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 mmmm m the double standard: 
 
 THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF RESUMING SPECIE PAYMENTS IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES WITHOUT RESTORING THE DOUBLE 
 
 STANDARD OF r,OLD AND SILVER. 
 
 A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 APRIL 24, 1876, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN P. JONES, 
 
 SENATOR FROM NEVADA. 
 
 "To annul the use of either of the metiils us money is to abridge the quantity of cir- 
 culating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of 
 the benefits of a full, leith the evils of a scanty, circulation." — Alex. Hamilton. (Report 
 to Congress, 179t.) • 
 
 - 5 1 
 
 ''act^inc 
 
 y/ASH\NGTOH City: 
 
 m'gILL a AVITHEROW, printers and STEliEOTYPERS. 
 
 . 1876. 
 
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 EESniPTION AND THE DOUBLE STANDARD 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF EESUMING SPECIE PAYMENTS IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES WITHOUT RESTORING THE DOUBLE 
 
 STANDARD OF GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 APRIL 24, 1876, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN P. JONES, 
 
 SENATOR FEOM NEVADA. 
 
 "To annul the use of either of the metals as money is to abridge the quantity of cir- 
 culating medium, and is liable to all the objections which arise from a comparison of 
 •lie benefits of a full, loith the evils of a scanty, circulation." — Alex. Hamilton. (Report 
 lo Congress, 1791.) 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 M'gILL & WITHEROW, PRINTERS AND STEEE0TYPEE3. 
 
 1876. 
 
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 // 
 
 EESUMPTION AND THE DOUBLE STANDARD. 
 
 Mr. JONES said : 
 
 Mr. President : The act of February 12, 1873, now incor- 
 porated in title xxxvii of the Revised Statutes, an act which, 
 under the guise of regulating the Mints of the United States, 
 practically abolished one of the precious metals, was a grave 
 wrong; a wrong committed no doubt unwittingly, yet no 
 less certainly in the interest of a few plutocrats in England 
 and in Germany, and as certainly in the interest of the 
 entire pagan and barbarian world; a wrong upon the peo- 
 ple of the United States and of the whole civilized globe ; 
 a wrong upon industry, upon the natural tendency of 
 c^ wealth toward equalization, upon the liberties of peoples 
 ^ which are born out of the effects of such equalization of 
 ^: wealth, upon every aspiration of man which depends for 
 oits renlization upon the development of those liberties. 
 
 The act alluded to, practically abolished one of the pre- 
 cious metals as money, the one chiefly produced in this 
 country, the one chiefiv consumed in the semi-civilized 
 Countries of Asia, and the one which at the date of its 
 Abolition and under the time-honored laws that previously 
 '=»prevailed, was becoming, as it has since become, the more 
 available metal of the two in which to transact exchanges 
 and liquidate debt. 
 
 Under the act of April 2, 1792, both silver and gold 
 coins — dollars or their multiples — were made a legal ten- 
 der in this country for the payment of debts to any amount, 
 a. at the rate of 15 in weight of silver to 1 of gold. This co- 
 ^ (3 )
 
 ordination of silver and gold is called the double standard. 
 A similar arrangement existed in the other countries of 
 the civilized world ; the relation fixed by law in those 
 countries being either 15| or 16 for 1. A few countries 
 liad a single silver standard, but no country, until 1816, 
 had a single gold standard. In this country, up to 1853, 
 the Government defrayed the expense of manufacturing 
 coins, whilst in Europe, except in England, where the coin- 
 aore is also free, the owners of the bullion offered for coin- 
 age are assessed with a cliarge for manufacture. Thus, 
 under our old laws, and, as I shall endeavor to show, under 
 the requirements of the Constitution, the owner of either 
 gold or silver bullion had the right, if the Government 
 chose to coin any money at all, to have his bullion coined 
 free of charge; and once coined it became a legal tender to 
 any amount for the payment of debts, whether the bullion 
 was of gold or silver. 
 
 Although free coinage only dates from that era of other 
 free institutions, the American Revolution, the double 
 standard of money has existed since the remotest past. 
 This arrangement, so fur as we know, has existed every- 
 where and forever, notwithstanding the fact that at certain 
 periods silver as compared with gold is yielded by the mines 
 in deficit of the world's consumption, whilst at other periods 
 gold, as compared with silver, is yielded in deficit. At the 
 period in question — that is to say, from 1792 until the 
 eflects of the discovery of the Russian, the American, 
 and the Australian gold mines were felt — gold was pro- 
 duced in deficit; and by reason of this fact, silver, at the 
 legal rate of 15 for 1, was the cheaper metal in which 
 debts could be discharged. Accordingly, silver was used 
 for this purpose in this country to the exclusion of gold, 
 the debtor being at liberty to tender either metal lie 
 thought proper. B}' the act of June 28, 1834, this rela- 
 tion was changed to 16.00215 for 1, and by that of Jan- 
 uary 18, 1837, to 15.98837 for 1, in both cases sub- 
 stantially 16 for 1, at which figure it stood up to February 
 12, 1873.
 
 "When the great Russian mines threw their auriferous 
 products upon the markets, gold became the cheaper metal 
 at the legal relation of, then, substantially, 16 for 1, and 
 our silver legal-tender dollar disappeared from circulation. 
 ^N'evertheless this coin was not abolished, and the privilege 
 of free coinao-e and the rijjht to tender the silver dollar for 
 debt remained the same as before. The pivotal point of 
 this event was the period of depression which followed the 
 panic of 1837. About the period 1863-'73 another great 
 change in the relative production of the metals occurred, 
 and gold instead of silver was produced inadequately. 
 This occurrence began to operate about the year 1865, 
 when the world's product of gold had attained its max- 
 imum. However, this change did not appear to have been 
 felt until some few years afterwards, when its influence 
 upon the relative value of the metals was greatly inten- 
 sified by the threatened demonetization of silver by the 
 German Empire and its partial actual demonetization by 
 other European States. In 1865 the relation of gold to 
 silver in the London market was 1 to 15.33; in 1872 it was 
 1 to 15.63. This is considered the pivotal point of the 
 chanare, because the leo-al relation of ajold and silver in 
 most of the countries of Europe was 15.50. In 1874 the 
 London quotation rose to 16.15, and at the present moment 
 it is about 17.60, a relation which shows that the value of 
 gold to silver is about 10 per cent, above that fixed by our 
 law of 1792, as amended by the acts of 1884 and 1837. 
 
 The double standard, or the legal establishment of a 
 fixed relation between silver and gold, at the calculated 
 center of their mutual oscillations, is not the unnatural 
 and one-sided measure which some recent writers have 
 supposed it, but the fulcrum of a just balance whose scales 
 are alternately depressed. Both gold and silver are indis- 
 pensable, and needed for the coins of the world — gold for 
 large payments, silver for large and small ones; and it will 
 be found that in great commercial countries both gold and 
 silver are needed. Outside of the great bulk of mankind 
 who use either one or both of those metals for money, there
 
 is a small number on the one side who are too poor even 
 to use silver, and a small number on the other who are too 
 rich even to use gold. The very poor employ copper, the 
 very rich paper notes and checks. In both of these cases 
 the substitutes for gold or silver are not real money, but 
 representatives. Copper coins arc never of full weight, 
 and are called tokens; paper instruments are intrinsically 
 worthless, and are merely promises, direct or remote, to 
 pay money of gold or silver. To the mass of mankind 
 gold and silver are both indispensable for the purpose of 
 exchange, and these two metals constitute the money of 
 the world. 
 
 Were their quantitative relation unknown or changing 
 always in one direction — for example, was silver always 
 becoming cheaper or gold dearer — a double standard 
 would prove inconvenient. But such is not the fact. The 
 relation of these metals to one another for many cen- 
 turies has been very constant, the pivotal point being 
 15J, and the oscillations — until within the past year, and 
 chiefly in consequence of the demonetization of silver in 
 Germany — quite inconsiderable. This constancy of rela- 
 tion is due to the stock of precious metals already in the 
 world, to the proportion of gold to silver needed for the 
 world's convenience, to the vicissitudes of production, to 
 the occurrence of gold and silver in the same ore matrices, 
 and to other physical circumstances which will be adverted 
 to hereafter. 
 
 Without, perhaps, fully knowing the causes of it, but 
 assured from long experience of its continuance, nations 
 have hitherto been satisfied, in their search for an approx- 
 imatively immutable measure of values, to adopt the double 
 standard, which, constituting a measure, now of gold and 
 then of silver, nevertheless served to measure with constant 
 efficiency any given quantum of labor or its products; just 
 as a peck measure, whether constructed of gold or silver^ 
 will measure always just one peck, or as nearly so as the 
 different effects of temperature upon the two metals will 
 permit.
 
 This is what has been understood in all ages by the 
 double standard, and this is what our forefathers under- 
 stood by it when they fixed it, first at 15 and then at 16 to 
 1, a wise and far-sighted mean between the market relation 
 of silver and gold for two generations previous to and after 
 the date of the three enactments which they transmitted 
 to us. 
 
 In case no such amendments had been made to the bill 
 now before the Senate, as have been ofifered by the Sen- 
 ator from Missouri, it was mj' intention to oflfer a simple 
 amendment to restore the double standard of the United 
 States, and to base its system of money upon the money 
 of the world, upon which it is now not based. To accom- 
 plish this object it was suggested that I might with per- 
 haps greater assurance of success attempt it by the same 
 indirection which practically destroyed the double stand- 
 ard. But this course might indicate a lack of confidence 
 in the strength of the amendments or the sufiiciency of 
 those arguments of sound policy and expediency upon 
 which they rest. 
 
 The wrong which has been done can never be fully un- 
 done by indirection. The undoing must be as open and 
 explicit as the doing was indirect and implied. 
 
 To secure this result nothing more is needed than that 
 the history of the precious metals shall be recalled ; that 
 history which is so full of happiness and misery, of affluence 
 and of poverty, of ease and of hardship ; that history in part 
 of which my life has been passed, and which has, there- 
 fore, impressed itself upon me not only by study but partly 
 also by practical experience. 
 
 The flood of light which this history throws upon the 
 subject, while it will establish the necessity and importance 
 of the double standard, will also serve to allay any fears 
 that may be entertained, on the one hand, as to the observ- 
 ance of specie contracts, or, on the other, as to the due 
 recognition of paper credit as an economical and essential 
 element of tlj^ currencies of modern nations. 
 
 As this history, be it ever so briefly recounted, is of some
 
 8 
 
 length, and as the conclusions to which I desire to direct 
 attention are somewhat numerous, I deem it best at the 
 outset to summarize what I propose to say on this subject. 
 
 First. I propose to set forth the function and nature of 
 Money, the various substances which have been used for 
 money, and the characteristics which during fifty centuries 
 of trials have induced the precious metals as a duality to 
 be always resorted to for this purpose throughout the 
 world. 
 
 Second. I propose to show that the use of money and 
 the preference of the precious metals for money were both 
 natural and voluntary acts, not due to law or edict, and 
 that, therefore, money is* of right, and ought to be, free 
 and untrammeled by any regulations except of a kind 
 specified. 
 
 Third. I propose to trace the stock of the precious 
 metals in the world from the earliest period for which we 
 have authentic data, to show its mutations down to the 
 present time, and the political, industrial, and social phe- 
 nomena which accompanied those mutations. From this 
 review I expect to be able to show that the world's stock 
 of specie, which is now of great magnitude, consists nearly 
 one-half of silver; that -any diminution or disuse of such 
 stock, whether resulting from failure of the mines or 
 arbitrary legislation, is fraught with the greatest disasters 
 which can befall society; and that, therefore, the two 
 measures to which our country is committed by existing 
 laws, viz: resumption in specie, combined with demone- 
 tization of silver, are likely, if attempted to be enforced, 
 to end in distress and defeat. 
 
 Fourth. Therefore, one of these measures will have to 
 be abandoned, and that one is the demonetization of sil- 
 ver. In other words, we shall have to restore the double 
 standard of gold and silver which existed from 1792 to 1873. 
 
 Fifth. I next review the relative value of gold and silver 
 from the earliest times to the present, and show how con- 
 stant that relation has been, particularly since the discovery 
 of America and the opening of the East India and China
 
 
 
 trades, since which time and up to 1873 it scarcely varied 
 from its pivotal point of 15|- to 1. The sources of this long- 
 continued constancy of relation are then examined, and in 
 their nature is found strong assurance that the relation will 
 continue to he constant in the future. 
 
 Sixth. The principal and almost only cause of aberration 
 in this relation is found to be the various edicts or enact- 
 ments which in various countries and at various times have 
 interfered with the freedom of money. Prominent among 
 these were the Demonetization of silver in EngUmd in 1816, 
 the Monetary Treaty of the Five Powers in 1865, the De- 
 monetization Act of the United States in 1873, and the 
 pending measures of the German Government. These 
 various measures are adverted to and condemned as mis- 
 chievous interferences with trade. 
 
 Seventh. The impracticability of abolishing the double 
 standard is greatly strengthened by reference to the annual 
 supplies of gold and silver separately since the beginning of 
 the present century. From this reference it appears 
 that the supplies of gold to the world have fluctuated be- 
 tween $5,000,000 and ^182,000,000 per annum, that the 
 supply has been diminishing since 1852, and that it is at 
 the present time insufficient to meet the demands of the 
 Avorld for that metal for use in the arts and to keep good 
 the wear and loss of coin. On the other hand the annual 
 supplies of silver have always been steady, and are now 
 but little above the average. Moreover gold is shown to 
 be essentially a British product, while silver is essentially 
 American. 
 
 Eighth. I then propose to show the impossibility of re- 
 suming specie payments in gold, the disadvantages and 
 danger of attempting to demonetize silver, the impractica- 
 bility of demonetizing it permanently, and to discuss the 
 various objections that have been urged against remonetiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Ninth. I shall also endeavor to show that the efi'ect of 
 remonetizing silver, or rehabilitating the double standard, 
 will be to equalize more nearly the values of the metals, so
 
 10 
 
 as to restore or tend to restore the relation that has hith- 
 erto, up to within a late date, existed between them for three 
 centuries, and to afibrd a great impetus to the industrial 
 and commercial prosperity of this country. 
 
 Tenth. I shall next endeavor to show that both gold and 
 silver together at a relation fixed by law is the Constitu- 
 tional money of this country, and that all acts of legisla- 
 tion intended to subvert this institution are illegal and 
 void. 
 
 Eleventh, and finally. I will quote the authority of the 
 most eminent legislators and publicists in favor of the 
 double standard. 
 
 « 
 
 THE FUNCTION OP MONEY. 
 
 Money has been fitly described as an instrument de- 
 signed to equitably measure commodities and services, 
 with the view to eflect their exchange, either at present 
 or in the fature, and throughout the world. This is its 
 specific function, and it has no other. The money of the 
 world, at the present time, the substance in which prices 
 are quoted, contracts made, and debts lawfully paid, con- 
 sists of gold and silver coins; in most countries, silver coins 
 alone; in many countries, both gold and silver coins, at a 
 relation of weight and value fixed by law as nearly as 
 possible to the market or commercial relation ; in a few 
 countries gold coins alone. In some countries some form 
 of paper notes, either representing or promising to pay 
 one or both of the precious metals, are employed at inter- 
 vals as convenient substitutes, or temporary expedients, for 
 money. In some countries silver tokens or partly repre- 
 sentative coins; and in all countries tokens of copper, 
 bronze, or other inferior metals, are employed for small 
 payments. The preference for silver and gold for money 
 is the result of thirty centuries of ever}^ conceivable sort 
 of experiment to obviate the use of the precious metals, 
 and for this reason, it is deemed hardly necessary in this 
 place to advert more particularly to the numerous and
 
 11 
 
 well-marked characteristics which have procured for the 
 precious metals this high preferment. Briefly, these are : 
 
 1. Eligibility of voluntary interchange into and with 
 other forms of capital. This is the first and most neces- 
 sary characteristic of money, the one without which it 
 must prove useless. If its interchangeability instead of 
 being voluntary is merely sustained by law, the money 
 cannot equitably measure future exchanges, for human law 
 is mutable and subject to vicissitude, alteration, and over- 
 throw. If its interchangeability is costly, as it would be 
 if the money were made of iron or cotton, the money 
 would be of inferior eligibility to money made of the 
 precious metals, which are easily and cheaply convertible 
 from coins into plate and other forms of capital, and from 
 these forms into coins. 
 
 This quality of voluntary and economical interchange- 
 ability furnishes constant security to the holder of gold 
 and silver money : a security which no act of legal tender 
 can enhance. Money possessing this and the other charac- 
 teristics hereafter named needs no law to make it current 
 throughout the world. It is these characteristics which 
 alone can give it currency; not the force of law, which is 
 only the force of one nation at one time and as modified 
 by the defects of administration and the friction of evasion. 
 Since the arts of smelting and reSning iron and the other 
 more common and now more useful metals, and of making 
 china and glass, were discovered and perfected, the forms 
 of capital into which the precious metals can be econom- 
 ically converted are perhaps less numerous or important 
 than formerly, many of the materials or instruments of 
 reproduction or ornamentation which are now made of 
 iron, glass, etc., having been formerly made of the precious 
 metals; for example, saddlery-hardware, buttons, buckles, 
 thimbles, bells, lamps, goblets, plates, ewers, basins, etc. 
 Nevertheless the usi? of the precious metals for these and 
 other and newer purposes, whence they are readily con- 
 verted into coin, is still very important, as e. g. watchmak- 
 ing, plate and plated ware, jewelry, regalia, pens, dentistry.
 
 12 
 
 etc. They ate, also, largely employed in photography, 
 sign-painting, bookbinding, printing, medals, etc. 
 
 The security thus aiforded to the owner of gold and sil- 
 ver money is not merely confined to an assurance that he 
 may obtain for it at the present time and anywhere a full 
 equivalent for the commodities or services it costs; it ex- 
 tends that assurance, or the nearest possible approximation 
 to it, over all time. The cheap convertibility of such 
 money into other and numerous forms of usefulness is a 
 check against the heaping up of such money; the cheap 
 convertibility of plate, and many of the other forms into 
 which the precious metals are usually cast, is a check 
 against the depletion of such money. The relation between 
 the supply and demand for the precious metals is by no 
 means a constant one as to either or both metals; this 
 relation varies, but the variation is less, and is spread over 
 longer periods of time than is the case with any other 
 commodity. Did the precious metals possess no other 
 advantage over other commodities which might be sug- 
 gested as useful for money, this one of minimum varia- 
 bility, alone, would be sufficient to render them pre-emin- 
 ently fitted for that purpose. 
 
 2. Adequateness and steadiness of supply to the world. 
 These characteristics are shared with the precious metals by 
 many other commodities or instruments capable, or supposed 
 to be capable, of measuring present and future values. On 
 the other hand, there are others which do not share it, as, the 
 principal articles of food, clothing, and shelter, whose in- 
 adequacy and unsteadiness are proved by the limits which 
 their supply puts upon population; it having been demon- 
 strated that population would double in at least every twenty- 
 five years, did the supply of the means of subsistence per- 
 mit. Even the precious metals themselves have sometimes 
 failed of adequate or steady supply, and never without 
 occasioning the direst calamities ; but the danger is less 
 with them than with any other commodities known to man, 
 botli because of their profuse and difiused distribution in 
 the earth and of their lasting qualities when produced.
 
 13 
 
 3. DifFasion of supply and consumption throughout the 
 world and ease of recover}'. The precious metals are found 
 in all countries and used in all countries for purposes other 
 than money. The diffusion of their supply and consump- 
 tion is greater than that of any other commodities. In 
 some countries there is no iron, in others no cotton, in 
 others no wool, in others no grain can be grown or cattle 
 raised, and aven in many countries where iron is found 
 there is no fuel for smelting it. The competition in smelt- 
 ing causes it to be essentially a monopoly in countries pos- 
 sessing the cheapest fuel. Similar considerations affect all 
 commodities, but gold and silver the least. These metals 
 are often found in a pure state, and were obtained in the 
 early ages of mankind with the aid of a flint-chisel and 
 sometimes even with the fangs of a boar.* It is within 
 the power of the humblest and most solitary adventurer 
 to extract, refine, and coin these metals, processes which 
 can be pursued with the other metals only by the help of 
 co-operation and capital. The supply of the money of the 
 world must be a monopoly to no country and to no class 
 of men; otherwise the fortunes of all the rest might stand 
 in imminent jeopardy from those who monopolized it. 
 
 4. Exemption from decay. The precious metals will 
 neither decay, corrode, oxydize, nor evaporate. They re- 
 sist not only the atmosphere, but the strongest acids. 
 There is still extant a legible specimen of gold coins issued 
 in Ionia about nine centuries before Christ, f There was 
 a legible stamped gold coin in the Earl of Pembroke's 
 collection which was issued by Darius, of Persia, about 480 
 years before Christ* The gold coins of Alexander the 
 Great, about 330 B. C, which have never been excelled in 
 purity of metal or boldness and beauty of design, are still 
 so abundant that collectors regard them as less rare than 
 any American gold piece^f the last century. § There are 
 legible silver coins still circulating in England which were 
 issued by the governments of ancient Rome, || 
 
 * Jacob, 17. tApp. Cyc, 12, p. 443. § App. Cyc, 12, p. 444. picLeod.
 
 14 
 
 III times of war and civil commotion, when the solemn 
 earth becomes the womb of man's rehabilitation, as it had 
 once been that of his existence, and is alwaj's that of his 
 support, the quality of exemption from deca}'- of the pre- 
 cious metals is not the least valuable one, nor are these the 
 only times when such a characteristic proves valuable. 
 Accidents from fire, water, and many other causes are 
 continually happenin<2: to destroy man's possessions; but 
 the precious metals survive them all. 
 
 5. The two precious motals are naturally complement- 
 ary to each other. Hitherto the precious metals have been 
 mentioned together, and the advantages ascribed to them 
 attributed to both. This is quite correct if both be taken 
 together, but not entirely so if either metal is taken singly. 
 Some countries which produce gold do not produce silver; 
 as Great Britain nnd its colonies. Others produce more 
 silver than gohl, as the United States, Mexico, and the 
 South American States. In others, again, the gold and 
 silver 'occur in the same matrix, as in the Corastock lode. 
 Some countries consume little or no gold; others little or 
 no silver. Hence the distribution of supply and demand 
 varies; so does its steadiness. During certain periods of 
 time the world's current supply, as compared with its cur- 
 rent consumption, of silver, outruns that of gold, as it did 
 from the beginning to nearly the middle of this century. 
 During other periods gold outruns silver, as from about 
 the year 1837 to 1870. Thus, taken separately, the pre- 
 cious metals do not exhibit those advantages which they 
 possess together. Moreover, in many countries, the use of 
 both metals for money is rendered necessary by reason of 
 their very different value as compared with bulk or weight. 
 These considerations will be alluded to again; thev are 
 only mentioned in this place in order to justify the em- 
 ployment of the dual term precious metals, and to account 
 for their forming together tho money of the world. 
 
 6. The superior ductility and malleability of the pre- 
 cious metals is one of the most important of their charac- 
 teristics, for it renders the cost of manufacturing coins so
 
 15 
 
 small, as practically to entail no loss upon the owners in 
 case it became desirable to reduce them to bars. This is 
 always the case when legal enactments place a false or mis- 
 taken value (as respects commodities or services already 
 sold, or contracted to be sold in future) upon the coins. 
 The comparative cheapness and ease of transforming the 
 coins into bars, in which form the metal is certain to com- 
 mand its true market value, affords a continual check 
 upon legislation and defeats its every attempt to misvalue 
 coins. Metals possessing inferior ductility are lacking in 
 this advantage, the cost of making them into coins and 
 the loss by reducing them to bars proving an obstacle to 
 their quick and ready transmutation. Substances other 
 than metals do not possess this characteristic at all. The 
 cost of manufacturing coins is called brassage, and is about 
 ^ of 1 per cent. In some countries another and wholly in- 
 defensible charge, in addition to this, is imposed. It is 
 called seigniorage, and consists of brassage and a profit. 
 This profit is a royal prerogative, and, as its name indicates, 
 is a relic of the feudal ages of medieval Europe. 
 
