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Page 83
'The proposed plan is recommended, finally, by the firm anchorage
it will supply to the union of the States. Every banking
association whose bonds are deposited in the treasury of the Union;
every individual who holds a dollar of the circulation secured by
such deposit; every merchant, every manufacturer, every farmer,
every mechanic, interested in transactions dependent for success
on the credit of that circulation, will feel as an injury every
attempt to rend the national unity, with the permanence and
stability of which all their interests are so closely and vitally
connected. Had the system been possible, and had it actually
existed two years ago, can it be doubted that the national
interests and sentiments enlisted by it for the Union would have so
strengthened the motives for adhesion derived from other sources
that the wild treason of secession would have been impossible?
'The Secretary does not yield to the phantasy that taxation is a
blessing and debt a benefit; but it is the duty of public men to
extract good from evil whenever it is possible. The burdens of
taxation may be lightened and even made productive of incidental
benefits by wise, and aggravated and made intolerable by unwise,
legislation. In like manner debt, by no means desirable in itself,
may, when circumstances compel nations to incur its obligations, be
made by discreet use less burdensome, and even instrumental in the
promotion of public and private security and welfare.
'The rebellion has brought a great debt upon us. It is proposed to
use a part of it in such a way that the sense of its burden may be
lost in the experience of incidental advantages. The issue of
United States notes is such a use; but if exclusive, is hazardous
and temporary. The security by national bonds of similar notes
furnished to banking associations is such a use, and is
comparatively safe and permanent; and with this use may be
connected, for the present, and occasionally, as circumstances may
require, hereafter, the use of the ordinary United States notes in
limited amounts.
'No very early day will probably witness the reduction of the
public debt to the amount required as a basis for secured
circulation. Should no future wars arrest reduction and again
demand expenditures beyond revenue, that day will, however, at
length come. When it shall arrive the debt may be retained on low
interest at that amount, or some other security for circulation may
be devised, or, possibly, the vast supplies of our rich mines may
render all circulation unadvisable except gold and the absolute
representatives and equivalents, dollar for dollar, of gold in the
treasury or on safe deposit elsewhere. But these considerations may
be for another generation.
'The Secretary forbears extended argument on the constitutionality
of the suggested system. It is proposed as an auxiliary to the
power to borrow money; as an agency of the power to collect and
disburse taxes; and as an exercise of the power to regulate
commerce, and of the power to regulate the value of coin. Of the
two first sources of power nothing need be said. The argument
relating to them was long since exhausted, and is well known. Of
the other two there is not room, nor does it seem needful to say
much. If Congress can prescribe the structure, equipment, and
management of vessels to navigate rivers flowing between or through
different States as a regulation of commerce, Congress may
assuredly determine what currency shall be employed in the
interchange of their commodities, which is the very essence of
commerce. Statesmen who have agreed in little else have concurred
in the opinion that the power to regulate coin is, in substance and
effect, a power to regulate currency, and that the framers of the
Constitution so intended. It may well enough be admitted that while
Congress confines its regulation to weight, fineness, shape, and
device, banks and individuals may issue notes for currency in
competition with coin. But it is difficult to conceive by what
process of logic the unquestioned power to regulate coin can be
separated from the power to maintain or restore its circulation, by
excluding from currency all private or corporate substitutes which
affect its value, whenever Congress shall see fit to exercise that
power for that purpose.
'The recommendations, now submitted, of the limited issue of United
States notes as a wise expedient for the present time, and as an
occasional expedient for future times, and of the organization of
banking associations to supply circulation secured by national
bonds and convertible always into United States notes, and after
resumption of specie payments, into coin, are prompted by no favor
to excessive issues of any description of credit money.
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