that it be read."

After the resolution was read, there was a pause, when Mr. Edmunds said: "Let us consider this resolution. It will be agreed to unanimously, I am sure."

The resolution was therefore considered and agreed to unanimously.

It was sent to the House of Representatives the next morning, when Mr. Hopkins, of Pennsylvania, pending a motion to adjourn, asked unanimous consent to take from the speaker's table the concurrent resolution in reference to the Was.h.i.+ngton monument. Upon the resolution being read, the House seemed to be impressed, as was the Senate, with the fitness of the time, and the propriety of the measure proposed, and it was unanimously adopted without debate.

Thus Congress undertook to execute the unfinished work of the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument Society. The requisite appropriations were subsequently made, and the monument, as completed, is now the most impressive token of the appreciation, by the American people, of the name and fame of George Was.h.i.+ngton. It is visited daily by nearly every American or stranger who enters the city of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Its dedication will be hereafter mentioned.