 There are other well marked characteristics which ren- 
 der the precious metals superior to all other instruments 
 or services susceptible of being employed to measure values. 
 The homogeneity of these substances renders their genuine- 
 ness and purity easy to test and difficult to counterfeit or 
 impair; enables all bodies of them, however large or small, 
 easy to divide or unite, and without adding to, or dimin- 
 ishing, the labor or service which they represent. They 
 are easier to transport and conceal, less liable to abrasion, 
 and, being inodorous, are less offensive to handle than 
 other substances. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate what relation the cost of this 
 instrument bears to that of the commodities and services 
 it measures, because the commerce of the world is carried 
 on largely by means of pa^er instruments, some of which 
 are indeed based upon the metals and merely represent 
 them, while others are based upon private or corporative 
 credit, and still others on no credit at all but mere force of
 
 16 
 
 law. There is another difficulty iu making such a calcu- 
 lation: that which arises from the well-known fact that a 
 vast number of the largest transactions consist of stock- 
 jobbing, or mere bets clothed in the garb of business op- 
 erations. Making a reasonable allowance for these facts, it 
 has been calculated that specie measures ten thousand times 
 its own value every year, and that taking gold and silver 
 together in the actual proportions in which they exist in the 
 currencies of the world, specie will last, as against abrasion, 
 loss by accident, &c., about a thousand years.* Upon this 
 basis the actual cost of this instrument is an infinitessimal 
 charge upon each transaction, probably as little as that 
 caused by the wear and tear of any other measure, as a 
 tape-line, a pint-pot, a buShel-basket, &c. 
 
 On the other hand, money made of the precious metals 
 has several defects. It is somewhat costly to produce, it 
 is somewhat expensive to transport. It is always a mis- 
 fortune to society, as well as to the individual, when specie 
 is lost at sea, or buried in hoards the secret of which does 
 not transpire. It is subject to loss from abrasion, it fluc- 
 tuates in value, and the two metals fluctuate unevenly. 
 
 Some of these defects have been remedied by the inven- 
 tion of expedients. Transportation and loss are measurably 
 obviated by bills of exchange and places and certificates of 
 deposit; abrasion is lessened by the use of alloy in coins; 
 the uneven fluctuation of the two metals is remedied by a 
 double standard, which, by fixing a mean relation cover- 
 ing a long period of time, past and prospective, enables 
 both metals at that relation to be employed all the time. 
 
 There remain two other detects: the first cost of the 
 precious metals and their fluctuating value as a duality 
 even after such fluctuation has been lessened by using 
 them together. These defects are extremely small and 
 
 '*' According to Jacob, the stock of coin in Europe at tlie beginning 
 of tlio present era received little or no addition until the Discovery of 
 America. This was a period of fifteen hundred years, during which the 
 stock dwindled down to little more than ten per cent, of its original 
 dimensions.
 
 17 
 
 are of a nature which renders them unavoidable by any 
 safe or practicable means. 
 
 Let us begin with the question of cost. Present and 
 future values cannot be equitably or nearly equitably meas- 
 ured by anything that is not capable of being voluntarily 
 and readily interchanged with other forms of capital; in a 
 word, by anything that of itself does not contain or repre- 
 sent an amount of labor or service easy to determine, and 
 of a kind appreciable to and exchangeable with all mankind. 
 
 Value, which is not to be confused with either worth, 
 utility, or desirability, is the quantitative relation between 
 two services exchanged.* This relation can only arise in 
 the social state; whilst worth, utility, and desirability 
 are qualities appreciable to the isolated man as well 
 as to society. Value is not a quality inherent in a service; 
 as worth, utility, and desirability are; it is simply a relation 
 between two services exchano;ed. 
 
 A measure of value must therefore be a service of some 
 sort, and the more universally such service is appreciated 
 the better measure will it afford. An abstraction, as an 
 imaginary money of account or an irredeemable credit, 
 caimot measure the quantitative relation between two ser- 
 vices, and hence cannot be a measure of value. 
 
 There is an easy method of testing this assertion. Repeal 
 the promise of payment which now causes treasury notes 
 to usurp the place of specie, and observe what kind of 
 money wnll continue current and what not. It will then 
 be seen that the precious metals will circulate as before 
 without the least abatement, indeed, with a slight enhance- 
 ment of their purchasing power. This, indeed, is the case 
 in China, a country which tried fiat currency six hundred 
 years ago, but in which, in spite of the fact that there are 
 now neither legal tender nor coinacre laws, srold and silver 
 both circulate at even a hitrher value than in countries 
 where such laws are in full force and effect. 
 
 If the impracticability of employing irredeemable credit 
 _ — 4 „ 
 
 *Bastiat, Hannoiiies Polit. Econ, pp. 108-9.
 
 18 
 
 for the purpose of raone}' be admitted, and it is still 
 claimed that some form of redeemable credit, as national, 
 or bank, or individual notes, may with advantage be used 
 as money in order to save the cost of the precious metals, 
 the claim is admitted. There is and can be no objection 
 to the use of such credit, so long as its use, like that of the 
 Scotch bank notes, is entirely voluntary. The moment 
 that legislation or any arbitrary act interferes to place it 
 above this level, its use is fraught with danger. The advan- 
 tage to be gained, which is merely that of saving the cost 
 of the precious metals in a currency of safe and universally 
 acceptable material, is wholly inadequate to the risk run. 
 And on this point it is never to be lost sight of that so 
 long as we continue to be, as we are, one of the principal 
 producers of the precious metals, we lower to a small ex- 
 tent the value and selling price of all the metal we may 
 have to export, by every expedient, the effect of which is to 
 throw it out of employment in our own country. 
 
 In saying this, it is not intended to deny the advantage 
 of employing credit as a convenient and economical medi- 
 um of exchange; but such credit must rest upon so firm 
 and broad a foundation of the precious metals as not to 
 need the aid of legislation to prop it up. In other words, 
 its use must rest upon the same foundation as the use of 
 the precious metals themselves — common and voluntary 
 consent. 
 
 As to the other unavoidable defect of money made of 
 the precious metals, its fluctuating value, it can only be 
 replied that this fluctuation is exceedingl}^ slow. That is 
 all the defense of it there is, and there can be no better 
 one, for all measures of value must fluctuate, though none 
 of them less than the precious metals. There are men who 
 have imagined an absolute and fixed measure of value, as 
 there have been others who imagined a fixed earth or a 
 fixed sun, an absolute or unconditioned quality or quan- 
 tity, etc. To such men it need only be replied that there 
 is nothing fixed or absolute; nothing, at least, that the 
 senses of man can perceive or his mind imagine. All is in
 
 19 
 
 motion, all is conditioned. The universe and all it con- 
 tains is incessantl}'' in action, and even the adjectives of 
 language which are emploj-ed to qualify or characterize 
 the objects brought to our conception, are themselves rela- 
 tive and conditioned. A fixed measure of value is an in- 
 conceivability; we can but prefer for such a measure the 
 commodities or services which fluctuate in value the least, 
 and these are the precious metals. 
 
 This brief exposition of the functions and characteristics 
 of money may be still more briefly summarised as follows: 
 
 1. Money is an instrument voluntarily adopted to equit- 
 ably measure values, present and future. 
 
 2. Value is the relation between two commodities or ser- 
 vices exchanged. 
 
 3. Hence money is the measure of the relation between 
 commodities and services exchanged. 
 
 4. This measure is formed most conveniently and equi- 
 tably of both the precious metals taken together. 
 
 5. Legislation cannot make or unmake money. It mav 
 temporarily exalt or depress the value of one metal as 
 against the other, but only temporarily; it may disturb, 
 but it cannot permanently alter or destroy. Gold and sil- 
 ver are money in virtue of their own superiority, and they 
 owe none of their rank to law. 
 
 The extent to which legislation can be beneficially exer- 
 cised with regard to money is to quantitatively define the 
 names of coins, to guard against confusion, counterfeiting, 
 etc., by manufacturing them in a public mint, and to save 
 the transportation and abrasion of them by receiving then* 
 on deposit and issuing certificates therefor.* 
 
 To insure the fourth provision, that both the precious 
 metals shall form the ingredients of money, it is essential 
 that no legal obstacle shall be placed in the way of the 
 voluntary use of either; that one, equally with the other, 
 shall be a legal tender to an unlimited amount, at a quanti- 
 tative relation fixed from time to time in view of the past 
 
 "Herbert Spencer, iii X. Y. Social Science Review, p. 137.
 
 20 
 
 and probable faUire market ratio of these metals. To 
 these must be added copper tokens for petty sums, and upon 
 the whole will naturally arise a paper credit peculiar to 
 each country ; a credit whose volume will regulate itself 
 in view of the basis beneath it, in view of its command of 
 the precious metals, in view of the wants of industry and 
 of the conditions of security which exist within the social 
 or political organization to which it belongs. 
 
 These are the essential principles of money which seem 
 to be deducible from the united testimony of history, ex- 
 perience, and reflection. When we come to apply these 
 principles to any existing monetary system not in ac- 
 cordance with them, as is the case with that of this country, 
 we are in the position of a physician who, believing him- 
 self to be acquainted with the laws of health, may never- 
 theless be puzzled how to prescribe for a given case of 
 disease. Happily I have no such task before me. My 
 single object is to remove an impediment to recovery, an 
 impediment the nature and importance of which, will, I 
 believe, be recognized as promptly by those who may differ 
 with me as to what are the true principles of money, as by 
 those who may agree with me in regard to those principles. 
 The removal of this impediment, while it will afford that 
 ease which one school of currency demands, nevertheless 
 affords it entirely within the scope of action which the 
 other school prescribes. It simply proposes the re-estab- 
 lishment of the double standard, unwisely abolished by 
 the act of 1873, a piece of legislation whose evil effects can 
 only be estimated by referring to that history of money 
 from which I have ventured for a few moments to digress. 
 
 These views are not merely those of the ablest men who 
 have devoted their attention to the subject; they are gath- 
 ered from the history of money from the time when this 
 instrument was first known to mankind, to the present. 
 They are enforced not only by precept, but by example; 
 they are written in the rise and fall of States and of social 
 systems, in revolutions, in wars, in the annals of freedom 
 and in those of feudalism and slavery. They are imprinted
 
 21 
 
 in sweat, and tears, and blood; and to disregard them is to 
 disregard the lessons of thirty centuries of time. 
 
 The use of gold and silver for money is not a recent 
 one, neither were these costly metals adopted for the pur- 
 pose until after every other expedient practicable at the 
 time had been tried. The following table furnishes a list 
 of these expedients and other chronological data in refer- 
 ence to money : 
 
 Table showing some of the Substances which have at various periods 
 and in various countries been used as Monei/. 
 
 Period. 
 
 COUNTEY. 
 
 B. C. 
 
 
 1900 
 
 Palestine. 
 
 
 Arabia. 
 
 
 Phoenicia. 
 
 
 Plioenician colony 
 
 
 in Spain. 
 
 1200 
 
 Phrygia. 
 
 1184 
 
 Greece. 
 
 8fi2 
 
 Argos. 
 
 700-500 
 
 Rome. 
 
 578 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Uacertain. 
 
 Carthage. 
 
 491 
 
 Sicily. 
 
 480 
 
 Persia. 
 
 478 
 
 Sicily. 
 
 407 
 
 Athens. 
 
 400 
 
 Sparta. 
 
 360 
 
 Macedonia. 
 
 266 
 
 Rome. 
 
 54 
 
 Britain. 
 
 50 
 
 Home. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 Arabia. 
 
 Substance used as monet. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 212 
 106G 
 
 IICO 
 
 1240 
 1275 
 
 1470 
 
 1574 
 Uncertain. 
 Uncertain. 
 Uncertain. 
 
 Cattle; and gold and silver by w't. 
 Gold and silver coins. 
 Gold, silver and copper coins. 
 Same, (some still extant.) 
 
 Coins by Queen of Pelops. 
 Brass coin.s. 
 
 Gold and silver coins by Phidon. 
 Brass by weiglit. 
 Copper coins. 
 
 Leather or parchment money, first 
 " paper bills " known. 
 
 Gold coins by Gelo, (some still 
 
 extant.) 
 Gold coins by Darius, (two still 
 
 extant.) 
 Gold coins by Hiero, (some still 
 
 extant.) 
 Debased gold coins, foreign. 
 Iron, over valued. 
 First gold coins coined in Greece 
 
 by Phillip. 
 First silver coins coined in Rome. 
 Pieces of iron. 
 Tin and brass coins. 
 Glass coins. 
 
 Period following the failure of the ancient mines. 
 
 Rom3. (Caracalla.) 
 
 Britain 
 
 Italy. 
 
 Lead coins .silvered and copper 
 coins gililed. 
 
 Living money, or human beings 
 made a legal tender for debts at 
 about £2 U'is. M., per capita. 
 
 Period of representatives for money. 
 
 Milan, Italy. 
 Ciiina. 
 Africa, part of 
 
 Grenada, Spain. 
 Holland. 
 Iceland. 
 Newfoundland. 
 Norway and Green- 
 land. 
 
 Paper invented; bills of exchange 
 introduced by the Jews. 
 
 Paper bills a legal tender. 
 
 Paper bills a legal tender. 
 
 "Machntfs" or "ideal money." 
 This view doubted. 
 
 Paper bills a legal tender. 
 
 Pasteboard bills, representative. 
 
 Dried fish. 
 
 Codfish, dried. 
 
 Seal skins and blubber. 
 
 AUTHOEITT. 
 
 The Scriptures. 
 Jacob. 
 
 Ancnymous. 
 Carter. 
 
 Julius Pollux. 
 
 Homer, 
 
 Die. of Dates. 
 
 Jacob. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Socrates, Dial, on 
 Riclies, Jourp'l 
 des Economistr 
 es, 1874, p. 354. 
 
 Jacob. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 McLeod, 476. 
 
 BcBckh. 
 
 Jacob. 
 
 Ibid. 
 Ibid. 
 
 Die. of Dates. 
 N. Y. Tribune, 
 July 2, 1872. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Henry's History of 
 Great Britain, 
 vol. iv, p. 24.3. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 .\rthur Young. 
 Marco Polo. 
 Montesquieu. 
 
 Irving. 
 
 Die. of Dates. 
 
 .\nonymons. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Anonymous.
 
 22 
 
 Table — Continued. 
 
 Peeiod. 
 
 Country. 
 
 SOBSTANCB USED AS MONEY. 
 
 Authority. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 Hindostan and 
 parts of Africa. 
 
 Cowrie shells. 
 
 Jacob, 372. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 North America, In- 
 
 Agate, cornelian, jasper, lead, cop- 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 
 dian Tribes. 
 
 per, gold, silver, terra -ootta, 
 mica, pearl, lignite, coal, bone, 
 shells, chalcedony, wampum- 
 peag, etc. 
 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 Oriental pastoral 
 
 tribes. 
 
 CHttle, grain, etc. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 U :.certain. 
 
 Abyssinia. 
 
 Salt. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 China and India. 
 
 Kice. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 India. 
 
 Paper bills. 
 
 Patterson, p, 13. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 China. 
 
 Pieces of silk cloth. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 Uncertain. 
 
 Africa. 
 
 Strips of cotton cloth. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 
 Not stated. 
 
 Wooden tallies or checks. 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1631 
 
 1635 
 1690 
 1694 
 1700 
 
 1702 
 1712 
 1716 
 
 1723 
 1732 
 
 1732 
 
 1776 
 1785 
 
 1810-1840 
 1826 
 1847 
 
 18J9 
 
 1855 
 185- 
 
 Period following the discovery of the American mines. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 England. 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 South Carolina. 
 South Carolina. 
 France. 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 Maryland. 
 
 Maryland. 
 
 Scotland. 
 Frankland, State 
 
 of, (now part of 
 
 North Car.) 
 
 Corn a legal tender at market 
 
 prices. 
 Musket balls. 
 Paper bills, colonial notes. 
 Bank notes. 
 Copper and iron coins. 
 
 Colonial notes. 
 
 Bank notes. 
 
 Inter-convertible paper bills a le- 
 gal tender. 
 
 Paper bills, colonial notes. 
 
 Indian corn a legal tender at 23(i. 
 per bushel. 
 
 Tobacco a legal tender at Id. per 
 pound. 
 
 Tenpenny nails' or small change. 
 
 Linen at 3s. Gfi. per yard, vyhisky 
 at 2.S. M. per gallon, and peltry 
 as legal tenders. 
 
 Period following the failure of the American mines. 
 Great era of bank paper bills. 
 
 .\11 commercial 
 
 countries. 
 Russia. 
 
 .VIexico, parts of. 
 
 Platinum coins, (discontinued in 
 
 1845.) 
 Cocoa beans, and at Castle of Pe- 
 
 rote, soap. 
 
 Macgreggor. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 Macgreggor. 
 McCulloch. 
 Voltaire's "Charles 
 
 XII." 
 Macgreggor. 
 Ibid. 
 Murray. 
 
 Macgreggor. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 Wheeler's History 
 of North Caro- 
 lina, 94. 
 
 App. Eneyc. 
 Anonymous. 
 
 Period following the openings of California and Australia. 
 
 Galiforuia. 
 
 Australia. 
 
 'Communist settle- 
 ment in Ohio 
 called ■' Utopia." 
 
 Gold dust by weight, also minute 
 gohl coins forsmall change coin- 
 ed in jM'ivate mints. 
 
 Gold dust by weight. 
 
 Paper bills each representing 
 "one hour's labor." 
 
 Private 
 tion. 
 
 informa- 
 
 Period following the suspension of specie payments in the United States. 
 
 1862 
 
 United States. 
 
 Paper bills a legal tender. 
 
 Actof Feb. 25. 
 
 1863 
 
 North Carolina. 
 
 Tenpenny nails, at 5 cents each, 
 for small change. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 1863 
 
 Campat Florence, 
 
 Potatoes for small change. 
 
 Yorkville Enquir- 
 
 
 South Carolina. 
 
 
 er. 
 
 1863 
 
 L'liited States. 
 
 Postage stamps for small change, 
 
 temporarv. 
 
 - 
 
 1865 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Turnips for small change, tempo- 
 
 Philadel. Ledger, 
 
 
 
 rarv and local. 
 
 April. 
 
 1865 
 
 United St.ates. 
 
 Nickel coins for small change, 
 overvalued. 
 
 Act of March 3.
 
 23 
 
 It will be observed that the comraodities selected to 
 serve the purpose of monej during those early ages when 
 the countries of the world were not connected hy com- 
 merce were always those of adequate, steady, and diffused 
 supply, and, therefore, of most common acceptation in 
 each country. Thus, in forestal ages, the skins of wild 
 animals were usually employed; in pastoral ages, cattle; * 
 in early agricultural ages, graiu ; in early raining ages, 
 base metal; in early manufacturing ages, glass, musket- 
 balls, nails, strips of cotton, etc. 
 
 The significance of this deduction will not fail to be 
 appreciated. After commerce had connected various 
 countries, substances common to all countries, viz : the 
 precious metals, were found to be necessary for the pur- 
 pose of money, and later still, balances of trade were settled 
 by means of bills of exchange representing those metals; 
 and it is worthy of remark that gold and silver are the 
 only substances which have ever been universally used 
 for money. 
 
 Development from the early agricultural to the mining, 
 manufacturing, and commercial ages indicates not only a 
 development of occupation, but also a development of po- 
 litical organization. The hunter, the shepherd, the early 
 agriculturist, needed neither social oganization nor govern- 
 ment. He could prosecute his occupations alone; and 
 in these stages of development mankind lived in isolated 
 families or small tribes of freemen. The progress of agri- 
 culture and of mining, which must have followed agricul- 
 ture,t of manufacturing and of commerce, rendered fixed 
 residences and division of labor necessary, and the protec- 
 tion of the one and regulation of the other demanded the 
 offices of government. The hunter and shepherd could 
 defend himself and his possessions or convey them out of 
 
 * Shekel, a lamb ; 2'ec!<s, (whence pecunia, pecuuiarj", etc..) cattle; 
 fcoh, (wiicnoe fee, Saxon, German, etc.,) cattle. 
 
 i Minin;? doubtless oi-ij^inated in that upturning of tiie soil which oc- 
 curs iu the pursuit of agricultun^ Indeed, historj^ affords an instance of 
 the l<ind. "In P;\3onia the luisbandinan, wlille plowin;?. fonml pieces of 
 gold." Strabo, Yll, (Ciu-estom,) p. 331, as quoted in Boeckh, p. 10.
 
 24 
 
 the reach of enemies ; the agriculturist, miner, manufac- 
 turer and merchant, needed the protection of a military 
 force and the security of well-executed laws. 
 
 Following the local or feudal powers which sprang into 
 existence to meet these demands, came also those abuses, 
 which always, sooner or later, accompany the exercise of 
 power. 
 
 The warrior classes reduced the working classes to a 
 condition of predial servitude, and those who at first were 
 mere chieftains of choice became arbitrary and despotic 
 lords paramount. Not least among the powers which they 
 abused were those relating to the coinage and denomina- 
 tion of the precious metals. 
 
 Up to this period in the history of countries it is to be 
 remarked that, whatever substance came to be employed 
 foy money in each country, whether, as at first, the peculiar 
 and most common product of each respective country, or, 
 as afterward, those substances more or less common to all 
 countries and most couvenienteverywhere, viz., the precious 
 metals, such substance was employed, as it is now in China, 
 without command or force of law. The importance of this 
 fact cannot be overestimated, for its recognition must ever 
 form the basis of all sound legislation upon this subject. 
 The precious metals do indeed, no doubt, derive some small 
 element of their purchasing power from the fact that now 
 all governments provide that, when coined in a certain way, 
 they shall be a legal tender for the payment of debts ; but 
 this element of value is very small and probably does not 
 exceed the seigniorage or charge for coinage. Whatever it 
 may be, it is so small that there can be no risk in asserting that, 
 were all the legal tender laws of the world repealed to-day 
 and forever, neither gold nor silver would lose an appreci- 
 able atom of their power to purchase present commodities, 
 secure future contracts, or pay past debts: Indeed, with 
 the example of China before us, an example which in this 
 respect at least is not without utility, it is believed to be 
 more than probable that their purchasing power would 
 increase; for setting aside the ettect of such repeal upon
 
 ^ 25 
 
 the continuance of unrepresentative paper notes, it would 
 dissipate the very considerable fears that now attach them- 
 selves to every contract, wherein the words dollar, pound, 
 or franc are employed to express a given weight of metal. 
 
 It has been stated that with the orrowth of o-overnmental 
 power came abuses in coinage and the denomination of 
 coins. These abuses, like all others, were of gradual 
 growth. The power and authority of feudal lords and 
 monarchs were first employed in this respect beneficially, 
 and government was exercised within its proper scope, 
 Local, separated, and diverse systems of weights and meas- 
 ures, and of the weights and measures of gold and silver 
 pieces, gave way to national, united, and uniform systems. 
 Isolated and anomaloas measures of values, adopted in 
 small localities for greater temporary convenience — as pieces 
 of iron in Africa and Sparta and of glass in some parts of 
 Arabia — were prohibited by legal tender laws; for so long 
 as thej were suffered to exist, they promoted provincial 
 isolation and defeated national homogeneity and political 
 unity. The same laws also provided in what substances 
 debts were to be paid in cases unadjadicatable either by 
 express stipulation or common usage. 
 
 In these early ages, while men yet retained the power 
 to resist misgovernment, the names attached to pieces of 
 the precious metals were always those of the weights con- 
 tained in such pieces, as the Jewish shekel, of nearly one- 
 half of an ounce Troy; the Attic drachma, of little more 
 than one-fourth of an ounce Troy, etc. 
 
 To prevent counterfeiting* and economize time, and 
 thus facilitate exchanges, these pieces of metal w^ere or- 
 dered to be coined, and governments monopolized, as 
 governments do still, the function of coining. To the 
 coins thus manufactured were given the names of their 
 weights, and thus f\ir the laws regulating the coinage of 
 the precious metals were honestly conceived and probably 
 as lionestly executed. 
 
 With the lapse of time, however, coupled with use of 
 
 * False ^old coins from Samos were successfully passed iu Sparta so 
 early as B. C. 540. (Boeekh, 33.)
 
 26 t 
 
 coins and tho increasing power of authority, abuses crept 
 into the coinage which have lasted to this day. The 
 names of coins, which at first were literal weights, came, 
 for convenience' sake, to be used as symbols ; and men 
 no longer bargained for so much gold or silver as would 
 weigh a shekel or a drachma, but for so many shekels 
 or drachmas "current with the merchant." In this state 
 of affairs the temptation on the part of rulers and the 
 classes who environ power to commit abuses became too 
 strong for resistance. 
 
 Owing to the frequency of the practice of degrading and 
 debasing the coins, in all countries and ages, the quantita- 
 tive meanino; attached to the names of coins has been so 
 often changed that, to interpret these names or the suras 
 of money mentioned in them, in ancient or medieval his- 
 torical works, into modern weights, is almost an unsafe 
 proceeding, even in the hands of professional metrolo- 
 gists.* N 
 
 In order to deceptively reduce the pay of the army, what 
 more easy method offered itself to a ruler than that of 
 diminishing by decree and recoinage the weight of pure 
 metal in the ''drachma."* In order, at other times, to 
 exact greater fees or subsidies, what more easy expedi- 
 ent suEfffested itself to a feudal lord than to increase the 
 weight of the " drachma ? " f In cases where the ruler was 
 not unscrupulous enough to tamper with the coin for his 
 own profit, there were never wanting powerful classes 
 of men, both ecclesiastical and secular, to urge him to 
 similar practices for their advantage. Though instances 
 occur in history where the standard was restored after the 
 coins had been debased, the general course of affairs was 
 ill the opposite direction — a fact due to the inability of the 
 government to redeem the debased coin.| 
 
 *Tli(3 " dollar " of a few grains weitjht was formorly the "thaler" of 
 more than an ounce, ami anciently the "talent" of many pounds. 
 
 t See instance of Lord King's exaction of his tenants' rents in gold during 
 the bank suspension. (MacLeod's Dictionary Polit. Econ., i, 98.) 
 
 J The gold scriptulum was debased in Eorae so early as B. C. 207. 
 Bceckh, 44.)
 
 27 
 
 I do not propose at this time to enter any further into the 
 history of these events; ray ohject thus far having heen 
 merely to show that money, in the early ages, whatever it 
 was made of, came into use voluntarily; was alwaj's com- 
 posed of substances of supposed adequate and steady sup- 
 ply; owed none of its utility to legal-tender laws, which were 
 originally enacted for other and more practicable purposes; 
 and, up to the period of the dark ages in Europe, had con- 
 sisted for at least three thousand years of gold and silver 
 coins only. 
 
 We have now to consider three other points in this con- 
 nection : the World's supply and consumption of the precious 
 metals, the effects of an inadequate or monopolized sup- 
 ply, and the necessity of adhering to both of the precious 
 metals for the basis of a national currency, whether the 
 same shall consist wholly of the precious metals or partly 
 of convertible paper credits, or representative money. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE SUPPLY AND CONSUMPTION OF THE PRECIOUS 
 
 METALS IN EUROPE. 
 
 The repeated destructions of historical works previous to 
 the invention of paper, and the subsequent one of printing, 
 have left us but little exact information on this subject. 
 We onl}' know generally that previous to the Macedonian 
 Empire both of the precious metals were comparatively 
 common in farther Asia* and scarce in Europe. This 
 much we gather from the sizes of the pieces that were coined 
 and used for circulating money in the respective regions, 
 
 * There is an instance in Sfrabo's IGtli book of an eastern countr.v, 
 (possibl}- India,) borderini^ on that of the Sabaens, (Arabia?) where gold 
 to silver was otdj^ 1 for 2, and to bronze only 1 for 3. Witli the in- 
 stance before ns of modern Japan, where gold (purity not stated) was 
 quoted in 1853 at 1 to 4 of silver, it maj' seem bold to challenge this 
 assertion, hnt otiier instances in regartl to Ciiina assure us tliat Oriental 
 quotations are unreliable, from tli(^ fact that iu tiie early ages gold and 
 silver ingots, impure and largely burdened with base substances, circu- 
 lated as money, and tlie quoted relation referred to the value of these 
 impure ingots, and not to tlie value of tlie pure metals. Consult a pam-
 
 28 
 
 the prices of commodities and services, the enumeration of 
 rojal and princely treasures, and the employment of the 
 precious metals in the arts. The relation of gold to silver 
 in ancient and farther Asia has not been determined. 
 
 At a later period, about B. C. 500, we hear of it in 
 Persia, at 1 to 13. After this period and on this point the 
 annals of the Orient were closed for many centuries. At 
 about the same period the relation of gold to silver in 
 Europe was about 1 to 12.5. From this relation gold rose 
 to 1 to 13| and even 15, until the time of expeditions of 
 Alexander the Great. These, through the influence of the 
 vast treasures in gold of which they despoiled the eastern 
 countries, brought gold down again to 1 to 10, at which 
 rate it stood in the time of the comic poet Menander, 
 about B. C. 300. That it was the fluctuations in the sup- 
 ply of gold, and not those of silver, which occasioned the 
 most of these changes of relation, we are assured, from 
 the sporadic influxes of gold alluded to, and from Xeno- 
 phon's encomium on silver, written about B. C. 383; while 
 Boeckh himself, in his work on The Public Economy of the 
 Athenians, from which these details are gleaned, says, gen- 
 erally, that "the value of gold is more fluctuating than 
 that of silver," and that "the latter, therefore, may be 
 considered the scale for determining the price of gold, as 
 well as of other commodities."* 
 
 After the Macedonian conquests the stock of the precious 
 metals in Europe increased very rapidly until at about the 
 beginning of our era, when, according to the estimate of 
 Mr. Wm. Jacob, it amounted, throughout the Roman em- 
 
 plilet by "A Disciple of Franklin," in American Philosophical Society 
 library, Philadelphia, No. 6332, page 9, where it is stated tlnit Chinese 
 g-old from Sumatra, Celebes, &c., was but IG to 18 carats fine, and that 
 the relation in Ciiina in about the year ISIO was 1 in gold, as thus 
 found, to 12 in (pure) silver. At least we can feel fully assured that tlie 
 i-elations mentioned by Strabo were local, and only referred to tlie par- 
 ticular locality indicated. Consult Boeckh, p. 43. Anotiier anomalous 
 and still more (ixtraordiuary thougli possibly not unauthentic instance of 
 the kind is related in .Jacob's History Precious Metals, p. .57. 
 * Boeckh, 33.
 
 29 
 
 pire, to a quantity equal in value to about $1,740,000,000 
 of the present time. The relative proportions of gold and 
 silver are not calculated. The relation of value between 
 the metals in the Roman empire was, about B. C. 207, 1 
 to 1-3.7, and about B. C, 50 or 64 years before the period 
 of Jacob's estimate, 1 to 11.9. 
 
 From about the beginning of the Christian era to the 
 present time the history of the precious metals has been 
 traced very closely, and with great labor and acumen, by 
 three great historians : Wm. Jacob, whose work covers 
 the entire period from the year 14 to the year 1830; Baron 
 Von Humboldt, whose work covers the period from the 
 discovery of America until the early part of the present 
 century; and Michel Chevalier, whose work brings the 
 history up to within twenty years of the present time. 
 
 The salient points of this long though extremely inter- 
 esting history are : 
 
 1. The separation of the Asian and European histories 
 of money, from the downfoU of the Roman military power 
 until the Eastern trade was reopened in part by the medi- 
 eval Italians and Arabians, and wholly by the Portuguese 
 navigators; and, 2. The failure of the European mines 
 previous to the downfall of Rome and the gradual decline 
 of the stock of precious metals thenceforward until the 
 ninth century; its stationary condition until the discovery 
 of America; its rapid increase thereafter, until about the 
 beginning of the present century ; its subsequenttemporary 
 decline from the year 1809 to 1830; its slow increase there- 
 after; its rapid increase from the time when the effects of 
 the opening of the Russian, American, and Australian 
 mines were felt, until within late years; and its stationary 
 condition at the present time. 
 
 Omitting from further mention all that is not necessary 
 for the purposes of this review, let us briefly follow Mr. 
 Jacob's history of the precious metals from the beginning 
 of the Christian era. 
 
 From the enormous wealth of individuals, the high prices 
 of commodities and services, the vast revenues of the State,
 
 30 
 
 and other circumstances, Mr. Jacob conjectured that, in 
 the time of Augustus Ceesar, the quantity of money in 
 existence in ancient Rome, which then substantially com- 
 prised the whole civilized world, was £358,000,000, or 
 about $1,740,000,000 The correctness of this sum is 
 deemed to be rendered the more probable from the fact 
 that Vespasian, when afterward he succeeded to the im- 
 perial dignity, asserted that a sum equivalent to £322,916,600 
 was necessary to support the commonwealth — meaning, 
 not the government, for neither the annual revenue nor the 
 accumulation of the treasury, bore any proximate relation 
 to this vast sum — but the nation at large. It is believed 
 that he mentioned a sum which coincided, as far as is 
 known, with the whole mass of coined money then believed 
 to exist, and upon this supposition, and the inferences to 
 which it leads, historical writers have hitherto been content 
 to rest. 
 
 A few instances of the abundance of money at that 
 period may not be out of place. Crassus possessed in lands 
 bis millies (£1,615,000,) besides many slaves and furniture 
 valued at much more. Seneca possessed ter millies (£2,420,- 
 000;) Pallas an equal sum; Lentulus quatcr millies (£8,- 
 230,0C0;) Augustus Cresar obtained from private legacies 
 quaier dccies millies (£32,300,000,) and Tiberius left at his 
 death vigesies acse-pties millies (£21,800,000,) which Caligula 
 lavished away in a single year. Ctesar when he went to 
 Spain was in debt £2,018,000, and Anthony squandered of 
 the public money more than £5,600,000 sterling. 
 
 These facts were compiled by Jacob chiefly from Adams's 
 Roman Antiquities, while the sterling sums were com- 
 puted by Arbuthnot. I prefer to retain them as originally 
 computed. 
 
 Augustus frequently gave con^^i'arM, ranging from 45. \0d. 
 to £2 2s Id. per head to the whole population, men, women, 
 and children; and, at his death, left all the common men 
 £2 8s. 5<:/. each. In this prodigious liberality he was even 
 exceeded by several other emperors, but the instances de- 
 mand too much space. Milo gave each voter a bribe of
 
 31 
 
 £32 85, lOd. Claudius promised each soldier for his vote 
 £113, and Julian £210 16.?. Otho promised to the attainers 
 of Galba a reward of £403 12.s. each, and paid them £80 
 14s. in advance, etc., etc. 
 
 In the time of Augustas the gold and silver mines which 
 had kept good Rome's supply of treasure gave out and 
 ceased to be worked. Moreover, there was no more spoil 
 of the precious metals to be obtained in Asia or Northern 
 Europe. 
 
 This was due to the exhaustion of those conquered coun- 
 tries, to the unsettled condition of the empire, to wars, 
 the incursions of barbarians, the insufficiency of mechan- 
 ical resources, the loss of life and hardships of the slaves 
 employed in the mines, which induced them to desert 
 their occupation whenever civil commotion afforded them 
 a convenient opportunity, and to other causes set forth by 
 our author.* 
 
 From that time, therefore, the stock of money decreased, 
 and it has been calculated that the decrement proceeded at 
 the following rate : 
 
 Year of the Stock of coin in Year of the Stock of coin in 
 
 Christian era. civilized world. Christian era. civilized world. 
 
 14 £358,000,000 446 £96,692,332 
 
 50 322,200,000 482 87,033,099 
 
 86 287,980,000 518 78,229,700 
 
 122 259,182,00J 554 70,406,720 
 
 158 233,263,800 590 63,364,057 
 
 194 209,937,420 626 57,027,653 
 
 230 181,943,678 662 51,324,889 
 
 266 —163,749,311 698 46,192,399 
 
 302 147,374.380 734 41,573,160 
 
 338 132,636,942 770 37,415,840 
 
 374 119,373,248 806 33,674,256 
 
 410 107,435,924 
 
 A calculation so hypothetical as this must not, of course, 
 be taken too literally. It is sufficient if its general cor- 
 rectness is supported by all the facts we know, and this 
 
 * An ancient law of the Roman senate actuallj'- forbade the Italian 
 mines to be worked at all. Plinj> book iii, ch. 6, quoted in Jacob, 51.
 
 32 
 
 seems to be the case. The gradually deepening misery of 
 the populations of Europe during the meflieval ages, the 
 deca}' of the civil law, the demoralization of society, the 
 disintegration of government and authority, the insti- 
 tution (probably reinstitution) of feudalism, the poverty, 
 filth, pestilences, abominable crimes, ignorance, and wretch- 
 edness, that characterized this period of history and gave 
 to it its well deserved name of the Dark Asres — these facts 
 are too well known to need repeating. That such a con- 
 dition of affairs was promoted solely by means of a gradual 
 and constant diminution of the currency is not contended; 
 though it would not be difBcult to arirue the result from 
 the predicate. But that the diminution of the currency 
 largely contributed to bring it about and maintain it, may 
 be affirmed with entire confidence; and the careful thinker 
 will find it difficult to discern a cause that will more satis- 
 factorily account for that extraordinary breaking up of 
 governments and arrest of social development and of the 
 growth of population which occurred in Europe from about 
 the beginning of the present era to the time of the discov- 
 ery of America. 
 
 From the age of Augustus Csesar to that of Charlemagne 
 and the Saxon Heptarchy is like going from the mouth to 
 the bottom of the ancient mines — abov'e, all lightness, hap- 
 piness, and life; below, all darkness, misery, and death. 
 
 These were the ages of alchemists and false coiners. 
 They both sought to obtain gold from base metals; the 
 first by transmutation, the other by arrant roguerj'. The 
 base pieces they produced were known by the names of 
 pollards, crocards, schuldings, brabants, eagles, leonines, 
 sleepings, &c. Those who were pitched upon as the fabric- 
 ators of these pieces were visited with fearful punishment. 
 Racking, pressing to death, burning, drowning, and tramp- 
 ing were common enough. Whole families were exported, 
 whole communities robbed and banished under the pre- 
 tense of punishing coiners. 
 
 Such was the scarcity of the precious metals that living 
 money was used instead. This consisted of men and women,
 
 33 
 
 who were thus passed from hand to hand as a legal tender.* 
 The poverty and degradation of the people were inconceiv- 
 able. The price of a hawk was the same as that of a man, 
 and robbing the nest of one was as great a crime as depriv- 
 ing of life the other.f Famine and pestilence, superstition 
 and tyranny, terror and outrage, reigned supreme. 
 
 These were the Dark Ages; and so profound were the 
 depths into which they cast humanity that nearly a thou- 
 sand years later Arthur Young thus quoted from the 
 cahiers of the "tiers etat" of that feudal system to which 
 the Middle Ages had given birth: 
 
 "Fixed and heavy rents; vexatious processes to secure 
 them; appreciated unjustly to augment them; rents soU- 
 daires and reveulbables ; rents, cheantes, and levantes; fuma- 
 ges. Fines at every change of the property, in the direct 
 as well as collateral line ; feudal redemption {retraite) fines 
 on sale to the eighth and even the sixth penny (part;) re- 
 demptions (rachats) injurious in their origin, and still more 
 so in their extension; banalite of the mill, of the oven, afid 
 of the cider-press ; corvees by custom ; corvees by usage of 
 the fief; corvees established by unjust decrees; corvees ar- 
 bitrary and even fantastical; servitudes; lorestatioiis, Qxtv&v- 
 agant and burthensome; collections by assessments incol- 
 lectible; aveux, minus^ imj)umssement ; litigations, ruinous 
 and without end; the rod of seigneural finance forever 
 sliaken over our heads; vexation, ruin, outrage, violence, 
 and distinctive servitude, under which the peasants, almost 
 on a level with Polish slaves, can never but be miserable, 
 vile, and oppressed." 
 
 Even the liberty to bruise between two stones a measure 
 of barley was sold to these miserable creatures, while the 
 names of the tortures to which they were subjected are 
 eloquent in their very jargon and variety. 
 
 In order to preserve the game, in the pursuit of which 
 the nobles trampled down the wretched crops and rode 
 over the very bodies of the poor, there were numerous 
 edicts, which prohibited weeding and hoeing, lest the 
 young partridges should be disturbed; steeping seed, lest 
 
 * Henry's Hist, of Great Britain, t J^i-cob on Precious Metals, p. 170. 
 3
 
 34 
 
 it should injure the game; manuring with night soil, lest 
 the flavor of the partridges should be injured by feeding 
 on the corn produced, &c. 
 
 Recollect that this was nearly a thousand years later than 
 the period from which we have digressed, when, instead of 
 tending downward, as it did until the middle of the twelfth 
 century, society, under the combined influences of an in- 
 creasing stock of coin, an increasing diffasion of wealth, 
 and increasing industrial activity, was rapidly progressing 
 towards liberty and afliuence. Consider, then, what must 
 have been the condition of affairs in the year 806; a period 
 so unspeakabl}^ wretched that we have not even a contem- 
 porary account of its wretchedness! 
 
 Gold was nowhere to be had, and the few gold pieces in 
 circulation were of an ancient Byzantine* coinage; whilst 
 silver was so scarce, that, together with gold, it was at a sub- 
 sequent period forbidden by an act of Henry V to be used 
 in the arts.f 
 
 These instances could be multiplied almost indefinitely, 
 but it is not necessary. It is sufficient if they attest the 
 poverty, wretchedness and tyranny that attends a decline in 
 the quantity of money or of the only bases upon which 
 any system of money, representative or partly representa- 
 tive, can stand — the precious metals. 
 
 I am aware that the reply to this implication may be 
 that it makes no difference how much the stock of coin is, 
 if its only function is to measure value which is merely a 
 relation. This position T admit to be well taken if the stock 
 of money remains forever stationary, or, rather stationary 
 per capita of population. In such case a grain of silver 
 will measurequite as effectually the relation between a day's 
 work and its equivalent in commodities, as a pound of sil- 
 ver will, with a stock of coin 5,760 times as great, and if 
 money was already not concentrated in a few hands and 
 there were no debts. The only limitation to the perfect 
 equality of these two conditions of affairs would be that 
 
 ♦Jacob, 169. ]Ibid., 1G7.
 
 35 
 
 in the one case coins might have to be made too small for 
 convenient handling, or in the other too large. 
 
 But in point of fact there is not and never can be a con- 
 tinuously stationary amount of money in existence or 
 even a stationary amount per capita. Money, as related 
 to population, has a natural tendency to increase in quan- 
 tity, because increase of money quickens industrj^ and 
 distributes wealth. Opposed to this tendenc}' are wars, 
 the failure of mines, the abrasion and loss of the pre- 
 cious metals, the insufficiency of mechanical resources, and 
 the influence of wealthy classes. We have seen to what 
 an appalling strait the first three of these causes brought, or 
 assisted to bring, the European world — a strait in which it 
 remained for nine hundred years; until it was freed by 
 the discovery of the mines of Potosi. W"e shall yet see 
 how the fourth cause operated at about the beginning of 
 this century, and how the fifth cause is operating now. 
 
 These opposing tendencies, operating with varying force, 
 alternately diminish and increase the stock of precious met- 
 als and place the subject quite beyond the category of fixed 
 things. There is nothing fixed about it, and legislation 
 must deal with it with all its eyes and ears opened. Left to 
 itself and the industry and self-seeking of mankind, money 
 would increase as all other commodities increase, and 
 society would rapidly undergo that equalization of wealth 
 which the vagaries of fortune would stamp with equity; 
 but reduced to an unwilling wardship by monarchs and 
 legislatures, dragged hither and thither at the nod of plu- 
 tocrats, legal-tendered, single-standarded, royaltied, taxed, 
 and bedeviled in every imaginable manner, it has been re- 
 strained and dwarfed in its increase, and made to become 
 the instrument of half the misrule and misery which the 
 world has undergone. 
 
 Though there was no increase in the European world's 
 stock of coin from the beorinnino; of the ninth centurv 
 until the discovery of America, nevertheless there was no 
 diminution. This arrest in the shrinkage of money is due 
 to the invention, or, more probably, the reinvention of Bills
 
 36 
 
 of Exchange, which served to quicken money and enable 
 a limited stock to perform tlie work of a large one. 
 
 The bill of exchange was unknown to the ancient Greeks 
 and Romans. They were even without the use of paper 
 upon which to inscribe these instruments. Obligations of 
 debt even so late as the time of the Roman Empire having 
 been inscribed upon tablets of wax; the limited supply of 
 parchment being reserved for the higher purposes of liter- 
 ature. Paper was made in China so early as the second 
 century before Christ, at about which time papyrus was 
 invented in Egypt and parchment in Europe. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive of a great commercial nation — 
 and there certainly was such an one at the time men- 
 tioned — having the use of paper and ignorant of the device 
 known as bills of exchans-e. Be this as it mav, an instru- 
 ment known as the hoondee, and corresponding precisely 
 with the modern bill of exchange, was known in India at 
 a very early date; and the Hebrews, always a trading race, 
 who were among the first to trade with India, " by Tadmor 
 in the desert," very likely learned its use from that country. 
 
 These historical conjectures are, however, of little prac- 
 tical value in this connection. The material point is, that 
 no sooner was paper invented or introduced into Europe, 
 and possibly a little before,* than bills of exchange came 
 into use, and that these events correspond with the time ot 
 lowest diminution in the stock of coin in Europe. 
 
 It has been suggested by some writers that the inven- 
 tion or introduction into Europe of the bill of exchange is 
 due less to the ingenuity of the Jews or the art of making 
 paper than to that improvement in social organizations 
 and extension of political authority which distinguished 
 the Italian republics of the medieval ages. To this sug- 
 gestion it need only be repeated that bills of exchange were 
 unknown to the Greek and Roman civilizations, and that. 
 
 *Some authors (c. g. Putnam's Cj'clopedia) date the bill of exchange in 
 Europe as far baclv as the j'ear 808; others (e. g. Anderson in his Hist. 
 Com.) date it, with greater probability, in A. D. 1160.
 
 37 
 
 long after they came into use, their use was confined to the 
 Jews^ who, whatever may have been their confidence in 
 medieval society, and medieval justice and political secu- 
 rity, took great care never to trust to them, and traded 
 chiefly with each other. 
 
 Following the introduction of bills of exchange came 
 the establishment of those great Fairs, which for ages per- 
 formed the functions of so many clearing-houses for the 
 inland commerce of Europe; and next the establishment 
 of banks in Italy, Spain, and Holland. The first fair dates 
 from the year 886; the first bank, from which, however, 
 no circulating notes were issued, was that of Venice, in 
 1167. These dates are oases in a desert of wretchedness 
 and gloom. 
 
 But by far the most important of the several methods of 
 relief which society so eagerly sought in this long era of 
 money dearth was that adopted in Milan A. D. 1240, this 
 being the year in which, according to Arthur Young,* 
 paper circulating notes were first used in Europe. From 
 the fact that at about the same time, or within a few years 
 afterward, paper notes of the same character were em- 
 ployed in China, t there is some ground for the belief that 
 the dearth of money in Europe was felt also in that distant 
 and almost unconnected part of the world. In both these 
 instances the notes used were issued by Government, and 
 made a legal tender for the payment of debts. 
 
 Severe bullionists may scott* at this, at the debasement 
 of coins, and at the many other financial dishonesties and 
 enormities, as they are pleased to call them, of the Dark 
 Ages; but let me tell them, who am also a bullionist, in 
 so far that I recognize the superior economy, stability, and 
 justice of a money system consisting of, or at least based 
 representatively, wholly or in part, upon, the precious 
 metals, that society could not have been preserved without 
 these measures. Mankind had paid dearly enough in nine 
 long centuries of tyranny, anarchy, and slavery for the 
 
 * Travels, 2, 173. f Marco Polo.
 
 38 
 
 boon of a common medium of exchange. To have paid 
 an}^ more for it would have been to pay with life itself, for 
 that, which, at the best, could only economize its labor and 
 alleviate its burdens. 
 
 These fiscal measures not only eked out the scanty and 
 stationary stock of coin which existed at that period ; they 
 economized its use, saved it from abrasion and loss, added 
 to the rapidity of its circulation, made it perform double 
 work, and thus bridged over the five hundred years of 
 further dearth of money which was to continue until the 
 discovery of America. 
 
 It is hardly worth while to specifically trace the wonder- 
 ful and beneficial eflects of the relief thus obtained or the 
 era of industrial activity, commercial enterprise, and poli- 
 tical enfranchisement to which it contributed, and which 
 it is quite safe to say could not have occurred without it. 
 The financial history of the past three hundred years is 
 sufiiclently familiar to every one, and all that is necessary 
 in this place is to insert Mr. Jacob's hypothetical table of 
 the increasing stock of the precious metals following the 
 Dark Ages : 
 Year, A. D. Stock of Coin. 
 
 1066 £34,600,000 
 
 1500 34,000,000 
 
 1,546 49,400,000 
 
 1600 126,600,000 
 
 The ancient mode of obtaining the precious metals has 
 been described. It consisted of washing auriferous sands 
 and picking with rude instruments such scanty deposits of 
 pure metal as could be found. With the invention of 
 bronze tools and of smelting furnaces, a great impetus was 
 aiibrded to mining, and this was increased by the invention 
 of iron tools. It was in this condition that the art stood 
 at the Roman era, the use of mercury in quickening and 
 perfecting the process of recovering the precious metals 
 not having been acquired until after the discovery of 
 America. The 16th and 17th centuries therefore gave to 
 the European world three great sources of increase to its
 
 39 
 
 stock of the precious metals : 1. The stock despoiled of the 
 "West India Islanders, the Mexicans and the Peruvians. 2. 
 The new and great mines of Central America and Peru. 
 3d. The use of mercury in the amalgamation of ores. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these new and additional sources of 
 supply, so utter had been the exhaustion of the European 
 world's stock of gold and silver, so eager was the demand 
 for these metals, so rapidly were tliey absorbed in the arts, 
 in the Asiatic trade,* and by abrasion and loss, that the 
 world's supply again came to a stand-still shortly after the 
 beginning of the present century. The following are Mr. 
 Jacob's hypothetical figures, which, for the period toward 
 which we are now approaching, must be regarded as cor- 
 roborated by the various careful computations of Humboldt 
 and other authors. The reduction to dollars is at the rate 
 of five to the pound sterling: 
 
 Year A. D. Stock of coin Authority. 
 
 in the commercial world. 
 
 1700 $1,445,000,000 Jacob. 
 
 1700 1,318,000,000 Tooke. 
 
 1809 1.687,000,000 Gerboux. 
 
 1809 1,849,000,000 Tooke. 
 
 1827 1,720,000,000 Humboldt. 
 
 1829 1,557,000,000 Jacob. 
 
 1830 1,600,000,000 Storch. 
 
 1839 1,420,000,000 Storch. 
 
 The social phenomena of this period are too widespread 
 and too directly traceable to monetary disturbances to ad- 
 mit of much doubt as to their connection with the decline 
 in the world's stock of coin. To say nothing of the French 
 revolution and the wars and great political events to which 
 it gave rise — all of which, if they did not spring from, were 
 certainly precipitated by, the unendurable poverty and suf- 
 
 * Humboldt's statement on this subject would lead to the inference 
 that Asia had taken two-thirds of the entire American supply. For- 
 bonnais supposes that between 1492 and 1724 Asia took one-half of the 
 American supply, and Gerboux's estimate even exceeds this. Mr. 
 Jacob, who reviewed them all, settled down to the opinion that Asia 
 took two-fiflhs of the American supply between 1700 and ISIO. (Jacob, 
 p. 307.)
 
 40 
 
 ferings of the French peasantry, which culminated in riots 
 for bread and the distribution of wealth — this period is 
 characterized by disorders all over Europe. The New- 
 castle and Scotch banks in Great Britain suspended in 
 1793, the Bank of St. Petersburgh suspended in 1796, the 
 Bank of England in 1797, and again in 1822.* It was dur- 
 ing this period that arose the State and provincial banking 
 systems of this country and Great Britain, through which 
 the actual and threatened dearth of money was alleviated 
 by means of circulating notes representing but a small basis 
 of specie. These desperate and unsafe expedients always 
 evince a scarcity of the precious metals. It was during 
 this period that these systems failed over and over again, 
 not, however, without answering for precious intervals of 
 time the important purpose of their establishment. The 
 State banks of the United States failed in 1816, 1819, and 
 1827, and signally in 1837. The provincial banks of Eng- 
 land in 1826 and 1847. Specie payments were suspended 
 in France in 1790, and an enormous issue of assiguats and 
 mandats followed. As for the American suspension of 
 1837 it was felt all over the commercial world, which it 
 shook to its foundations. 
 
 What had happened? Some people say wars; others, 
 over-speculation. Perhaps they are right. Causation is 
 a difficult science. But certainly the well attested de- 
 crease in the stock of the precious metals which occurred at 
 about the beginning of the century may have had, and, in 
 my opinion did have, much to do with these events. In 
 flict, as Mr. Patterson has shown in his " Economy of Cap- 
 ital," they were in every case preceeded by an export and 
 local scarcity of specie. 
 
 Be this as it may, two new sources of relief were hasten- 
 ing to the assistance of society. 1. The adaptation of 
 steam to the processes of mining; 2. The discovery or 
 rather rediscovery of the Ural mines, and the subsequent 
 ^nd more important opening of California and Australia. 
 The new mines were discovered first. The adaptation of 
 
 *Aii abortive imciiipf lo resume specie payments was made in 1817. 
 (MeLeod'.-* Diet, rolit. Ecou., 1, 99.)
 
 41 
 
 steam to their development came much later — indeed, be- 
 longs to the past few years. 
 
 The following are the statistics of the amount of specie 
 added to the stock of the commercial world from 1848 
 to 1865 : 
 
 Stock of specie in the 
 Year A. D. commercial world. Authority. 
 
 1848-'53 S2,500,000,000 McCuUoch. 
 
 1857-'60 2,800,000,000 Ru^gles. 
 
 1872 - — 3,600,000,000 Ernest Seyd. 
 
 The following are the estimates of various authorities 
 of the stock of gold coin (onlj') in the commercial or Occi- 
 dental world since 1848 : 
 
 Stock of gold coin in the 
 Year A. D. commercial world. Authority. 
 
 1848 11,200,000,000 Chevalier. 
 
 1848 1,332,000,000 Est. on J^ewmarch. 
 
 1848 1,090,000,000 Est. on Levasseur. 
 
 1849 1,306,000,000 Jacob. 
 
 1853 1,464,000,000 Est. on Waguelin. 
 
 1860 1,998,000,000 Est. on ITewmarch. 
 
 1860 2,209,000,000 Est. on Is^ewmarch. 
 
 1867 2,600,000,000 Euggles. 
 
 1872 2,600,000,000 Ernest Seyd. 
 
 With this vast and refreshing increment of specie, which 
 more than filled the void left by the failure of the superfi- 
 cially-worked mines of Mexico and South America at the 
 close of the last century, a new era of industrial activity, 
 progress and development awaited society; an era which, if 
 entered upon without reserve, might have crowded ten 
 years into one, advanced us a century beyond the present 
 time, and conferred upon each individual of to-day, the prac- 
 tical benefits of longevity. 
 
 But it was not entered upon without reserve. Tiie plu- 
 tocrats of Europe took alarm at the rapid increase of specie. 
 They could manage to dispose of the surface-washings of 
 go\d in California and Australia, but they feared the appli- 
 cation of steam machinery to the quarts; veins of the Sierra
 
 42 
 
 Nevadas, and they put their long heads together and con- 
 spired to clieat labor and enterprise of their reward and 
 mankind of the main element of its cireulatine: media. 
 This was effected bj the Demonetization of Silver. 
 
 To succinctly trace the narrative of this ingenious finan- 
 cial device carries us back to the point from which I di- 
 verged in order to sketch the history of the Supply and 
 Consumption of the precious metals in Europe. 
 
 The course of the narrative will now be in respect of the 
 relative value of gold and silver. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE RELATIVE VALUE OF GOLD AND SILVER. 
 
 This history naturally divides itself into four periods: 
 The Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Recent. The first 
 extending from the most remote times to the beffinninof of 
 the Christian era or failure of the ancient mines; the second 
 extending from the last-named period when the efifects of 
 the discovery of Potosi were first felt; the third from 
 that period to the year 1865, or the date of the arbitrary 
 partial demonetization of silver by five nations; the fourth 
 period to the present time. The accounts which have 
 come dow^n to us of the Ancient Period are inexact and par- 
 tial. The relation is either stated in round figures by 
 some careless author or calculated from laws the precise 
 meaning and application of which are not beyond dispute. 
 Each of these accounts relate to a single country, sometimes 
 to a single citj-, and centuries occur between the date of one 
 account and another. Such as they are, they are given 
 herewith : 
 
 Table showing the Ratio of gold and silver in various countries oj the World 
 
 during the Ancient Period. 
 
 B. C. Ratio. Authorities 
 
 1600 13.33 In>criptioii.s at Kariiak, tribute lists of Tliutmosis. 
 (Bniuilis.) 
 708 13.33 Ciiiififonu inscriptions on plates found in foundation 
 of Kiiorsabad. 
 - 13.33 Ancient Persian coins; gold darics at 8.3 grams=20 
 
 silver siglos, at 5.5 grains. 
 500 13.00 Persia. Darius. Egyptian tribute. Herod. Ill, 95. 
 (.Boeckh, p. 12.)
 
 43 
 
 Table — Continued. 
 
 B. C. Ratio. Authorities. 
 
 490 12.50 Sicily. TimeofGelon. "At least "12.50. (BcEckh,p.44.) 
 470 10.00 Doubtful. Asia Minor. Xerxes' treasure. (Boeckh, p. 11.) 
 440 13.00 Herodotus' account of Indian tributes. 3G0 gold tal- 
 
 ents=4,GS0 silver. 
 420 10.00 Asia Minor. Pay of Xenophon's troops in silver darics. 
 
 (Anab. ; Boeckli, p. 34.) 
 407 - Spurious and debased gold coins .at Athens. (McLeod, 
 
 Polit. Econ., p. 470; Boeckh, p. 35.) 
 400 13.33 Standard in Asia, according to Xenophon. 
 400 12.00 Standard in Greece, according to "Hipparchus;" attrib- 
 uted to Plato. 
 400 12.00-) 
 
 400 13.50 V Various authorities adduced by Boeckh. 
 400 15.00 J 
 
 1 9 AA 1 Values in Greece from the Peloponnesian war to the 
 Am QQR 1 1 tm I time of Alexander, according to hints in Greek writ- 
 4U4-drfb 1 i6.uo y g^.^^ Tiiere were variations under special contracts— 
 '- ■^'*-^"* J unit, the silver draclnua. 
 340 14.00 Greece. Time of Demosthenes. (Boeckh, p. 44.) 
 338-326 11.50 Special contracts in Greece. 
 343-323 12.50 Egypt under the Ptolemies. 
 
 300 10.00 Greece. Continued depression of gold, caused by great 
 
 influx under Alexander. 
 207 13.70 Rome. (Bceckli, p. 44.) Gold scriptulum arbitrarily 
 
 fixed at 17.143 for 1. 
 100 11.91 Rome. General rate of gold pound to silver sesterces 
 to date. 
 58-49 8.93 Rome. Continued depression of gold, caused by influx 
 of Ctesar's spoil from Gaul. [X. B.— Ca3sar's head- 
 quarters were at Aquileia, at the head of tlie Adriatic, 
 where there was also a gold mine, which at this period 
 became very prolific] 
 50 11.90 Rome. "About the year U. C. 700 " tlie rate was 11^|. 
 
 (Boeckh, p. 44.) 
 29 12.00 Rome. Xormal rate in the last days of the republic. 
 
 A. D. 
 1-87 11.97 Rome. Rate under Augustus and Tiberius. 
 
 None but the gravest events — events which affected 
 many nations, and were felt through long periods of time, 
 sufficed to disturb this relation. The two most note- 
 worthy of these were the vast spoil of Alexander, which 
 he gathered in the Orient and brought into Europe, and 
 the spoil of Csesar in Gaul, which he sent to Rome by way 
 of Aquileia. These events temporarily depressed gold from 
 the ratio of 12 to that of 10, in the first instance, and from 12 
 to 8, in the second; but the depression was both local and 
 temporary. Omitting these temporary aberrations, the 
 general range of the ratio in Ancient times, so far as the
 
 44 
 
 evidence now available furnishes ground for opinion, seems 
 to have been about from 12 to 13.33. 
 
 The accounts relating to the Medieval Period partake 
 more or less of the characteristics peculiar to the ancient. 
 Lesser intervals of time intervene between the dates, lesser 
 distances between the countries, and lesser difi'erences 
 between the rates in one country compared with another. 
 Nevertheless, the condition of medieval society was too 
 unconnected, and the arbitrary and conflicting laws gov- 
 erning the production, consumption, and legal attributes 
 of the precious metals iu various countries, are too little 
 understood at the present day, if, indeed, they ever were 
 fully understood, to render these quotations of practical 
 value. They will be found below : 
 
 Table showing the Ratio of gold and silver in various countries of the 
 World during the Medieval Period. Range 11.44 @ 13.51. 
 
 A. D. Ratio. 
 
 37^1 
 
 54-68 
 
 69-79 
 
 81-96 
 
 138-101 
 
 312 
 
 438 
 
 864 
 
 1344-1660 
 
 1497 
 1500 
 
 12.17 
 11.80 
 11.54 
 11.30 
 11.98 
 14.40 
 14.40 
 12.00 
 
 1260 10.50 
 
 1351 
 
 12.30 
 
 1375 
 
 12.40 
 
 1403 
 
 12.80 
 
 1411 
 
 12.00 
 
 1451 
 
 11.70 
 
 1163 
 
 11.60 
 
 55-1494 
 
 10.50 
 
 10.70 
 10.50 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 Rome. 
 Home. 
 Rome. 
 Rome. 
 Rome. 
 
 The silver coinage 
 imicli debased, con- 
 
 seqiientlj^ the ratio 
 of tlie metals, pure, 
 was as about 1 to 11. 
 
 Reign of Caligula. 
 Reign of Nero. 
 Relgii of Vespasian. 
 Reign of Domiriaii. 
 Reign of Antoninus. 
 Byzantium. Reign of Constantine. Arbitraiy. 
 B.yzautimn and Rome. Theodosiau Code. Arbitrary. 
 Pi-obable ratio, as shown by tlie Edictum Fistense^ 
 
 under tlie Carlovingiau dynasty. 
 Avei-age i-atio in tlic commercial cities of Italy. Local 
 
 or doubtfid. 
 England. jSTumerous mint indentures given in Mc- 
 Leod's Political Economy, p. 475. The ratio, ex- 
 cept when fixed arbitrarilj" and in violation of 
 market price, varied between about 1 :12 and 1:14 
 during the two hundred and lifty-seven years in- 
 cludecl in tliis period. 
 
 Ratio in Xorth Germanj^ as sliown by the very accu- 
 rate rules of the Lnbeclc mint, corroborated in the 
 main l)y tlie accounts of tlie Teutouic Order of 
 Kniglits, averaged iu i)eriods of forty years. 
 
 Ratio according to the accounts of the Teutonic 
 Kniglits. As the ratio fixed in England by nu- 
 merous mint indentures from 1465 to 1509 was 
 about 1 :12, this German ratio is considered local or 
 doubtful. 
 
 Spain. Reign of Isabella. Edict of Medina. Local. 
 
 Germany. Adam Riese's Arithmetic. Local or doubt- 
 ful.
 
 45 
 
 Table — Continued. 
 
 A. D. Ratio. Authorities. 
 
 1551 11.17 Germany. Imperial Mint regulations. Arbitrary or 
 
 local. 
 1559 11.44 German Imperial Mint regulations. 
 
 , 22i }] "In \ France. Mint regulations, 
 lo/o 11.08 J 
 
 162.1 1] .74 Upper Germany. Mint regulations. 
 
 1G40 13.51 France. Mint regulations! Transition period. 
 
 The extreme range of all of the above quotations which 
 are considered even measuredly reliable 18 from 11.44 to 
 13.51, the latter a single instance at the close of the period 
 and after the opening of the American mines. Most of the 
 quotations come within the range of from 11.70 to 12.40, 
 which, considering that the table covers a period of sixteen 
 centuries and numerous countries but little connected by 
 commerce until a late period, serves to show the remarka- 
 ble constancv of the relation between the metals. 
 
 From the time of the conquest of England, A. D. 106G, 
 until the reign of Edward III there was no gold coined in 
 England,* and probably none in circulation, and this was 
 doubtless substantially the case also in Continental Europe. 
 Taking this inference in connection with the commonness 
 and large size of gold coins in ancient times, we are justi- 
 fied in ascribing the decrement of coin during the medieval 
 ages rather to the falling off in the supplies of gold than 
 to that of silver and the fluctuation of the ratio, such as it 
 was, to the aberrations of the gold supply. 
 
 We have thus an additional corroboration of the superior 
 stability of silver to gold : a corroboration still further 
 strengthened by the fact that silver alone was, in fact, if 
 not always legally, the standard in England f and through- 
 out Europe up to about the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury. 
 
 For the Modern Period we have more reliable data. This 
 results from the fact that during this period countries be- 
 
 * Essay on coins by Martin Folkes, London, about 1750, quoted in Har- 
 ris on Coins, ii, 2. 
 •f Han-is, i, 01 ; ii, 85 and ii, 106-7.
 
 46 
 
 came united by commerce; and quotations in one hold good 
 with slight variation for all the others. As at about the 
 commencement of this period all those events occurred 
 vvliich have had any material influence in altering between 
 the metals the relation which previously existed, to wit, the 
 opening of the East India and China trade, the opening of 
 tlie American mines, and the use of quicksilver in the 
 amalgamation of ores, it is wholly useless in this or any 
 other practical connection, to consult any other data con- 
 cerning the relation of the metals with the view of deter- 
 miniuo: such relation for the future. 
 
 Table showing the Ratio of gold and silver in various countries of the World 
 during the Modern Period^ or since the opening of the East India and 
 China trade. Range 14.74 @ 15.83. 
 
 A. D. 
 
 Ratio. 
 
 Country, 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 1665 
 
 15.10 
 
 Fi'ance. 
 
 Mint regulations. 
 
 1667 
 
 14.15 
 
 Uppei- Germany. 
 
 Mint regulations. Doubtful. 
 
 1669 
 
 15.11 
 
 Upper Germany. 
 
 Mint regulations. 
 
 1670-1817 
 
 
 England. 
 
 Numerous mint regulations quoted 
 by McLeod. 
 
 1679 
 
 15.00 
 
 France. 
 
 Mint regulations. 
 
 1680 
 
 15.40 
 
 France. 
 
 Mint regulations. 
 
 1687-1700 
 
 14.97 
 
 
 1701-1720 
 
 15.21 
 
 
 1721-1740 
 
 15.08 
 
 
 1741-1790 
 
 14.74 
 
 
 1791-lSOO 
 
 15.42 
 
 - Hambura: 
 
 1801-1810 
 
 15.61 
 
 o 
 
 1811-1820 
 
 15.51 
 
 
 1821-1830 
 
 15.80 
 
 
 1831-1840 
 
 15.67 
 
 
 1841-1850 
 
 15.83 J 
 
 
 1851 
 
 15.46] 
 
 1852 
 
 15.57 
 
 1853 
 
 15.33 
 
 1854 
 
 15.33 
 
 1855 
 
 15.36 
 
 1850 
 
 15.33 
 
 1857 
 
 15.27 
 
 1858 
 
 15.36 
 
 1859 
 
 15.21 
 
 1860 
 
 15.30 
 
 England. 
 
 -I 
 
 1 
 
 'Ratios calculated from the bi- 
 weekly quotations of the Ham- 
 burg prices-current, giving the 
 value of the gold ducats of Hol- 
 land in silver thalcrs down to 
 1771, and after that in fine silver 
 bars. The nominal par of ex- 
 change during this period was 
 1 :14.80, and the quotations show 
 the variations of the market rate 
 in percentage above or below 
 this. At par, 6 silver marks- 
 banco were equivalent to 1 duc- 
 at ; 68 20-47 ducats containing 1 
 mark (weight) of fine gold, and 
 27 J silver marks-banco contain- 
 ing 1 mark (weiglit) of fine sil- 
 ver. Hence, 6X68 20-47-^27|= 
 14.80, the par i-atio. 
 
 London market quotations — an- 
 nual averages. These give the 
 price of a given weight of stand- 
 ard silver in sliillings and pence. 
 The standard gold is \\t\\s fine, 
 and an ounce Troy is coined into 
 934.5 pence, or an ounce of fine
 
 47 
 
 Table — Continued. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 Ratio. Country. 
 
 AittJiorities. 
 
 1861 
 
 15.47 
 
 1862 
 
 15.36 
 
 1863 
 
 15.38 
 
 1864 
 
 15.40 
 
 1865 
 
 15.33 
 
 1866 
 
 15.44 
 
 1867 
 
 15.57 
 
 1868 
 
 15.60 
 
 1869 
 
 15.60 
 
 1870 
 
 15.60 
 
 1871 
 
 15.59 
 
 1872 
 
 15.63 
 
 England. 
 
 gold into 1019.45 pence. The 
 standard silvei- is f^ths fine. 
 Hence, as fine silver is wortli 
 1.081 times as macli as standard 
 silver, if 1019.45 pence he di- 
 vided by 1.081 times tlie qnoted 
 price of an onnce of standard 
 silver, the quotient is the ratio 
 desii'cd. 
 
 Aglanceatthis table shows that the extreme range of fluc- 
 tuation for a period of over two hundred years, closing with 
 the year 1872, was 14.74 to 15.83. Most of the quotations 
 are close to 15 J of silver to 1 of gold. The change from the 
 relation which existed during the medieval period is at- 
 tributable chiefly to the opening of the Oriental trade by 
 thp way of the Cape of Good Hope, and the settlement of 
 the difierent relations between gold and silver which existed 
 in the Oriental and Occidental worlds. This settlement 
 took place during the seventeenth century ; since which 
 time the ratio has remained almost stationary and uniform 
 throughout the world. 
 
 I have already stated that the East India trade absorbed 
 a large proportion, estimated at two-fifths, of the whole 
 American product of the precious metals; that is to say, about 
 one-fifth during the seventeenth centurj^and one-fifth dur- 
 ing the eighteenth. This proportion consisted nearly alto- 
 gether of silver. The result of these shipments of silver to 
 the Orient was, that of the supplies of American metal ab- 
 sorbed in Europe, a large portion consisted of gold. With 
 the rise in prices which followed the discovery of America 
 the demand for supplies of gold, as against silver, in Europe, 
 was greater than before, owing to the superior availability 
 of gold at that period for largo payments ; a superiority 
 which the subsequent growth of banks and places of de- 
 posit has now destroyed. This slightly increased demand 
 for gold as against silver must be set off against the urgent 
 demand for silver in the Orient.
 
 48 
 
 The average ratio at Hamburgh for the twenty years, 
 1701-1720, is given in the table at 15.21. Sir Isaac New- 
 ton, in his report on coins, dated 1717, estimated it at 14.8 
 to 15 throughout Europe. 
 
 At this period the legal relation in England was 151- 
 and silver was, therefore, undervalued by law. The con- 
 sequence was that a large portion of the silver coin was 
 exported to countries where it was more justly estimated. 
 To remedy the loss of coinage involved in exportation, the 
 weight of the gold pieces was lessened, and instead of 890, 
 there were coined out of a pound of standard gold 934| 
 sovereigns of 20 shillings, or their equivalent, 890, in 
 guineas of 21 shillings; or, what is the same thing, the 
 guinea, or pound of guinea gold, of 20 shillings, was 
 ordered to pass current at 21 shillings. 
 
 We are told by modern apologists for the adoption of 
 the single gold standard in England in 1816, without any 
 support for such statement, that the single gold standard 
 was practically the standard of England from the time of 
 this change in the coinage by Sir Isaac I^ewtou.* But 
 this fact, however " practical," had nothing whatever to do 
 with the law on the subject. 
 
 It appears that some forty years after ITewton's coinage 
 reform, gold fell in the markets of Europe until it would 
 only purchase 14.74 of silver, while the law valued it at 
 slightly under.f Such being the case, there arose an agi- 
 tation favorable to the payment in gold of the interest or 
 principal on the public debt, which was then largely held 
 abroad. J The argument in favor of this project was en- 
 tirely sound. The debt had been incurred in "pounds." 
 The "pound" was a money of account consisting of 20 ac- 
 tual shillings of silver, each 11 ounces 2 dwts. fine, out of 
 12 ounces, and weighing 3 ounces 17 dwts. 10 grains; in 
 other words, one pound Troy weight, of standard silver. 
 
 * McLeod. 
 
 12 ILirri?;, p. 54. appears to make it 14.1 45, but this is imprecise. 
 
 1 2 Harris, 53-lOG.
 
 49 
 
 was coined into 62 of these shillings. By the same mint 
 indenture a pound Troy of standard gold was coined into 
 as many guineas as there were in 890 shillings, and by sub- 
 sequent indentures, previous to the period of the dispute, 
 into as many sovereigns as there were in 9o4i shillings.* 
 Why not, then, pay the debt in these gold " guineas?" 
 
 The only doubt which could arise as to the equity of 
 this proceeding depended upon the fact as to when (under 
 what indentures) the debt had been incurred, though, in 
 fact, this question was of no importance. But it never 
 seemed to have troubled the disputants, who represented 
 that large and influential portion of the debt which was 
 held at home. They stood upon the pound of silver; de- 
 clared that that was the sole standard of value; that gold 
 coins were mere tokens, and that the honor of the Crown 
 was involved in the payment of the debt in silver " pounds," 
 which, in point of fact, was only a money of account,! and 
 had had no actual existence in silver since the days of 
 William of Normandy, and none at all in gold. 
 
 The superior talent or persistency of these advocates of 
 plutocracy prevailed over reason and equity, as it prevailed 
 afterwards, when they took the opposite side of the argu- 
 ment and showed that gold was the standard of England, 
 and not silver; as it has prevailed in this Chamber; as it 
 has prevailed everywhere and at all times. The books 
 and pamplets issued on the subject at this period were in- 
 numerable, and amidst the confusion which they occa- 
 sioned, the unaccustomed jargon of the mint, and the loud 
 voices of the plutocratical orators, the latter carried the 
 day, and silver was assented to be the sole standard of 
 England. 
 
 Some seventy years later, while specie payments were 
 suspended in England, and there was no currency in cir- 
 culation except unrepresentative and irredeemable bank 
 notes, silver was demonetized by law, as McLeod says it 
 
 *McLeod, Appeutlix, pp. 9, 10. 
 fl Harris, i., 61 ; Ibid., il, pp. S.5, 97. 
 4
 
 50 
 
 had been in fact eiuce the period of the measures effected 
 by Sir Isaac Newton,* and, except for payments up to 40 
 shillings, gold was declared the sole standard of value. 
 
 This celebrated Enactment, the first one specifically mak- 
 ing gold the single standard of value which was adopted 
 by any country, is attributed to the same sinister influence 
 which nnhistorically and illogically maintained in 1750-57, 
 that silver was or ought to be the sole standard of Eng- 
 land, because at that period gold had become slightly the 
 cheaper metal of the two, at the relation denoted by the 
 mint indentures, which had existed in Isaac l^ewton's 
 time. But this inference does not appear to be supported 
 either by the market ratio of the metals at that time, or 
 by any other facts known to the authors or supporters of 
 the enactment. The chief of these supporters was Lord 
 Liverpool, whose report on coins antedates by several 
 years the great work of Humboldt on New Spain, and by 
 many years that of Jacob on the History of the Precious 
 Metals. The principal fact in this connection which was 
 known at that time, and which could have influenced the 
 adoption of the single gold standard, was that silver had 
 been slowly falling in value since the period of the bank 
 suspension. The average market ratio for the decade 
 ending in 1790, was 14,74; while for the decade ending in 
 1800, it was 15.42, and for that ending in 1810, it was 
 15.61. Beyond^ this, the supporters of the act of 1816 
 knew little or nothing which could have assisted them in 
 forming a judgment with regard to the probable future 
 course of the metals. The act of 1816 was therefore a 
 mere blunder, a piece of empiricism based at most upon a 
 recent, and as it afterwards proved, a mere trifling and 
 temporary, decline of silver. When we come to trace its 
 consequences we shall see what a deplorable blunder it 
 
 *The authontlc-s on this subject, viz: Harris, 1757, Chevallier, 1857, 
 McLeod, Patterson, and Seyd, disagree as to tiie legal position of the 
 standard of England from 1717 to ISIG. Tiie truth appears to be that 
 the standard was the double one.
 
 51 
 
 was. Aud it is just sucli a blunder that we would now 
 commit in this country if we disregard the present oppor- 
 tunity of restoring the double standard, if we empirically 
 refuse to recognize silver as an essential and component 
 part of the money of the world, simpl}- because, for the 
 moment, the ratio of silver to gold is depressed. 
 
 Having now traced the standard of England down to 
 its latest legal change, which occurred in 181G, it need 
 only be stated briefly in this place that no other country 
 adopted the gold standard, except Portugal, until 1865. 
 The standards of the various principal countries of the 
 Occidental world previous to 1865 were eilher of silver, as 
 in Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, etc., or of gold and 
 silver equally, as in France, Spain, the United States, 
 Belgium, &c. During the interval between 1809 and 
 1848, when gold was falling off in supply and rising in 
 price, England entered upon that policy of lending in 
 silver and demanding payment in gold, which, but for 
 the widespread bankruptcies which the failure of the 
 gold supplies contributed to occasion in 1837, would have 
 greatly enriched her wealthy classes. They lent capital 
 to all the countries of the world, lent in the cheaper 
 moneys of those countries, (as they lent us later still 
 during our civil war in paper,) and always demanded pay- 
 ment in gold. Like all short-sighted policies, it was a 
 profitable thing, so long as it lasted, but its very profit- 
 ableness forbade it to last. 
 
 The creditor may seek support in unjust laws, but 
 nature is on the side of the debtor, and nature redresses 
 the inequalities of laws. As to the effect upon her own 
 people in demonetizing silver during the period when 
 gold was rising in value, it need only be said, that Eng- 
 land never passed through a more gloomy period than 
 during the half century preceding the opening of Cali- 
 fornia. One has only to read Professor Thorold Rogers's 
 Review of Agriculture and Prices in England from the 
 thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and McKay's Work- 
 ing Classes, to be convinced of the fact that during the
 
 52 
 
 period, 1816-48, the English laborer was reduced to a con- 
 dition bat little better than that of his predecessors during 
 the Middle Ages, and infinitely worse than that of his pre- 
 decessors a century before. 
 
 Money became scarce, and despite the alleviation caused 
 by the invention of banking and paper money, hard times 
 set in. After 1809 the annual supply of the precious 
 metals declined fully one-half, owing to the stoppage of 
 the Mexican mines, consequent upon the war between 
 Spain and her American colonies. The period when the 
 precious metals were most scarce was between 1810 and 
 1840 : and this, as every one knows^ was precisely the 
 period when national distress and political agitation were 
 most rife among us. The masses suiFered and clamored 
 for Reform ; the middle classes groaned under the taxation 
 and cried for Retrenchment; and in Parliament there 
 arose the policy of Peace, to lessen the burdens of a nation 
 which could not aftbrd to go to war. The discovery of the 
 Ural mines of Russia thereafter began to mitigate, though 
 not to remove the dearth. But now, once more a change 
 has taken place, and the discovery of the rich mines of 
 California, Columbia, and Australia, &c, (Patterson's 
 Econ. of Capital, p. 45.) 
 
 There is another point in this connection which is well 
 worth mentioning to those who have shown so much 
 eagerness to lead this country into the unwise footsteps 
 which England has trodden in respect of the standard of 
 money. It may, perhaps, not have occurred to them that with 
 a system of household suffrage, such as exists in England, 
 the slightest rise in values has the effect of extending the 
 franchise of voting. This was shown by Mr. Patterson in 
 his Economy of Capital, pp. 60, et seq : 
 
 " Houses which rented at £8 in 1848 are now rented at 
 £10, which secures the franchise for the occupiers. * * 
 Taking the case of England in the nineteen years before the 
 new gold supplies came into play we find that between 1832 
 and 1851, the registered electors for burghs increased one- 
 half and those for counties more than one-third, while the 
 total population increased less than one-third."
 
 53 
 
 Here, then, is a reason, in addition to their pecuniary 
 interest, which actuates the ruling classes of England in 
 their monetarj^ legislation, a reason that should teach us 
 of America to beware what hidden pits we may fall into 
 by blindly and subserviently following the politico-eco- 
 nomical or legislative footsteps, be they backward or for- 
 ward, of a foreign country. 
 
 We need no foreign advice in the great concerns of State. 
 When that greatest of all political events — the American 
 Revolution, which not only gave freedom to this people, 
 but for the first time in the history of the world divorced 
 Church and State, denied the "divine right" of kings, 
 the privileges of class, and the claims of feudalism, and 
 thus gave to all men at once the principles of government 
 and a land in which those principles could be carried into 
 practice — when the American Revolution was organized, 
 did our forefathers send to ask the opinion of the ruling 
 classes of Europe? No. They knew that if they did so 
 the answer that they would get would be unfavorable to 
 the accomplishment of their ends. These ends were the 
 freedom and happiness of all men. These are what they 
 had fought for and determined upon, and they needed no 
 advice as to how they should secure them in that organ- 
 ization of a State which had been committed to their 
 charge. 
 
 We now come to the effects of the gold discoveries in 
 California, which effects, preceded as those discoveries had 
 been, by the minor ones of Ural and Siberia, were felt 
 soon after the events that gave rise to them. At this 
 period, about the year 1850, England still had the single 
 gold standard, the United States the double standard at 
 16, France the double standard at 15J; Spain, Holland 
 and Belgium,* che double standard ; and Germany, N^a- 
 ples,t and other countries, the single silver standard. In a 
 word, the silver unit (dollar, thaler, franc, real, or rouble) 
 was a legal tender to an unlimited extent in all these 
 countries except England. 
 
 * Chevalier, pp. 6, 157, 159, 163. flbid., p. 169.
 
 54 
 
 When gold began to pour in from the shores of the 
 Pacific the first and very proper act of the United States 
 and France was to coin gold pieces and use them instead 
 of silver ones for legal tender. The United States, still 
 holding on to her double standard, stopped coining the sil- 
 ver dollar, and by the act of 1853, coined a gold one, be- 
 cause it was the cheaper one. France also held on to her 
 double standard (of 15 J) notwithstanding the eloquence of 
 Chevalier, who, like Harris in England, precisely a century 
 before, tried to convince France that the law of 7th Ger- 
 raenal, Anno XI, (year 1803,) meant a single silver stand- 
 ard instead of a double one. The first care of these two 
 great republics was the interests of their people, and these 
 interests they consulted when they held on to a system 
 which looks to and utilizes the whole supply of the pre- 
 cious metals for the basis of commercial transactions. 
 
 Plolland and Belgium pursued a different course. These 
 countries, like England, were governed by kings, sur- 
 rounded by a powerful plutocracy. Like her they were 
 lenders of money, the creditors of other nations, and like 
 her they feared the fall of gold. But unlike England, they 
 had had no single gold standard before; no gold standard 
 while gold was becoming scarce, as during the period 
 1816-1840 ; therefore no distress, no agitations, no Chartist 
 riots, no reform bills, no clamor for popular representa- 
 tion, no demand for ministerial responsibility. Hence, 
 unlike the British plutocrats, those of Holland and Bel- 
 gium had no fears to restrain them from adopting a single 
 silver standard when silver became dear. Belgium retired 
 her gold coins in 1854,* and adopted a silver standard. 
 Holland did the same thing in 1858. t 
 
 * After having cut off her owa tail, Belgium, through the agency of her 
 distinguished plutocratical politico-economist M. Gustave de Molinari, en- 
 deavored to induce France to do the same thing. This effort was made 
 through the medium of the pages of the Economiste Beige of 10th February, 
 1857, in which M. Molinari recommended France to demonetize gold by 
 reducing her gold coins to tokens, and adopt the single silver standard after 
 Belgium. 
 
 t iMcCuIloch Die, Art. "Precious Metals," says 1847 and 1849.
 
 55 
 
 The success of tlie ruling classes in Holland anJ Belgium 
 in demonetizing gold during this period of its downfall was 
 greatly envied by their brethren in England. Between 1850 
 and 1857 gold fell from 15.83 to 15.27 of silver, the extrera- 
 est range, as it has since proved, during more than eighty 
 years, to wit, from 1790 to 1872. The creditor classes of 
 England viewed this depression of their favored metal with 
 great alarm, and fancied that it would go on — as with the 
 same short-sightedness they now fancy that the present tem- 
 porary depression of silver will go on — forever. Forgetting 
 that they had profited while gold rose, they now demanded 
 that they should not lose beciiuse gold was falling. They 
 looked with envy upon the plutocratical legislation of Hol- 
 land and Belgium, and asked why England should not 
 also demonetize gold and adopt silver as her sole standard 
 of value. 
 
 Unfortunately for them, their own short-sighted and 
 blundering legislation of 1816 stood in the way, and ISTature 
 was reaping its revenge. What was to be done? What 
 had England's plutocratical politico-economists to advise 
 at this period? 
 
 Mr. Richard Cobden, while disclaiming any right on the 
 part of the government to interfere with contracts already 
 made, saw no reason why it should be excluded from such 
 interference with the future as might be necessary to facili- 
 tate voluntary contracts. (Chevalier, p. 6.) 
 
 Mr. James Maclaren recommended the establishment of 
 life insurance companies on the basis of a silver standard. 
 (Ibid.) 
 
 Mr. Cobden, quoting this suggestion with approbation, 
 proposed to adapt it to all contracts extending over a long 
 period of time, and even thought of evading the conse- 
 quences of the depreciation of gold by resorting to the 
 primitive practice of paying in kind, as by granting farm 
 leases upon a rent to be regulated by the price of pro- 
 duce!* sophistry, sophistrj^ how desperate are thy con- 
 volutions! 
 
 *Iii Jevou's latest work Messrs. Scrope & Lewis are quoted as in favor 
 of adoptintj the av(M-a;;'e of one lumdred articles of produce as the meas- 
 ure of value.
 
 56 
 
 In short, England was fairly caught in her own toils, 
 and, but for the retention of the double standard in the 
 United States, France, and other countries, which enabled 
 these countries to absorb the new supplies of gold by re- 
 placing with them their silver coins, which they exported 
 to Asia, wherewith to pay for goods, the relations of com- 
 modities and services in England — and this involved her 
 entire political structure — would have been revolutionized. 
 As it was, her government barely escaped overthrow, and 
 the agency that saved her was that very double standard 
 which the sellishness and folly of 1816 had overthrown in 
 England, but which, fortunately for England, other nations 
 had retained. 
 
 The consequences of these various measures, during the 
 fall of gold from 1848 to 1865, were that England pros- 
 pered in spite of her foiled plutocracy, France prospered, 
 and the United States prospered, and an era of industrial 
 activity was opened in these three great countries the like 
 of which had never been seen before. This was the dis- 
 tinctive era of labor-saving machines, international expo- 
 sitions, railways, life insurance, clearing-houses, and great 
 commercial reforms. 
 
 THE RECENT PERIOD. 
 
 Table showing the ratio of gold and silver, chiejlg^ in the London 
 •market, during the Recent Period, or since the Demonetization 
 of Silver effected by the act of February 12, 1873. Range 
 15.9 @ 17.82. 
 
 Year. Ratio. Couiitiy. Authorities. 
 
 1873 15.90 England. Annual av'gcalculated as above. 
 
 1874—- 16.15 England. '' 
 
 1875 16.45 England. January.--^ 
 
 1875 16.41 England. Februarv-- V Average 16.45 
 
 1875— - 16.50 England. March -"'—J 
 
 1875-— 16.47 England. April \ 
 
 1875 16.55 England. May V Average 16.63 
 
 1875-— 16.88 England., June J 
 
 *Th(' table from wlilcli tlie quotations for 1875 and 1876 are obtained 
 is "decUiced from quotations on the London and Xew York markets."
 
 57 
 
 Tahle — Continued. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Ratio. 
 
 Country. 
 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 1875- — 
 
 16.97 
 
 England. 
 
 July, 
 
 
 1875- — 
 
 16.92 
 
 England. 
 
 August. 
 
 ^Average 16.88 
 
 1875--- 
 
 16.74 
 
 England. 
 
 September. 
 
 
 1875- — 
 
 16.74 
 
 England. 
 
 October --_ "] 
 
 
 1875--- 
 
 16.75 
 
 England. 
 
 November- 
 
 > Average 16.79 
 
 1875- — 
 
 16.89 
 
 England. 
 
 December- J 
 
 
 1876- — 
 
 17.08 
 
 England. 
 
 January -_- ^ 
 
 
 1876- — 
 
 17.46 
 
 England. 
 
 February-- 
 
 > Average 17.45 
 
 1876- — 
 
 17.82 
 
 England. 
 
 March 
 
 
 1876- — 
 
 17.69 
 
 England. 
 
 To April 12. 
 
 17.69 
 
 We now come to the next important change in the history 
 of money and the standard — the era of the silver-bearing 
 mines of the Comstock lode, of the demonetization of silver 
 in several important countries of continental Europe, and 
 its demonetization in the United States through the agency 
 of the act of 1873. 
 
 This era opened in 1862 with the exportation of the en- 
 tire stock of silver, as well as other coin, of the United 
 States, consequent upon the adoption of an unrepresenta- 
 tive paper currency by the act of February 25th of that 
 year. In the same year also occurred the discovery of 
 the great silver-bearing mines of Washoe. 
 
 The ratio of silver to gold in the markets of the world 
 was thus threatened with depression from two causes acting 
 simultaneously: 1. The demonetization of a large stock of 
 coin by an important country ; 2. The discovery of new 
 and very productive silver mines. It was not forgotten by 
 financiers that, together with our silver, we demonenzed 
 a much more valuable stock of gold, nor that Washoe was 
 still in its incipiency. Therefore, it was not until 1863 or 
 1864 that the bearing of the events of 1862 upon the prob- 
 able future ratio of silver and gold began to be discussed 
 in Europe. Their bearing, however, was not wholly dis- 
 missed from consideration, and as the Washoe mines gave 
 more and more promise of great production, discussion 
 in Europe with regard to the tendency of the ratio became 
 more and more common.
 
 58 
 
 In England the anticipated decline of silver was regadred 
 with great complacency. It was a veritable windfall for 
 her plutocracy ; a parachute to retard the previously 
 threatening decline in the purchasing power of gold; a 
 governor to that engine of their own construction, which 
 they had built in 1816 and regretted since 1848. 
 
 As the great mines of AYashoe became further devel- 
 oped tlie continental plutocracy also began to prick up its 
 ears. It was at this period organized and formidable, 
 which is more than can be said of it in 1848, when the 
 Red flaff flaunted in its face from every corner of Europe. 
 France was now an empire; Italy a united kingdom; 
 Greece a newly fledged monarchy. The plutocrats of 
 these countries could have their own way now. 
 
 Nature, steam, and the Comstock lode labored for man- 
 kind; the silver treasures of the Sierra Nevada began to 
 make themselves felt in the coinages; the gold product 
 fell oft", and gold went up to nearly 16 of silver. It was 
 therefore in the interests of the plutocracies to demonetize 
 silver and adopt gold as the sole standard of value, and they 
 endeavored to convince society that gold alone was the 
 true standard. 
 
 The reading world was flooded with pamphlets and 
 magazine articles on the subject, penned by the highest 
 order of talent, which, too often neglected by the people, 
 is forced to ally itself with power; conventions, with cut- 
 and-dried programmes, were called to discuss the matter; 
 advocates were employed and charlatans retained to drown 
 with the clamor o± numbers the modest voices of science, 
 equity, and reason. Another motive urged the plutocracies 
 to their course. So long as silver was harbored as a legal 
 tender in Europe, the United States, by being the principal 
 producer of that metal, might become the money center of 
 the world — a matter of no little concern to London, Paris, 
 and Berlin. 
 
 An international monetary convention was held in Paris 
 in 1865, and a treaty concluded between France, Belgium, 
 Italy, and Switzerland, in which Greece and Roumania
 
 59 
 
 subsequently joined, by virtue of which these countries so 
 limited the mintage of their legal tender silver coins as 
 to prepare to make gold their sole standard of value, and 
 partially demonetize silver. Taught by previous expe- 
 rience, they did not actually demonetize silver, but left the 
 law in such a condition that by a concerted change in the 
 coinage regulations, either gold or silver, if need be, could 
 be made the sole legal tender, and by adopting whatever 
 happened to be for the time, the dearer metal, a see-saw 
 between silver and gold could be kept up for the benefit 
 of plutocracy at every change of market relation. 
 
 There can be no see-saw unless tlie legal relation between 
 the metals is permanently fixed and unalterable. When 
 fhis relation is altered from time to time, as it should be, 
 (once in ten or twenty years would practically be often 
 enough,) to accord with the slow fluctuations of the mar- 
 kets, neither the creditor who would demand the dearer 
 metal, nor the debtor who would profler the cheaper metal, 
 could profit by having his choice. But when the relation 
 is unalterably fixed or difficult to alter, as is the case in 
 France, then the creditor who receives in the metal that 
 abroad commands a premium, or the debtor who pays in 
 the one that can be purchased abroad at a discount in 
 the one which is the legal tender, derives an advantage. 
 It is the monkey and the cheese between the two cats. 
 
 This treaty of 1865 was to last until 1880, and with cer- 
 tain modifications is still in force. England did not enter 
 into it. Gold was now to become dearer, and in her pres- 
 ent political condition, when popular interests have the 
 power to be heard, her plutocrats feared to open a question 
 which might overthrow the advantages they already pos- 
 sessed. England had a single and peremptory gold stand- 
 ard. Why should she enter into a treaty which would 
 make her a party to only a permissive gold standard, a 
 standard which, practically, when the treaty expired, and 
 before gold fell in price again, might be changed by a 
 concerted coinage regulation? 
 
 But although British plutocracy saw nothing to be gained
 
 60 
 
 by entering into the monetary treaty of 1865, it saw some- 
 thing to be gained by attending the Congress which pre- 
 ceded tlie treaty and the subsequent convention which was 
 held in 1867 with the view to extend the operation of the 
 treaty. That something was to draw the United States 
 into the treaty, the United States which were, as yet, not 
 bound to a gold standard at all, either permissive or obliga- 
 tory. 
 
 Accordingly England sent her delegates to both conven- 
 tions. They were instructed to say nothing which would 
 bind England, but to carefully watch and report the proceed- 
 ings until, I presume, the hands of the United States were 
 fairly into the lire and the chestnuts safely landed for the 
 benefit of the ruling classes of England. These instructions 
 were carried out with great skill. The Frenchmen arranged 
 the programme, the Germans did the arguing and philos- 
 ophizing, the Englishmen listened, and the American dele- 
 gate, overcome by the plutocratical atmosphere that sur- 
 rounded him, walked straight into the trap that had been 
 set for him. The convention was called for the nominal pur- 
 pose of unitizing the weights of the coins of various nations. 
 Its real object, which it fully accomplished, was to commit 
 the United States to the adoption of the gold standard while 
 gold was growing dearer, so that the interest and principal 
 of her public, corporate, and mercantile indebtedness, held 
 mainly in Europe, which was then under our laws payable 
 in the silver dollar of 371J grains pure, should be made 
 payable in the temporarily more valuable gold dollar of 
 23.22 grains pure. Of course the United States was not 
 bound by this vote of its delegate in the International 
 Monetary Convention, but the vote had its influence. It 
 tended to sway the judgment of the Congress of the United 
 States when the question came up, that is to say, tended to 
 sway it so far as it was called into exercise at all. 
 
 DEBATE ON THE AMERICAN DEMONETIZATION ACT OF 1873. 
 
 But the manner in which this legislation was effected
 
 61 
 
 leaves but little reason to infer that any deliberate judg- 
 ment was exercised on this important subject of the 
 standard, or that the question was ever so presented to 
 the American people as to elicit the indorsement or the 
 approval of any single congressional constituency. The 
 bill by which it was effected, originated, as I understand 
 it, in another bill which was introduced into the House of 
 Representatives, February 9, 1872. It was discussed for a 
 few moments on April 9, 1872. Then the discussion was 
 cut short, and a substitute, the present law, reported by 
 title on May 27, and passed without a reading, under a 
 suspension of the rules, Ma}' 29, 1872. From the House 
 it went to the Senate, where, without any discussion at all 
 upon the all-important section fourteen, it passed ; and, 
 after concurrence bv the House, ag-ain without a discus- 
 siou, became a law. 
 
 I am aware that it has been stated that the bill was 
 passed after very full discussion on this subject: but I am 
 unable to find a corroboration of this statement in the 
 ofiicial report of the proceedings. If any such full dis- 
 cussion appears in the Record, 1 shall be glad to have it 
 pointed out, in order that I may correct the impression 
 now on my mind in respect of this matter. 
 
 This bill was originally reported to the House of Repre- 
 sentatives February 9, 1872, from the Committee on Coin- 
 age, Weights, and Measures, by its chairman, Mr. Hooper,, 
 of Massachusetts. It was discussed for the first time April 
 9, 1872, when Mr. Eooper informed the House that Mr. 
 Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer on coins, 
 had examined the first draft of the bill and " furnished 
 many valuable suggestions which have been incorporated 
 in the bill." Curiousl}^ enough, Mr. Seyd is an uncompro- 
 mising advocate of the double standard, and it is to be 
 regretted that having received Mr. Seyd's advice, the 
 committee only saw fit to follow it wherein it was entirely 
 unessential and to disregard it in its most important fea- 
 ture. Mr. Hooper then assured the House with regard to 
 section fourteen, where the standard was changed by impli-
 
 62 
 
 cation from the double to a single gold one, that the reason 
 for this chancre was that the silver dollar was worth $1.03, a 
 mere accidental and temporary fact which afforded no 
 sound reason for abandoning the double standard. Subse- 
 quent events have proved that the option which we then 
 enjoyed of paying in silver or gold dollars at pleasure was 
 of the highest importance to the American people, and 
 should not have been surrendered. Even if the fact as to 
 the premium on the silver dollar were permanent and 
 assured, the simple remedy would have been to change the 
 legal relation between gold and silver. 
 
 Mr. Hooper also stated that the single gold standard had 
 been adopted in Great Britain and most of the European 
 countries, which latter statement was certainly not correct. 
 (Cong. Record, 2d Sess., 42d Cong., part 3, p. 2305.) 
 
 Mr. Stoughton, who followed Mr. Hooper, repeated the 
 statement that the silver dollar was worth, he said, 3^ per 
 cent, premium. (P. 2309.) 
 
 Mr. Kelle}^ who followed Mr. Stoughton, said it was 
 worth 3i per'cent.. (Pp. 2311 and 2316.) 
 
 Mr. Potter, of ^ew York, appeared to be the only mem- 
 ber, beside the movers, who suspected the real character of 
 the bill. He said, (p. 2310:) " I confess that the introduc- 
 tion of the bill at such a period (during a suspension of 
 specie payments) excited ray suspicion. I was and am at a 
 loss to gather from anything I know or can learn that there 
 is any necessity for the adoption of this measure now," 
 Among the objections he had to the bill was that "it pro- 
 vides for the making of changes in the legal tender coin of 
 the country, and f)r substituting as legal tender, coin of 
 only one metal, instead as heretofore of two." (P. 2310.) 
 Finally he stigmatized the bill as a cover, and that it was 
 "gotten up to be a cover," among other things, for the 
 coinage of nickel pieces in order to enhance the market 
 value of nickel and benefit the monopolizers of nickel 
 mines and processes. (P. 2312,) 
 
 And the impartial observer at the present time finds it
 
 63 
 
 difficult to account for the introduction of such a bill when 
 specie payments were suspended and unprovided for, un- 
 less upon some such ground as Mr. Potter suggested, to 
 wit, either the interest of the owners of nickel mines at 
 home or that of creditors at home or abroad. 
 
 But of what avail was argument or objection? The 
 discussion was cut short by a motion to adjourn, and the 
 discussion was never renewed. The next we hear of the 
 bill is that it was pushed through on the 27th May, under 
 a suspension of the rules, without even a reading, and that 
 it went to the Senate. (P. 3883.) There it was reported 
 by title on the 28th May, referred by title to the Finance 
 Committee on the 29th May, and passed at the following 
 session, without, so far as can be ascertained from the Con- 
 gressional Record, having ever been fully considered. 
 
 \ CAUSES OF THE RELATION OF 15J. 
 
 Turning away from these details to the general history 
 of the relative value of the precious metals, the principal 
 and by far the most important flxct to be observed is the 
 remarkable steadiness which this relation has shown for 
 over two hundred years. 
 
 The question now arises concerning this constancy in 
 the relation in value of gold and silver since the earlj^ part 
 of the seventeenth century. To what is it due? We have 
 seen that this relation has been almost constantly, and with 
 slight variation, 15|. Why has the pivotal point of this 
 relation been just 15|-? Why not 13, as in the days of 
 Herodotus? Why not 12, as in the Feudal Ages? Why 
 did it not fall to 20 when Potosi poured its silver treasures 
 upon the world? In short, why did it center at 15| and 
 remain there? A satisfactory answer to this question 
 cannot ftiil to be important, because it will afford a guide 
 which will enable us to compute the probable variation of 
 the relation between silver and gold in the future. 
 
 Since the opening of the East Indies and China trade in 
 the early part of the seventeenth centurj^ the relation of
 
 64 
 
 gold and silver in the Occident and gold and silver in the 
 Orient became equalized. At the same era, also, the 
 Spanish-American silver mines were opened, and the use 
 of quicksilver in amalgamating ores discovered. These 
 three events changed the pre-existing relations in the 
 whole world. The first raised the value of silver, the sec- 
 ond and third lowered it; the three together placed it at 
 15|, kept it there, and equalized it all over the world. 
 The Oriental trade continues, the American silver mines 
 are still productive, the process of amalgamation is still era- 
 ployed. Therefore the conditions of production and con- 
 sumption are essentially the same as they have been for 
 over two hundred 3^ears. When we consult those condi- 
 tions with the view of determining the cause of the relation 
 between gold and silver, we find that the same quantity of 
 capital, superintendence, labor, or of those commodities 
 necessary to support capitalists, superintendents, and labor- 
 ers, as food, clothing, shelter, &c.,and of materials, such as 
 quicksilver, tools, machines, &c., as are, on the average, 
 employed to extract fifteen-and-a-half pounds of silver 
 from the earth, will only produce one pound of gold. This 
 is the average of all countries and of over two hundred 
 years of trial. It comes to this at last. This is the boiling 
 down of the whole subject. 
 
 It will, of course, be understood that the several rewards 
 of capitalists, superintendents, and laborers, in other words, 
 their share of production, differs in various countries, and 
 has diflJered at various periods ever since the opening of 
 India and America. So, also, has the effectiveness of labor- 
 ers. Ilence, the reward of each of these classes of persons 
 has differed enormously. But, as under the same difficul- 
 ties of production — and these have not changed as between 
 the metals during the past two centuries, and are not likely 
 to change in the future — the sum total of their contribu 
 tions to the work has been the same, it follows that, as 
 before stated, it is the total outlay of capital and labor, 
 applied respectively to gold and silver, that has determined 
 the relation of value between them.
 
 65 
 
 When, at any given time or in any given country, the 
 same outlay of capital, labor, materials, etc., that is suffi- 
 cient to result in the production of one pound of gold, if 
 removed from gold and applied to silver mining, will pro- 
 duce more than 15| pounds of silver, the labor, materials, 
 etc., will be removed from the production of gold to that 
 of silver. When, at another time or in S,nother place, the 
 outlay sufficient to result in the production of 15| pounds 
 of silver if devoted, instead, to gold, will produce a frac- 
 tion more than one pound of gold, it will, as a matter of 
 course, be devoted to gold. The same laborers and the 
 same capital, plant, tools, materials, etc., are not always 
 removed from one industry to the other. One industry 
 ceases in one place ; the other may spring up in another 
 place. It amounts to the same thing either way. These 
 changes do not occur on the instant; they come about in 
 time. When mines cease to be profitable at the long- 
 established relation in value of silver and gold — a relation 
 that finds its reflection in the prices of the services and 
 commodities necessary to carry on the works — they are 
 not abandoned at once, but continued in the hope of im- 
 provement. If no such improvement occurs they must 
 eventually stop, for men will not and cannot go on forever 
 losing money at mining. 
 
 This, then, is the basic reason for the long time relation 
 in value of silver and gold. The average result of over two 
 hundred years of experiment in all partsof the world assures 
 us that 15J pounds of silver and 1 pound of gold are 
 equivalents, and this assurance is as solidly supported in 
 respect of the future as we find it in respect of the past. 
 N"ow that the most remote parts of the world are connected 
 by commerce, nothing can weaken it, unless it were pos- 
 sible that some very great and peculiar improvement in 
 mining or the recovery of ores could take place in respect 
 of one metal and not of the other. For example, suppose 
 an improved method of extracting or recovering gold was 
 devised which was inapplicable to silver: then gold would 
 be produced more cheaply than now and silver would rise
 
 66 
 
 in value, or vice versa, in case the improvement could be 
 applied to silver and not to gold. 
 
 But this is impossible: first, because the nature and 
 qualities of the two metals are so nearly alike that any im- 
 provement applicable to the extraction or recovery of one 
 must appl}^ also to the other ; and, second, because the 
 geological distribution of the two metals is such that, in 
 many of the large deposits of the world, they lie together 
 in the same matrix. They must therefore be taken out 
 together, and the quartz which contains them both, must 
 be crushed, amalgamated, separated, and refined by one 
 and the same process. The quartz matrices of the mines 
 of the Sierra xTevadas generally contain about 1,000 Troy 
 grains of gold to every 24,000 grains of silver, or about 
 40 per cent, iu value of gold to 60 per cent, in value of 
 silver, and the proportion in other great silver mines of 
 the world varies from 20 to 50 per cent, in value of gold 
 to that of the two metals combined. 
 
 Here, then, we liave an unalterable reason why all im- 
 provements iu the art of mining the precious metals must 
 apply equally to both of them, and also why, indeed, so 
 long as one metal is produced, so must be the other. 
 Coupled with that of the relative cost of producing them, 
 as ascertained from an experience of several centuries, this 
 fact assures us not only that 15J has been the average re- 
 lation between the metals in the past, but also that it will 
 remain the av^erage relation throughout the future. 
 
 The relation being thus fixed, there are powerful influ- 
 ences to keep it there and prevent it from yielding to any 
 temporary vicissitudes, however prolonged, in the supply 
 of the two several metals, such, for example, as the acci- 
 dental finding of large alluvial deposits or placers of gold, 
 as in the early history of California and Australia. These 
 influences are, first, the vast stock of the precious metals 
 already in existence in the world ; and second, the steady- 
 ins; action of the double standard in the countries where 
 it prevails.
 
 67 
 
 I will discuss these two questions in the order named: 
 First, of: 
 
 THE world's stock OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. 
 
 Estimated stock of the precious metals, in Coin, Plate, <fc., in the 
 World at or about the various periods 1803, 1848-'53, and 
 1872. 
 
 Poriod. Gold. Silver. Total. 
 
 1803 11,800,000,000 ^3,200.000,000 $5,000,000,000 
 
 1848-'53— 2,800,000,000 4,000,000,000 6,800,000,000 
 1872 5,800,000,000 5,600,000,000 11,400,000,000 
 
 Estbnated stock of the precious metals in Coin in the Occidental 
 or Commercial loorld at or about the various periods 1803, 
 1829-'39, 1848-'53, and 1872. 
 
 * 
 
 Period. Gold. Silver. Total. 
 
 1803 $900,000,000 $900,000,000 $1,800,000,000 
 
 1829-'39 800,000,000 1,000,000.000 1,800,000,000 
 
 1848-'53 1,200,000,000 1.300,000,000 2,500,000,000 
 
 1872 2,600,000,000 1,000,000,000 3,600,000,000 
 
 Estimated stock of the precious metals, chiefly silver, in Coin in 
 the Oriental or transcommcreial world at or about the various 
 periods 1803, 1829-39, 1848-'53, and 1872. 
 
 Period. Stock of coin, chieflj- silver. 
 
 1803 $700,000,000 
 
 1829-'39 800,000,000 
 
 1848-53 , 900,000,000 
 
 1872 2,100,000,000 
 
 The above data are derived from a comparison of Er- 
 nest Seyd, Wolowski, Jacob, Newmarch, Chevalier, and 
 McCulloch. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE STOCK OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. 
 
 The influence of this stock of the precious metals is per- 
 haps the most important feature of this whole subject, and 
 yet, so far as I am aware, it has either wholly escaped no- 
 tice or been referred to with but slight appreciation of its 
 consequence.
 
 GS 
 
 STEADYING ACTION OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD. 
 
 The second great influence which tends to keep steady 
 that relation of 15i> to 1 which the commercial brother- 
 hood of the world and the conditions of the production of 
 the preciousmetals have primarily occasioned, is the steady- 
 ing action of the double standard. I can best and most 
 briefly exemplify this action by quoting from Professor 
 Jevons: 
 
 " The prices of commodities do not follow the extreme 
 fluctuations of value of both metals as many writers have 
 inconsistently declared. Prices only depend upon the 
 course of the metal which happens to have sunk in value 
 below the legal rates of 15| to 1, (or wliatever else it may 
 be.) ISTow, if in the accompanjqng ligure we represent by 
 th^ line A the variation of the value of gold as estimated 
 in terms of some third commodity, say copper, and by the 
 Hue B the corresponding variations of the value of silver, 
 then superposing these curves, the line C would be the 
 curve expressing the extreme fluctuations of both metals. 
 Now, the standard of value always follows the metal which 
 falls in value, hence the curve D really shows the course of 
 variation of the standard of value. This line undergoes 
 more frequent undulations than either of the curves of 
 gold or silver, but the fluctuations do not proceed to so 
 great an extent, a point of much greater importance." (W. 
 Stanley Jevons on " Money and the Mechanism of Ex- 
 change," N. Y. Appleton, 1875, p. 138.)
 
 69 
 
 The effect of employiug the two metals together is to 
 modify the action of each. Such dual employment pre- 
 vents one from rising and the other from falling, so that 
 the fluctuations in either '* do not proceed to so great an 
 extent" as they otherwise would. 
 
 GOLD BY ITSELF NOT A COKRECT MEASURE OF VALUE. 
 
 Money is a measure, as the bushel, the rule, and the 
 scale, are measures. The bushel measures capacity, the 
 rule extension, the scale gravity, whilst money measures 
 value. All of these measures are expensive; expensive to 
 produce, expensive to maintain, expensive to preserve. 
 ISTor is money by any means the most expensive, it being 
 deemed quite susceptible of demonstration that, compared 
 with the services it performs, it costs even less than the 
 others. Yet, expensive as they are, their use must never- 
 theless be a source of economy to maukind, or they would 
 certainly not be employed. This employment and the 
 economy to which it is due, ceases, the moment the meas- 
 ures fail of uniformity, definiteness, precision, exactness, 
 and steadiness, for it is in their excellence in these respects 
 that their whole utility resides. 
 
 The discordance of moneys, weights, and measures has 
 probably been in all ages one of the first and greatest ob- 
 stacles which the world's commerce had to overcome, and 
 even the progress of local commerce has had to wait upon 
 uniformity in this respect. Indefinite and unprecise meas- 
 ures are an intolerable evil which men avoid even at the 
 expense of much that is desirable. 
 
 What, then, shall be said of measures that are not only 
 discordant and unprecise, but fluctuating also? What 
 would be said of a bushel that alternately contracted and 
 expanded, and contracted more than it expanded; of a rule 
 of elastic rubber, or a pair of scales with a shifting ful- 
 crum? And what shall be said of a fluctuating measure 
 of value ? 
 
 Yet this is what money is, if gold be regarded to the 
 exclusion of silver.
 
 70 
 
 To be conviuced of this it is only necessary to consider 
 the statistics of the precious metals which have just been 
 adduced. 
 
 From these tables it will be observed that since nearly 
 the beginning of the present century the stock of coin in 
 the commercial world has exactly doubled, that is to say, 
 it has increased from $1,800,000,000 to $3,600,000,000, an 
 increase that very closely corresponds with population — the 
 population of the Occidental world having been 180,000,000 
 ill 1810 and 360,000,000 in 1875.* Taking both of the 
 precious metals together, the stock of coin has been as 
 nearly as possible §10 per capita of population at each of 
 the four dates mentioned since the beginning of the present 
 century. 
 
 At these periods at least, and we have the data for no 
 others, the measure in the commercial world has been 
 apparently unvarying, and this appearance has deceived 
 many writers on the subject; but it is by no means true. 
 
 The effective measure of value is not the whole stock of 
 coin, but that portion of it which the law permits to be ten- 
 dered for the payment of debts. To this should be added the 
 paper substitutes which are from time to time temporarily 
 employed and accepted for the purpose of large payments, 
 and which fluctuate in volume with the vicissitudes of 
 credit and the adoption, transitory operation, and event- 
 ual failure of legislative expedients. f The balance of coin 
 or credit no more form a part of the measure of value than 
 do the precious metals when locked up in the form of 
 plate. i!Tow, how much the legal tender coin and substi- 
 tutes of the commercial world amounted to, at the various 
 dates given, is difficult to estimate. An effort in this direc- 
 tion will, however, be made. 
 
 * Essay in New York Independent, March 11, 1875. 
 
 t If legislation were wholly removed from the subject of money except 
 to announce and fix the relation of the metal? from time to time, and 
 generally as to police functions, we would have both the metals in circu- 
 lation plus an amount of free bank paper, which would bear an almost 
 constant relation to the sum of the metals. The measure of value in 
 such case would be easy to ascertain; as it is, nothing is more difficult.
 
 71 
 
 ESTIMATE OF THE EFFECTIVE MEASURE OF VALUE IN 1803. 
 
 Ill 1803, either the siugle silver, or the double standard 
 prevailed in all the Occidental countries and, except in 
 England, where gold was erroneously overvalued and sil- 
 ver deofraded, it was fixed in those countries at such a 
 relation and the coinage of the pieces so arranged (I do 
 not remember having heard of any silver piece heavier 
 than that of two G-erman thalers) as to permit of the em- 
 ployment of nearly the whole mass of silver and gold coin 
 then in the Occident. There was some legal-tender paper 
 or bank paper afloat, notably in England and Russia, 
 which brought the whole amount up to, say $2,000,000,000, 
 with a ratio of activity, let us assume, of 1. 
 
 ESTIMATE OF THE EFFECTIVE MEASURE OF VALUE IN 1872. 
 
 In 1872 a single gold standard existed in Great Britain; 
 a restricted double standard in the Latin countries; a sin- 
 gle silver standard in other European countries; a disused 
 double standard in the United States and legal-tender 
 paper notes in many of these countries. The sum of all 
 these currencies might amount to $-4,000,000,000, with a 
 ratio of activity of, say 2, making$8,000,000,000 in 1872, with 
 a population of 360,000,000, or $22 per capita, as against 
 $2,000,000,000 in 1803, with a population of 180,000,000, or, 
 $11 per capita. The effective measure of value in the Occi- 
 dental world has, therefore, doubled, since the beginning of 
 this century. 
 
 As it is worth while to ascertain, if possible, how we 
 may obtain a least varying measure of value for the world 
 it becomes necessary for this purpose to turn from the 
 statistics of the Occidental world to those of the whole 
 world. 
 
 THE world's stock OF COIN AND POPULATION. 
 
 Assuming that without royal, seigniorial, or legislative 
 interference, the relation of the mass of private credit 
 current for money, to the mass of money, would be con-
 
 72 
 
 staut, let U8 confine our observation to the stock of metal 
 money in the World. In 1803, with a population of, say 
 900,000,000, it was $2,500,000,000 ; in 1829, with a popu- 
 hition of, say 1,000,000,000, it was $2,600,000,000; in 
 1818-53, with a population of, say 1,100,000,000, it was 
 $3,100,000,000 ; and in 1872, with a population of, say, 
 1,200,000,000,* it was $5,700,000,000. 
 
 SWELLING OF THE MEASURE OF VALUE SINCE 1803. 
 
 These figures give an average of coin per capita throughout 
 the workr amounting to $2.83, $2.60, $3.09, and $4.75, at 
 the respective periods named. If tlio assumptions of popu- 
 lation here employed are admitted to be even approxim- 
 ately correct, then, even without reckoning the greater 
 activity of money now than formerly, it would follow that 
 there has been no more fixedness in the relation of the 
 ^Yorld's coin and population than there has been in that 
 of the efiiective measure of value and population of the 
 Occident. They have both doubled, or about doubled, 
 since the beginning of the century— doubled per capita of 
 population. The coin of the world per capita and the effec- 
 tive measure of value of the Occident per capita {i. e., the 
 coin and circulating credit of the Occident combined) have 
 both doubled. 
 
 What has caused this doubling, this unsteadiness of the 
 measure of value ? Has it been due to diminution in the 
 population of the world ? No. We know that J:he popu- 
 lation of the Occidental world has more than doubled 
 since the beginning of the century, while the figures 
 assumed for the Oriental world exhibit a very small 
 increase. t 
 
 * BL'hm and Wagaer sum np the population of Mic world for 1872 at 
 1,301,000,000, but in this tliey include China at -446,000,000. There is no 
 authority for this extravagant ligure besides tliat of the Chinese man- 
 darin's communication to Lord Macartney in 170.>. It was therein stated 
 Jit 333,000,000, which was probably excessive by more than one-half. 
 (:;ousnlt the numerous and mucli more reliable estimates in Malte-Brun's 
 Geography. 
 
 I .Japan increases very slightly. As to India and Cliina, they are 
 p robably stationary.
 
 73 
 
 Has it been due to superabundance in the stock of silver? 
 No. That stock was $1,600,000,000 in 1803 ; .$1,800,000,- 
 000 in 1829; $2,200,000,000 in 1848, and $3,100,000,000 
 in 1872. Its ratio to population has been, as the ratio of 
 money to population always should be, a slightly increas- 
 ing one; bat the relation has been substantially constant. 
 
 THE MEASURE OF VALUE SWOLLEN BY GOLD. 
 
 The swelling of the measure of value has been due to an 
 enormous increase in the stock of gold. This amounted 
 to $1,800,000,000 in 1803, and twenty-six years afterwards 
 it had not increased. .During the next nineteen years it 
 increased 50 per cent., and during the following twenty- 
 four years it increased 116 per cent, over the previous 
 increase. In 1848 it was $1,200,000,000, in 1872 it was 
 $2,600,000,000; by the end of the present century it will 
 probably have fallen again to $2,200,000,000, perhaps to 
 $2,000,000,000. So much for a metal which depends upon 
 placer mining for its chief supplies. 
 
 This is the steady and unvarying measure of value to 
 which the advocates of the single gold standard would 
 commit us ! 
 
 So far as steadiness is concerned, and irrespective of all 
 other considerations, gold does not deserve to be used as 
 money at all, and the old nations of Asia, who tried this 
 metal more than thirty centuries ago, appear to have long 
 since come to this conclusion ; but the gradual increase of 
 the mass of silver and the weight of the coins, together 
 with the fact that gold frequently occurs with silver in the 
 same matrix, give a place to gold which the unsteadiness 
 of its supply would otherwise deny to it. 
 
 ANNUAL PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER SEPARATELY. 
 
 The validity of the statistics which have been quoted rests 
 upon authorities — Wolowski, Seyd, Chevalier, McCulloch, 
 and Jacob — whom the reading world has thus far been 
 satisfied to accept as safe guides. The important and con-
 
 •74 
 
 elusive deductions drawn from them are, however, not 
 without an amplitude of other support. Thej' are to be 
 drawn also from the statistics of the annual production of 
 the precious metals, the validity of which will admit of but 
 little question. 
 
 Estimated anmial production of the precious metals througTioid the entire 
 icorld [exclusive of India, China, and Japan *) at various periods during 
 the nineteenth century. Sums in millions of dollars and tenths. 
 
 Period. Gold. Silver. Total. Authority. 
 
 ISOOf - 3G.3 \ 10 -? J I'liillip^- 
 
 1801 13.0 - J • \Birkmvre. 
 
 1S29 5.0 20.0 2.5.0 Estimate based on McCulloch-t 
 
 1846§ 29.2 32. .5 61.7 McCnlloch's Die. of Commerce. 
 
 1848 67.5 - - WestminsterEeview, Jan., 1876. 
 
 18.5011 93.2 43.9 137.1 McCulloch. 
 
 1851 120.0 - - Westminster Review, .Jan., 1876. 
 
 1852 182.5 40.5 223.0 Joura.de3Economistes,Mar'76. 
 
 1852 193.7 - - WestminsterEeview. Jan., 1876. 
 
 1853 155.0 40.5 195.5 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1853 - - 160.0 Blake. 
 
 1854 - 47.4 - Wliitney, by countries, App. 
 
 Cycl., XV, 53, new edition. 
 
 *No mines in India. (McCulloch in Encyc. Biit. Ed., 1858, p. 470.) Gold mines in 
 China, but not worked (-172) for the reason, according to Sir R. Murehison, that il would 
 conflict with Chinese theory relative to maintaining "balance of the circulating med- 
 ium." Otre.<;ehoflF estimated total yield of precious metals in China, India, Japan, &c., 
 in 1854 at $30.00i),000 a. year, but this is evidently too high. Whitney estimates the gold 
 product of all Southern Asia at $000.1)00 a year. Perhaps, in view of Newmarch's state- 
 ment, (Tooke, vi, 723,) that the specie (coin, trinkets, &c..) in India amounts to £400,- 
 000,000. of which say one-half is in coin, and aliowiug same for China and Japan, total 
 coin in Southern .\s"ia S2,O0o,000,OOO— the total product of Southern Asia may be approx- 
 imately as follows: Silver 2'.i, gold 1, total 30. Allowing one and a half per cent, per 
 annum for wear and loss of coin, it would require at least this amount to keep up tlie 
 stock, while European and .\merican supplies would be needed for the arts and to 
 make provision for increasing population. Adding these sums to the above estimate 
 for 1874 we have the following grand total annual production for the entire world — 
 sums in millions of dollars : 
 
 1874. Gold. Silver. Total. 
 
 The world exclusive of Southern A.sia 90.5 71.5 1G2.0 
 
 Southern Asia 1.0 29.0 30.0 
 
 91.5 100.5 192.0 
 
 t Estimated by Raymond (Rep. of 1S75) 15 gold and 40 silver: but this estimate, though 
 not very wide of tlie murk, is without authority. Phillips gives details by countries. 
 
 J McCulloch states (and in this he agrees with all other authors) that the lowest point 
 of production was reached in 1829. He states that Mexico and South America together 
 only produced of both metals $20,000,000, chiefly silver, and that very little was else- 
 where produced. Allowing $5,000, OiO for what was elsewhere produced, crediting tliat 
 $5,000,000 to silver and allowing one-fourth of the American product to have been in 
 gold, (which exceeds the proportion estimated by Jacob for the same period,) I accord 
 to silver $20,000,000 and to gold 35,o00^oOO. 
 
 g Estimated by Raymond at 43 gold and 39 silver; but wide of the mark and without 
 authority. Birkmyre gives details by countries for 31.5 silver. 
 
 II For about this date DeBow, ii, 558^ gives $131,.50O,OO0, gold and silver, as follows: 
 
 California £14,500,000 
 
 Brazil ; 7,000.000 
 
 Russia : 3,350,000 
 
 Great Britain (silver) .5i).ooo 
 
 Asia I,40o,oo0 
 
 8131,500,000 £20,300,000 
 
 Phillips gives details for 43.8 silver. (App. Cyc. sv, 53.)
 
 75 
 
 
 Estimated annual production^ SfC — Continued. 
 
 '^eriod. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Autliority. 
 
 1854 
 
 127.0 
 
 40.5 
 
 167.5 
 
 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1855 
 
 135.0 
 
 40.5 
 
 175.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1856 
 
 147.5 
 
 40.5 
 
 188.0 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 18.57 
 
 133.0 
 
 40.5 
 
 173.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1857 
 
 - 
 
 — 
 
 195.0 
 
 McCulloch. 
 
 1858 
 
 124.5 
 
 40.5 
 
 165.0 
 
 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1859 
 
 124.5 
 
 40.5 
 
 165.0 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1860 
 
 119.0 
 
 40.5 
 
 159.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1861 
 
 114.0 
 
 42.5 
 
 156.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1861 
 
 _ 
 
 56.0 
 
 — 
 
 Soetbeer. 
 
 1862 
 
 107.5 
 
 45.0 
 
 1.52.5 
 
 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1863 
 
 107.0 
 
 49.0 
 
 156.0 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1864 
 
 113.0 
 
 51.5 
 
 164.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1865 
 
 120.0 
 
 52.0 
 
 172.0 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1865 
 
 130.7 
 
 62.3 
 
 193.0 
 
 Blake for sold, 1867; Phillips 
 for silver, 1865. 
 
 1866 
 
 121.0 
 
 50.5 
 
 171.5 
 
 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1867 
 
 — 
 
 53.8 
 
 — 
 
 Blake, by countries, App. Cyc, 
 XV, 53, new edition. 
 
 1867 
 
 116.0 
 
 54.0 
 
 170.0 
 
 Journal des Economistes. 
 
 1868 
 
 120.0 
 
 50.0 
 
 170.0 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1869 
 
 121.0 
 
 47.5 
 
 168.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1870 
 
 116.0 
 
 51.5 
 
 167.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1871 
 
 116.5 
 
 61.0 
 
 177.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1872 
 
 101.5 
 
 65.0 
 
 166.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1873 
 
 103.5 
 
 70.0 
 
 173.5 
 
 H>id. 
 
 1873 
 
 103.5 
 
 76.3 
 
 179.8 
 
 Ibid, for o-old, App. Cyc. forsilv. 
 
 1874 
 
 90.5 
 
 71.5 
 
 162.0 
 
 .lournal des Economistes. 
 
 1875 
 
 97.5 
 
 62.0 
 
 159.5 
 
 Ibid. 
 
 1875 
 
 118.0 
 
 72.0 
 
 190.0 
 
 Estimate.* 
 
 Taking silver by itself, we find that the annual prodac- 
 tion of the Occidental world has bat little more than 
 kept pace with population. It was ^35,000,000 a year at 
 about the beginning of the century; it was 172,000,000 
 a year in 1875. The statistics of its annual production 
 are characterized by the same steadiness that distinguishes 
 its place in the circulation. If gentlemen want details 
 they can have them country by country. There is no guess 
 work here; we are standing upon solid rock. 
 
 Turning to gold we tind that the aimual production has 
 varied enormously. It was $13,000,000 a year in 1801; fell 
 to perhaps not over $5,000,000 in 1829; rose to ^182,- 
 500,000 in 1852; fell to $107,000,000 in 1863; rose to 
 
 *The French estimate is con^idereil to 1)8 at least Sin,000,ono too low for silver. 
 Silver ia the United States I'or ISTo was S-i.Oi)u,0(X» more than in 186S. The French esti- 
 mate is also believed to bj too low I'or gold.
 
 76 
 
 $130,000,000 in 1865, and fell to ^97,500,000 in 1875, and 
 with a downward tendency. 
 
 And yet this wildly fluctuating, ruinonsly unsteady metal 
 is what the fledglings of political economy, the charlatans 
 of monetary conventions, and the numerous other dupes of 
 Lombard street would divorce from its natural complement, 
 silver, and have for a sole standard of value. As well 
 have the rack for a measure. It has often served that 
 purpose, only the thing that it measured was not value, 
 but human endurance, and that seems to be about all that 
 gold by itself is capable of measuring. Thirteen million 
 dollars a year in 1801; $5,000,000 in 1829; $182,000,000 
 in 1852 ; $97,500,000 in 1875 ; a wonderful measure of value 
 indeed ! 
 
 Let us suppose for a moment that silver had been de- 
 monetized by the entire commercial world at the same 
 time that England demonetized it, to wit, in 1816, and 
 the commerce, the business, and the vested interests, the 
 daily labor and the time contracts of society, left to adjust 
 themselves in the course of twenty-six years (from 1803 to 
 1829) from a measure of $1,800,000,000 of gold and silver 
 coin, to one of, say, $700,000,000 or $800,000,000 of gold 
 coin ! Recollect that even as it was, the whole of that period 
 was one of bankruptcies and convulsions. Now, let me ask 
 w^hat it would have been, had the evil been aggravated by 
 the adoption of such a gigantic blunder as England set up 
 in 1816 for the imitation of mankind? 
 
 We are upon the eve of another era of the same char- 
 acter. The annual supply of gold has reached its cul- 
 mination. The supplies of gold are falling oft". The river 
 beds of California and Australia have been washed; the 
 surface gold has been secured ; the quartz mines have 
 measuredly used up the paying ore; the water-line has 
 been touched, and below it are only those sulphurets which 
 as yet have not been successfully treated. Beware foreign 
 influence! Beware the example of England! Beware 
 England's fatal blunder of 1816 ! Beware the ruinous 
 eflects that followed close upon its heels ! The causes of
 
 77 
 
 the bankruptcies of 1873, 187-4, 1875, and 1876 may lie in 
 deeper waters than the shallow stream which commenced 
 to flow in October, 1873. They may lie in the shrinkage 
 of ofold — that o-old which the ill-considered act of 1873 
 made the sole measure of values and the sole arbiter of 
 fortunes in the United States. 
 
 For the purpose of testing by comparison the efficienc}* 
 of- gold as a measure of values, let us suppose again that 
 gold was the sole legal tender money of the commercial 
 world in 1848. Will gentlemen attempt to deny that the 
 stock of this metal in the coins of the commercial world 
 more than doubled between that date and 1807 ? If this 
 fact be admitted, must it not be perceived that, with gold 
 as the sole standard of value, prices would have more than 
 doubled during the course of these nineteen years, and 
 that with such a great and sudden enhancement of prices 
 the worth of all vested ititerests, the relations of all con- 
 tracts, the entire distribution of wealth, would have been 
 seriously aflected ? The widow and the orphan, left with a 
 comfortable competence in 1848, might have had to eke out 
 a scanty living in 1867 ; the lessor of 1848 might have been 
 glad to abandon his property rather than pay the taxes 
 and charges of 1867; the rich would have become unde- 
 servedly poor, and the poor undeservedly rich — a very equi- 
 table arrangement, according to some minds, and I confess 
 I am not wholly unbiased that way myself; but I do not 
 forget that I am now addressing the oflicial successors of 
 the authors of the act of 1873. 
 
 Observe, too, the effect which the enormous folly of 
 demonetizing silver in certain States of Europe and in 
 the United States has had upon the currency of Asia. If 
 these statistics have even approximate worth, and there 
 is no reason to subject them to the slightest suspicion of 
 incorrectness, for they rest upon numerous authorities 
 who derived their data from widely-different sources, it 
 will be seen that the currency of Asia has more than 
 doubled since 1848, and probably chiefly since 1862. This 
 currency is estimated to have amounted to ^700,000,000
 
 78 
 
 in 1803, $900,000,000 in 1848, and $2,100,000,000 in 1872, 
 chiefly in silver. So far as we know, and are led to believe, 
 from the character and institutions of the peoples of these 
 eountries, there was little or no increase at all in their 
 numbers up to 1862, if, indeed, there has been an}'' since 
 that date. The increase of their circulatinsr medium has, 
 therefore, been almost absolute, and it must have had the 
 effect of enhancing the present level of prices in those 
 countries three times more than that of 1803. 
 
 No wonder that Mr. Secretary Bristow advises Congress 
 that the abolition of our import duty upon tea has failed 
 to cheapen the price of that article. Wh}^ we should have 
 contributed, as we did contribute, by the suspension act 
 of 1862 and the demonetization act of 1873, to triple the 
 specie prices of everything we have had, and shall have, 
 to buy, from 'China, Japan, and the East Indies, wholly 
 suq^asses the understanding. To men of plain minds it 
 seems to have been the most stupendous folly. 
 
 APOLOGIES FOR SUBSIDIARY COINAGE. 
 
 To these grave charges about tripling prices in Asia 
 there has been a weak and ill-considered reply, to the 
 effect that while Em^-land and her subservient imitators 
 on the continent of Europe and in this country have 
 demonetized silver, as a legal tender for the payment of 
 debts, that metal has, nevertheless, been allowed to re- 
 main in the form of base coin for fractional currency or 
 small change. It seems to have been forgotten that base 
 or token money can onlj' circulate to a small amount. 
 For example, if gold and silver were now equally legal 
 tender in Great Britain, as they were previous to 1717, a 
 large proportion, perhaps one-half, of the whole amount of 
 money now in the kingdom, which is estimated at $575,- 
 000,000, (plus ^5,000,000 of copper,) would be of silver, 
 which, at the present moment, is the cheaper metal, at the 
 relation of \h\. In France, in 1860, where the double 
 standard prevailed, and when gold was the cheaper metal ^ 
 at the legal relation of 15^, a large portion of the entire
 
 79 
 
 metallic currency was of gold,* But instead of the cur- 
 rency of England being entirely of silver, at the present 
 time there are in that country $500,000,000 of gold and 
 only $75,000,000 of silver (tokens) in circulation.! This 
 result is due to the demonetization of silver, and from this 
 cause some $200,000,000 of silver, which woukl otherwise 
 hold place in the money of that country, have either been 
 melted up or exported; reduced either to plate or shipped 
 to Asia; in the one case lost almost irretrievably to civil- 
 ization, so far as its agency in measuring values and 
 stimulating industry is concerned; in the other gone to 
 help add to the strength and commercial resources of a 
 semi-barbarous world. 
 
 But far more important than this is the consideration 
 that the substance of which coins are made and the sub- 
 stance of which the standard is composed are altogether 
 different matters. The coins of a country may be made 
 of gold or silver ; yet if wheat were made the standard 
 of value, that is to say, if the coins were payable on demand 
 in wheat, the prices of other commodities would fluctuate 
 not with the vicissitudes of coinage nor even of the stock 
 and production of the precious metals, but with those of 
 the stock and production of wheat. Coins of this charac- 
 ter would merely be tokens, promises to pay (wheat) 
 stamped on gold or silver; of tliis character are the silver 
 coins of England, and the silver half dollars, quarters, and 
 dimes of the United States. They are mere tokens, and, 
 except at times when they rose in value (in the standard) 
 60 as to be worth melting or exporting, the metal of which 
 they were composed would pi-actically be demonetized. 
 
 SUBSIDIARY COINAGE NOT WHAT IS WANTED. 
 
 It is not merely urged by the advocates of the double 
 standard that silver should have that subordinate place in 
 the currency which is the utmost that can be filled by a token 
 coinage, and which could be filled to a certain extent as well 
 
 *Seycl. tJevons.
 
 80 
 
 by any baser metal or even perhaps by paper; it is not 
 merely asked that silver shall be granted the same sort of 
 reeoo-nition that is vouchsafed in social life to a menial; it 
 is demanded that it shall be accorded the same rank in 
 which gold has been maintained ; the rank to which the 
 great place of silver in the coins of the world, its universal 
 distribution and appreciation, its ample and steady supply, 
 its twin-birth, its utility and adaptability, and its worth as 
 a measure of value, entitle it. With a double standard 
 wisely fixed, all the moderately large payments would be 
 made in gold and all the smaller ones in silver, just as for 
 moderately large quantities of liquids the oaken hogshead 
 is employed, and for smaller ones, the tin gallon. By 
 forcibly interdicting oak you might compel hogsheads to be 
 measured by the tin gallon, just as by interdicting tin you 
 might force gallons to be measured by the oaken hogs- 
 head. What is demanded for silver is that it shall be 
 left free to assume its own rank in the currency, so that 
 whenever it temporarily becomes the cheaper metal at the 
 average relation to gold, it may for the time possess that same 
 influence in modifying the measure of value that has been 
 always so zealously accorded to it when it became the 
 dearer. 
 
 THE FLUCTUATIONS IN GOLD DUE CHIEFLY TO PLACER MINING. 
 
 It will not do to rejoin to this that the probabilities of 
 gold again becoming the metal in more plentiful supply, 
 are remote. Even if true, this reply would confess the 
 very selfishness of the champions of the gold standard 
 which they have been so solicitious to conceal in the solem- 
 nity of their monetary conventions and the surreptitious 
 character of their measures of legislation. But it is not 
 true. Although at the present time the annual supplies of 
 gold are falling off, it is iiTipossible to predict how long 
 this movement may last. While silver is essentially the 
 product of industry and enterprise, gold is largely that of 
 adventure and chance. This results from the physical fact 
 that the last named metal is nearly always found in allu-
 
 81 
 
 vial deposits or placers, and it is from these sources that 
 the bulk of the world's stock of gold has been obtained ; 
 this is never the case with silver. 
 
 aOLD AT PRESENT CHIEFLY A BRITISH PRODUCT. 
 
 These facts bring under our consideration another im- 
 portant matter in connection with the history of the pre- 
 cious metals separately. It is this: that at the present time 
 and for the main part the supplies of gold to the world are 
 chieiiy from British countries or countries subject to Brit- 
 ish domination. The followinir table will illustrate this 
 very significant statement : 
 
 & 
 
 Estimated annual gold yrodact of the world at latest dates for 
 which the statistics are attainable in the various official reports. 
 
 The United States, 1875 §26,000,000 
 
 Australia, etc., 1872 $58,000,000 
 
 British Columbia 2,000,000 
 
 Canada and Nova Scotia 500,000 
 
 Other British Possessions and 
 British isles 1,500,000 
 
 Total British Possessions 62,000,000 
 
 Balance of the world 30,000,000 
 
 Total world $118,000,000 
 
 Proportion of the world's production from 
 
 British Possessions (per cent) 52|^ 
 
 From this table it will be observed that of the $118,000,- 
 000, which represent the annual gold product of the world 
 521 per cent, -y^ras obtained in countries over which the Brit- 
 ish flag waved or which were subject to British domination. 
 
 Is this, then, the secret of British plutocratical solicitude 
 for the single gold standard ? Is it not only that the peo- 
 ple of Great Britain shall have the rewards of their labor 
 measured by this diminishing measure, which is to be held 
 tightly grasped in the monopolizing and cruel hands of 
 their plutocratic lords, but that the labor of the entire civil- 
 ized world shall be measured by it also? For one, I reply 
 6
 
 82 
 
 to this, never ! And when this subject shall be fully under- 
 stood by the American people, the reply that I now make 
 should echo and reverberate throughout the whole length 
 and breadth of this great land. Never ought we, never 
 will we, submit to have our labor and enterprise measured 
 by a standard subject to the manipulation and pleasure of 
 a foreign nation, and of a class hostile to the genius of our 
 institutions. 
 
 THE DOUBLE STANDARD FOR THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Hitherto the double standard has been alluded to with 
 reference to its great superiority as a measure of value for 
 the exchanges of the world. I now propose to treat it 
 solely or chiefly with reference to the aflairs of the United 
 States. 
 
 Many of the considerations adverted to in connection 
 with its superiority as a measure of value for all nations 
 apply with equal, and sometimes more than equal, force to 
 this nation. Briefly recapitulated they are mainly as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 The convenience of employing gold for moderately large 
 payments and of silver for smaller ones induces both metals 
 to be employed as money, whether one or the other, or 
 both or neither, are made the standard of value. The vio- 
 lent aberrations in the annual supplies of gold, the steadi- 
 ness of silver, the often deficient and sometimes exce>sive 
 supplies of the one, and the always ample supplies of the 
 other, forbid us to rely upon one as a standard of value to 
 the exclusion of the other, and particularly when that one 
 is gold. And this objection to gold as the sole standard 
 of value obtains additional force at a time like the present, 
 when its annual supply is diminishing every year, it-s dis- 
 tribution throughout the world is narrowing, and its pro- 
 duction is at the mercy of the arms and legislation of a 
 single powerful nation and a class hostile to the growth 
 and prosperity of republican communities. 
 
 Another basic consideration is the stock of precious
 
 83 
 
 metals in possession of the world, the product of many 
 centuries of toil, abstinence, contention, suffering, and 
 sacriiice. It is this stock which measures prices. Xearly 
 one-half of it consists of silver. To demonetize this half 
 will reduce all prices one-half and convulse every country 
 in the world, except those which may refuse to take part 
 in such demonetization. 
 
 Beyond these considerations, however, there are others 
 which apply with peculiar force to the present time and to 
 our own country. These will be treated in their proper 
 order. 
 
 EFFECTS UPON THE DEBTOR AND CREDITOR CLASSES. 
 
 First, with regard to the effect of the standard on the 
 debtor and creditor classes. 
 
 At the outset, let it be premised to the great honor and 
 glory of our country that, in the sense in which the term 
 is used in England, we have no debtor and creditor classes. 
 Notwithstanding the tendency of the national debt and of 
 the other financial scars which the recent great civil con- 
 flict has left upon the war-worn features of the nation, we 
 have no permanent debtors and creditors. The man who 
 is a debtor to-day becomes a creditor to-morrow, and the 
 creditor of to-morrow becomes the debtor of next day after 
 to-morrow. We are all in the same boat in this country : 
 all struggling, toiling, risking, winning, or losing. There 
 are no hereditary privileges, no entailed estates, no perma- 
 nently vested interests. Misadventure, death, unexpected 
 legislation, in a word, a thousand agencies, are continually 
 at work to redistribute wealth and redistribute poverty; 
 whilst a free soil, boundless natural resources, thoroughly 
 diffused and abundant education, and a universal spirit of 
 enterprise, contribute to increase our stock of wealth; so 
 that while the gifts of fortune are being continually redis- 
 tributed, those of intelligence and industry, which are 
 always fairly distributed at the outset, are being added to 
 them — an equalizing reservoir with an already equalized 
 and always rising level.
 
 84 
 
 Therefore, the remarks which will now be devoted to the 
 consideration of the respective equities of the debtor and 
 creditor classes will apply with far less cogency to the 
 afiairs of this country than to those of any other. 
 
 It was not complained by the debtor class, when the act 
 of 1873 was passed, that it would tend to favor the interests 
 of the creditor class, as it undoubtedly did. Why was no 
 complaint made? Because the act was so drawn that it 
 apparently related only to the technical regulation of the 
 mints, and gave no notice, either from its title or its text 
 that that far graver measure — a change of the standard of 
 value — was proposed. There is no mention of the term 
 " standard of value " in the act; there is not even mention 
 made of tlie silver legal tender dollar which the act abol- 
 ished. ISToue but those fully conversant with the history 
 of our legislation upon the subject of money, none but 
 those who were familiar with the details and principles of 
 the long-forgotten act of 1792 and subsequent legislation, 
 could have understood the full purport of the important 
 changes of legislation which the passage of the act of 
 1873 involved. 
 
 Moreover, specie payments had been suspended for 
 eleven years, nor, for more than two years aftervyard, was 
 there any provision made for resumption, and resump- 
 tion appeared so far off in 1872, that is to say, at the 
 time the Demonetization Act was introduced into Con- 
 gress, that the effects of demonetization, coupled with 
 those of resumption, were not realized or anticipated. 
 The silver dollar had not been coined at our mints for 
 many years, and during the fall of gold subsequent to 
 1848 had gone out of circulation, except for the payment 
 of ground-rents in Philadelphia and elsewhere, and for 
 the purposes of the Asiatic trade. The demonetization o^ 
 the silver dollar at such a period was, like a stab in the 
 dark, unexpected, unseen, and not to be felt until too late 
 to be averted. 
 
 There was, therefore, no notice to the debtor class, who 
 are always the poorer class, and, therefore, the more uu-
 
 85 
 
 merous and widespread, the least organized, the least pro- 
 tected by the law, the least courted by ambition or favored 
 by power. 
 
 In the absence of such complaint from the debtors in 
 1873, in the absence of any notice which was practically 
 accessible to them of the supernal importance of the change 
 proposed, what right would now the creditor class possess 
 to object to the rehabilitation and restoration of the double 
 standard ? Clearly none whatever. 
 
 I do not speak now of the creditors of the Government, 
 whose status in respect of the coin in which their claims are 
 to be paid is not proposed to be discussed; I speak of cred- 
 itors generally. In view of the concealed effects of the de- 
 monetization act of 1873, in view of the fact that resump- 
 tion was not provided for until 1875, in view of the utter 
 absence of complaint from the debtor class when the demon- 
 etization act was passed, what right or even shadow of 
 right has any class of creditors now to object to the mone- 
 tization of the silver dollar ? The Demonetization Act was 
 not passed at their solicitation any more than it was passed 
 with the knowledge or concurrence of the debtors. It was 
 not a contract between the Government and the people. 
 It was a mere caprice of legislation, which could be undone, 
 which, in deference to public policy and justice, should be 
 undone, and which, under our organic law, which, as I 
 hope presently to show, raises the double standard far 
 above the province of legislation, must be undone. 
 
 But putting all this aside and looking at the question 
 purely as an economical and political one, and without 
 reference either to its merits or its history, both of which 
 80 emphatically decide in favor of the double standard, let 
 us see which class it is that, when benefits or advantages 
 are to be dispensed, a wise and particularly a republican 
 Government should favor. 
 
 Is it the creditor class, who consist to some extent of 
 capitalists whose estates were hereditary, of others whose 
 estates were the result of chance, unexpected death, 
 unlooked-for legislation, or extraordinary and unforeseeable
 
 86 
 
 events? Is it the creditor class, whose garnered capital rep- 
 resents the results of past labor, perhaps of that of the 
 serf, the slave, the overworked, browbeaten, fagged and 
 famished victim of toil ? Is it the creditor class, who are 
 always allied to an effete conservatism, out of which 
 spring caste and aristocracy and feudal privileges and 
 every other odious form of power, to whom legislative 
 favors shall be granted? Is it the creditor class, who least 
 stand in need of such favors or advantages ? 
 
 To whom shall legislation dispense what small favors it 
 may have to bestow in a country so free and republican as 
 this? Shall it be to the class whose tendencies I have 
 depicted or to the debtor class, to the poor, the needy, the 
 temporarily depressed, the cast-down, the struggling, the 
 toiling, the enterprising, the active, the aspiring, the ever 
 hopeful ? 
 
 Shall the favors of legislation be granted to those who 
 ask for them and fawn and intrigue for them, or to those 
 who never ask, nor fawn, nor intrigue? ■ 
 
 Shall they be granted to those whom we here in 
 Congress do not represent, or to those whom we do ? 
 
 Shall they be awarded to the many whose servants we 
 are, or to the few^ whose servants we are not? For re- 
 member that this is a Government based upon numbers 
 and not upon wealth, and that the States and Common- 
 wealths which are represented in this Chamber are also 
 based upon the principle of numbers, of the greatest good 
 to the greatest number. 
 
 If there are favors to be accorded, let the People have 
 them. It is upon their^ prosperity and welfare that this 
 country, nay the entire world, essentially depends for its , 
 advancement; not upon the patronage of a class. 
 
 NO ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED BY EITHER CLASS. 
 
 But I deny that there are any favors or advantages to be 
 granted by a ic;turn to the double standard. A single 
 standard confers advantages, advantages to the few, whilst
 
 87 
 
 a double standard divides and distributes advantages. This 
 is fully illustrated by Professor Jevon's diagram. The 
 double standard both gives and takes. It strikes a me- 
 dium between the metals, although but one of them may 
 chiefly be employed in the currency, and that, the one of 
 temporarily the lesser purchasing power. There is no 
 practical difference between its effects and those which 
 would flow from the adoption of a single metal which is ad- 
 hered to as the standard forever, a metal which is always 
 in as sufficient supply, and as widely distributed and largely 
 hold as now are both the metals combined, provided such 
 a metal could be found. And whatever iufinitessimally 
 small difference there is, whatever poor crumb of advan- 
 tasre the restoration of the double standard would afford 
 to the debtor class, it bears no comparison at all with the 
 full ration, the stuffed loaf of advantage which the contin- 
 uation of the sinsj-le o^old standard is destined to confer 
 upon the creditor class, while the annual supplies of gold 
 are diminishing in quantity. Whatever advantage there 
 was in the double standard, if it was worth the planning 
 of one class to destroy it, it is due to the interests of the 
 other and the welfare of the nation to restore it. 
 
 Moreover, and from a higher point of view, it is in the 
 long run really to the interest of the creditor class, as well 
 as of that larscer class who are neither creditors nor debt- 
 ors, for us to restore the double standard. It is to the 
 interest of honor, of virtue, of religion, of good-will to 
 all men and peace upon earth. It will tend to save the 
 debtor from despair and the resources which despair iti- 
 vites; from dishonest bankruptcy, from flight, from the 
 sequestration of property, from its malicious and revengeful 
 destruction, from popular agitation, agrarian disturbances, 
 and revolution, and from recourse to "interchangeable 
 bonds" or other covert forms of repudiation. 
 
 I have said that the practical effects of the double stand- 
 ard would be like that of a single metal which is adhered 
 to forever. I meant by this that a single metal adhered to 
 forever would have its ups as well as downs, as England
 
 88 
 
 has had with gold since 1816. It was down with the peo- 
 ple of that country until about the year 1832 or 1837, then 
 slowly up until 1848, then rapidly up until 1865, and since 
 that year slowly down. AVith a double standard, England 
 would have had fewer of these vicissitudes; with the res- 
 toration of our double standard we shall have fewer of 
 them than otherwise. These vicissitudes are clearly trace- 
 able to those disturbances of the double standard which 
 commenced in 1816. They are still unsettled. With their 
 settlement, with the return of nations to that dual employ- 
 ment of gold and silver which was never interrupted until 
 Eno-land saw fit to interrupt it, will doubtless return that 
 era of monetary ease and serenity which characterized the 
 last century, during which the Bank of England rate 
 scarcely varied one-half of one per cent. Bank panics and 
 financial revulsions will disappear, and possibly also the 
 thousand and oue mad schemes of irredeemable paper 
 which necessity and despair have driven men to entertain. 
 But a single standard adhered to forever is something 
 that even were a steady enough and otherwise suitable 
 metal obtainable for the purpose— which is absolutely de- 
 nied—is not to be looked for. It is true that England 
 adhered to gold all through that period so trying to her 
 plutocratical rulers, from 1818 to 1865, but it was not without 
 having often been on the point of abolishing it and resorting 
 to some substance for money the supplies of which did not 
 increase so rapidly. The propositions of Cobden and some 
 of the other writers I have quoted, in favor of adopting 
 wheat, &;c., as standards of value, sulficieutly attest the alarm 
 of the ruling classes. But, fortunately for the people of Eng- 
 land, the popular sufferings of the previous period from 1816 
 to 1830, wlien gold was yearly diminishing in supply, had 
 gone far enough to produce the reaction which the short- 
 sighted and selfish adoption. of the gold standard so richly 
 merited. A stern remembrance of these sufferings was 
 abroad in the land, and forbade any further tampering 
 with the standard. The people said in efiect — 'Said it m the 
 Chartist and the Anti-Corn Law, and the Reform conten-
 
 89 
 
 tions — it was youi* turn a whilo since, it is oars now; 
 stand back aad let's have fair play! The yeomanry of 
 England had arisen from its pauper grave and the voice of 
 power trembled, and was hushed in its presence. 
 
 While these circumstances forbade the desertion of that 
 standard which the plutocracy of 1816 had set up for itself, 
 there is no assurance that they would not again be evoked 
 to prevent a change of the standard from gold to silver 
 should the latter once more become the dearer metal. The 
 plutocracy of England found strong enough arguments to 
 change the standard from the double to the single and 
 from silver to gold. The plutocracies of the Continental 
 countries have changed from one metal to the other when- 
 ever it suited, or they fancied it suited, their present inter- 
 est most. Neitlier, with the increasing advantages and 
 power which the retention of the gold standard would con- 
 fer upon our rising and promising regiments of plutocrats, 
 would this class fail to makesimilar attempts in this country, 
 and particularly if the easy success they met with in 1873 is 
 suffered to stand unrebuked. In effect, the standard would 
 be changed whenever there occurred a marked change in 
 the values of the metals. 
 
 We should have a double standard, indeed; only, in- 
 stead of standing upon two supports it would rest upon 
 one. Instead of having its center of gravity always mid- 
 way between its supports it would have one that rocked 
 to and fro,* and at every oscillation tore away a portion of 
 those foundations of equity upon which alone republican 
 institutions and republican government may permanently 
 rest. 
 
 RESORT TO A GOLD STANDARD INEVITABLY INVITES PAPER 
 
 INFLATIONS. 
 
 An extremely important consideration has been adverted 
 to, and demands some elaboration. It is this: that any 
 attempt to substitute by force of law, gold for silver, in 
 the money of a country, at a time when gold is becoming
 
 90 
 
 scarcer, either absolutely or relatively as to silver, must 
 surely result in producing paper inflations. Paper notes, 
 either representative or unrepresentative, are sure to be 
 issued as substitutes for gold as it becomes scarce. Any 
 attempt to artificially enhance the purchasing power of 
 gold, either by demonetizing or partly demonetizing sil- 
 ver, and the act of 1873 is of this nature, is certain to 
 invite or prolong the issuance of paper notes. By arti- 
 ficially enhancing the purchasing power of gold, the profits 
 arising from the issuance of paper notes are enhanced, and 
 the pressure on the part of banks and individuals to obtain 
 authority to issue them, if, indeed, the decline of prices 
 and consequent stagnation of industry does not induce the 
 Government itself to issue them, will become too great to 
 be successfully resisted. This authority once obtained, or 
 this power once exercised, it always proceeds to extremes. 
 Neither reason nor prudence sets a limit to the emission of 
 paper notes; the emission usually continues until it ends 
 in general bankruptcy. 
 
 This, then, is what the purblind, short-sighted advocates 
 of a single metal, when both metals together are barely 
 more than sufficient to prevent the world's stock of coin 
 from falling behind the increase of population, this, is 
 what they would invite. They would press the blade 
 down to the point at which it is bound to spring up — 
 spring up in defective and excessive credit, in speculation, 
 in madness, in bankruptcy, and in crime. They would 
 twist the thumb-screw down until the debtor was reduced 
 to poverty and despair, forgetting that they themselves, 
 more than an}^ class of persons, were interested in keeping 
 him solvent and prosperous. 
 
 The lesson is the same in all artificial or forced systems 
 of currency. Money came into existence freely, and it has 
 never yet yielded up its birthright. Legislation should 
 not, legislation cannot enthrall it. Beyond the scope of 
 temporarily fixing the relation, which should be the mean 
 natural or market relation, between two metals, both of 
 which are indispensable for the purposes of exchange;
 
 91 
 
 beyond manufacturing and unitizing coins, and punishing 
 counterfeitors; in short, beyond the exercise of that sur- 
 veillance, which may fitly be termed the police of money, 
 legislation has neither rightful function nor power. All 
 it can do beyond this is to confuse, to deceive to injure, to 
 disturb, and to invite loss, discontent, turbulence, violence, 
 and anarchy. 
 
 Gentlemen may fancy that they are playing upon a very 
 simple instrument when they undertake to meddle with 
 money. But they are mistaken. The apparently simple 
 instrument is an organism of the most complex character, 
 the result of thirty centuries of growth and development, 
 and like all highly-developed organisms, impatient of 
 control or restraint. It recoils from the first touch of an 
 unaccustomed hand; it gives forth alarming sounds; and 
 if further meddled with, it revenges itself upon its dis- 
 turber with overwhelming ruin. 
 
 DANGER OF ABANDONING THE DOUBLE STANDARD. 
 
 It is impossible to resume specie payments in gold alone. 
 Let us try to grasp the full significance of this proposition, 
 if even it be only in one respect — that of the capacity of 
 the mines of the world to supply it with gold enouiih to 
 measure its exchanges without the co-ordinate employment 
 of silver. Given bills of exchano-e, o-iven certificates of 
 deposit, given bank-bills, given government legal-tender 
 notes, given railways, telegraphs — in short, any form of rep- 
 resentative or non-representative money or of agencies for 
 increasingthe rapidity of its circulation — given all these, and. 
 the world now employs them all whenever and wheresoever 
 they can he employed with safety or advantage, and often 
 when neither one nor the other is secured; given all these, 
 and yet a certain quantity of the precious metals is needed 
 at bottom, as the foundation upon which the entire basis of 
 credit, safe and unsafe, must rest. ISTow, how much does 
 this indii^pensable quantity of the precious metals amount 
 to at the present time ? 
 
 There is no difficulty in answering this question. The
 
 92 
 
 world's stock of coin is $5,700,000,000, of which nearly 
 one-half is of silver. Of this sum Europe, America, and 
 the rest of the Occidental world employ about §3,600,000,- 
 000. Previous to the ^atc partial demonetizations of silver 
 in the Latin Union, and iu Germany and the United States, 
 these §3,600,000,000 consisted of, let us say, $2,000,000,000 
 of gold and $1,600,000,000 of silver. They now consist of 
 say about $2,400,000,000 gold and $1,200,000,000 silver. 
 By continuing to exclude silver from equal participation 
 with gold iu the currency of the United States, and attempt- 
 ing to resume specie payments, we occasion a demand for 
 say $350,000,000 of gold wherewith to pay off the green- 
 backs and furnish bank reserves and $50,000,000 of silver iu 
 lieu of the fractional notes. If we could obtain these $400,- 
 000,000 of metal without drawing it from other countries in 
 Europe or America, they would add so much to the stock 
 of coin iu the Occidental world, which would then be 
 $2,750,000,000 of gold and $1,250,000,000 of silver. This 
 is the answer to the question so far as the Occidental world 
 is concerned. The quantity of the precious metals needed 
 for money and the basis of credit in the Occidental world — 
 that is to say, the quantity needed to maintain prices at 
 their present level— is at least $4,000,000,000. ' Of this 
 sum the Uiiited States, if it succeeds in resuming specie 
 payments, will hold about $400,000,000. 
 
 Now, let me ask, in the first place, where these §400,000,- 
 000 are expected to come from? Gentlemen may dispute 
 the premiss and contend that no such sum as $400,000,000 
 is necessary. They may point to the fact that j ust previous 
 to the time of the suspension in 1862 the entire stock of coin 
 in this country was estimated at not over $300,000,000,* of 
 which probably not over three-fourths or $225,000,000 were 
 in gold. Granted that this was the fact, and I have no 
 doubt it was, it must not be forgotten that since 1862 the 
 population of this country has increased 50 per cent., and 
 its exchanges fully 100 per cent. What is the proof of this ? 
 
 * Finance Keport, 18C1, pp. 25 and 62.
 
 93 - 
 
 Simply that in 1861 our whole circulating media consisted of 
 $300,000,000 in coin and $200,000,000 of bank notes, which 
 ciYculatedwithin limited areas at or nearly par; whereas, now 
 it consists of not more than $140,000,000 of coin and some 
 $750,000,000 of Government and bank paper, the latter cir- 
 culating (throughout nearly the whole country) at about 87^ 
 cents to the dollar; say total circulation at par equal to 
 $800,000,000. This is 70 per cent, more than the par cir- 
 culation of 1861; an incontestable proof that exchanges have 
 increased in volume at least 70 per cent. Taking into 
 consideration the superior activity of the legal tender and 
 national bank notes over the old State bank notes, and the 
 improvement and development of railways, telegraphs, 
 clearing houses, and other mechanisms of exchange, since 
 1861, it cannot be doubted that the bulk of to-day's ex- 
 changes in this country is at least double that of a corre- 
 sponding day in 1862. Suppose, however, we put it at only 
 70 per cent, higher: then, in order to resume specie pay- 
 ment upon at least as firm a footing as specie payments 
 stood in 1861 — and the universal suspension of the banks 
 toward the end of that year proves that it was not so firm 
 a footing as could have been wished — we shall require at 
 least 70 per cent, more specie than we emploj'Cd in 1861. 
 Add 70 percent, to $300,000,000, and you have $510,000,- 
 000. Allow $140,000,000 for specie already in the coun- 
 try, in the banks, in private hands, and in the vaults of the 
 Treasury, and you will need $370,000,000 in order to 
 resume. Of this $370,000,000 the Government will need, 
 perhaps, about $350,000,000, and the banks the remainder. 
 But the apportionment is of no consequence in this connec- 
 tion. The substantial fact is that in order to resume specie 
 payments we shall need $370,000,000, say, for round fig- 
 ures, $400,000,000, of specie, of which, under the operation 
 of the act of 1873, about $350,000,000 must be in gold. 
 
 I now ask where are these $350,000,000 expected to come 
 from? Again, do I fanc}' I hear interpellation. I shall 
 perhaps be told that a proposition is even now before Con- 
 gress, a proposition from careful and able sources, and
 
 94 
 
 boasting the indorsement of high financial authority, a 
 proposition which assumes that $100,000,000 in gold will 
 be sufficient wherewith to enable the country to return to 
 specie payments. 
 
 I refer to a speech which has been made in the Senate. 
 But I warn gentlemen to beware of making a mistake in 
 respect of this matter, for a mistake will set us back many 
 years. The British Government tried to resume in 1817, 
 after a suspension of twenty years, but it failed, and resump- 
 tion was deferred for seven other years, until 1824. If we 
 try to resume in 1879 with $100,000,000 and fail, we may 
 be set back a quarter of a century. Moreover, if we fail, 
 somebody — most probably some clique of stock gamblers — 
 will make fifteen or twenty per cent, out of the operation. 
 How? Easy enough! Knowing that $100,000,000 was 
 the limit of the Government's ability to pay, they could 
 easily make arrangements with the banks and depositories 
 throughout the country to withdraw §100,000,000 of green- 
 backs on the eve of the day of resumption, and present 
 them for payment at the Treasury. After having drawn 
 the last dollar of specie out of the latter they could, by 
 presenting an additional note, compel it to suspend again. 
 Then gold would go up once more, perhaps to the full 
 extent of the figure from which it would have fallen, and 
 the clique could sell their specie in the market and realize 
 their profit. 
 
 This is not only a possible occurrence ; it is a probable 
 one; a highly probable one; almost a certainty. There 
 is nothing in the world to prevent it, except two things : 
 First, the inability of a clique to raise $100,000,000; sec- 
 ond, the possibility that the Treasury, in offering to 
 redeem its issues, may^ arbitrarily and unexpectedly, pre- 
 fer notes of particular numbers or dates of issue. But 
 these objections are frivolous. Experience has demon- 
 strated that there is no difficulty whatever on the part of 
 stock -jobbing cliques to raise §100,000,000, whilst, with 
 regard to making preferred credits of certain notes, the 
 Treasury has no authority to do so, and if it had, the
 
 9 
 
 r 
 
 exercise of such authority would be almost certain to be 
 defeated through treachery. Secrets so weighty as this 
 one would be, are impossible to keep. Even if it did not 
 leak out, the clique would be certain to monopolize the 
 Treasury doors to the exclusion of all comers. In siiort, 
 wealth, power, organization, experience, and special train- 
 ing, would be ranged on the one side, against a scattered 
 andindifterent population on the other; and who can doubt 
 which would win ? 
 
 Finally, even if carried out successfully, the exercise of 
 such authority would be unlawful and unjust. 
 
 We cannot resume with $100,000,000, nor with $200,- 
 000,000. Why, gentlemen, we have had -^140,000,000 in 
 specie in the Treasury on several occasions during the 
 past ten years. If it is practicable to resume now with 
 ^100,000,000, why was it not practicable on those occasions 
 with $140,000,000? It was certainly not for lack of desire 
 on the part of the Secretary of the Treasury, but simply 
 because both the Secretary and Congress plainly saw that 
 the thing could not be done. 
 
 It is better to be on the safe side of an operation of this 
 magnitude and importance. It is better to have a dollar 
 more than is necessary for the purpose of resuming, than a 
 dollar less than is necessary. We cannot expect to resume 
 upon false pretences. We cannot, and if we can, we ought 
 not, hoodwink the people, or run the risk of failing, and, 
 therefore, of unsettling values for an indefinite period in 
 the future. In order to resume we must pay dollar for 
 "dollar," and dollar for dollar, as the law now stands, 
 means at least $350,000,000 in gold. 
 
 And now for the third time I ask, where are these $350,- 
 000,000 to come from? Gentlemen may differ with me as 
 to the sura needed for resumption. Some may believe 
 $200,000,000 are enough, others may even consider $100,- 
 000,000. I have briefly discussed these opinions, and do 
 not believe that less than $350,000,000 will suffice. With only 
 $129,500,000 of Bank of England and $144,000,000 of Pro- 
 vincial bank-notes afloat in 1815, total $273,500,000 in
 
 96 
 
 paper, Euglaud required over $270,000,000 in coin before 
 she was enabled to resume. After you shall have resumed, 
 less coin may be required in the country; but in order to 
 resume, you will require a dollar in coin for every dollar of 
 Government paper afloat, and. in ray opinion, and, as shown 
 by the experience of England, you will also have to give 
 the national banks time to acquire an equal fund of specie, 
 before they can resume ; otherwise, you may bankrupt every 
 one of them. 
 
 Confining myself to the strict requirement of the Gov- 
 ernment, I again ask where is the requisite specie to come 
 from if we are to depend upon gold alone ? 
 
 The annual gold product of the world is given at 
 $97,500,000, of which let us say the whole amount can be 
 retained in the Occident, which all will admit is a violent 
 stretch of probability. It is estimated that considerably 
 more than one-half of this supply is needed for the arts, for 
 gilding, plating, watchcase making, jewelry, and the like.* 
 Let us limit this demand to one-half: this would leave a 
 supply of, say $49,000,000 of gold per annum, available for 
 the maintenance and increase of money. The maintenance 
 of money costs about one and a half per cent, per annum 
 in abrasion and loss. One and a half per cent, on the 
 present Occidental stock of $2,600,000,000 gold amounts to 
 $39,000,000. This is the quantity of gold needed every year 
 to maintain the existing stock of gold coin in the Occident. 
 Deduct this from $49,000,000, the total annual supply avail- 
 able for money, and there would remain a surplus of 
 $10,000,000 a year. It is out of this surplus that our $350,- 
 000,000 must come, unless it comes out of the existing 
 stock in other countries, a point which will be considered 
 farther on. 
 
 Upon the most favorable hypotheses, after according 
 every debatable point in favor of the feasibility of the propo- 
 sition, we should have to wait nearly thirty-five years to 
 accomplish it in practice; for if we managed to obtain every 
 
 *Seyd.
 
 97 
 
 ounce of gold which can be spared from the sappliea of 
 the world for the next thirty-five years we shall barely 
 have secured enough. 
 
 There are considerations, however, which render some 
 of these hypotheses untenable. 
 
 The entire population of the Occidental world is increas- 
 ing at the rate of one per cent, per annum.* Even if its 
 exchanges or their bases increased no faster than its popu- 
 lation, this fact would require an annual addition of 1 per 
 cent, to the stock of coin. At the present time this would 
 absorb nearly $3,000,000 per annum. 
 
 The demand for gold in the arts will undoubtedly 
 increase at, at least, an equal rate. The probability is that 
 it will increase, because it has increased, at a greater ratio. 
 Limiting it to this ratio, it will amount to nearly another 
 $3,000,000 per annum. 
 
 The annual product of gold throughout the world is 
 diminishing. It was $182,000,000 in 1852; it is given at 
 only $97,500,000 in 1875. This is a decrement of over 
 $3,500,000 per annum. 
 
 On accountof these considerations we must subtract about 
 $9,500,000 per annum from the world's available annual 
 surplus of $10,000,000, leaving but $500,000 per annum to 
 spare. At the rate of $500,000 per annum we shall need 
 seven hundred years in which to garner up $350,000,000, 
 the amount necessary wherewith to resume payment in 
 gold ! 
 
 The possibility of performing even this feat rests upon the 
 assumption that Austria, which has a forced paper currency; 
 and Italy, which has a forced paper currency; and Russia, 
 which has a forced paper currency; and several other 
 countries which have forced paper currencies ; countries 
 which in the aggregate contain one-half of the entire 
 European population of the globe; will be content to wait 
 until the United States gets its quantum of gold wherewith 
 to resume, before they will make any move to effect a 
 
 * Essay on Population of the Earth in New York Independent. 
 
 7
 
 P8 
 
 similar reform in their own currencies. It rests, also, upon 
 the assumption that the people of the United States will 
 wait during these years for the consummation of resump- 
 tion : wait without complaint, without further legislation, 
 without getting tired, or yielding to the clamors of interest, 
 or prejudice, or ignorance. 
 
 RESUMPTION ON A GOLD BASIS IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 I tell you, gentlemen, the thing cannot be done ! 
 Resumption in gold is out of the question. It is not 
 practical financially, it is not practical metallurgically, it is 
 not practical internationally, it is not practical politically, 
 in short it is not practical at all. 
 
 I can no longer wonder that the Interchangeable Theory 
 or any other form of paper lunacy has obtained a footing 
 in the land. So long as intelligent and educated men will 
 persist in attempting to do that which the most unintelli- 
 gent and uneducated plainly perceive to be impossible, 
 so long will demagoguery and roguery have a footing! 
 " My plan," they will say "is at least as good as theirs; " 
 meaning that of the gold resumptionists. And I must 
 confess that I assent to their proposition. One plan is 
 quite as good as the other, and not a whit better. They 
 are both utterly impracticable, and no attempt to carry 
 out either one of them can have atiy other than one end- 
 ing: failure.violent fluctuations and unsettleraent of values, 
 distress, commotion, and the grave dangers that lurk 
 beneath all violent upheavals of the body politic. 
 
 There are two forms of reply that I anticipate to the 
 assertion that it is impossible in less than a great number 
 of years to obtain the requisite supply of metal wherewith 
 to resume specie payments in gold. One is, if money is 
 merely a measure of values, why will not $100,000,000 or 
 even $50,000,000 measure values as well as $350,000,000 or 
 any other sum ? The puerility involved in this reply needs 
 little further response than what has already been accorded 
 to it in a previous portion of this speech. If there was no 
 accumulated stock of coin in the world, upon which values
 
 99 
 
 throughout the world already rested; if there were existing 
 no contracts, rents, leases, bonds, mortgages, and the like, 
 executed in the past and maturing now, or executed now 
 and to mature in the future; in a word, if the world was born 
 to-day, $50,000,000 would in theory answer quite as well for 
 the entire money of this country, aye, even of the whole 
 world, as any other sum. But the world was not born to- 
 day, nor yesterday, nor the day before. The stock of coin 
 which forms the substratum of the world's prices is the 
 accumulation of fifty centuries, and bargains are being 
 made every day — for example. Government and corporative 
 debts — which cover long periods of time. To disturb these 
 prices and contracts by forcing the exchanges of the country 
 to be measured by a sum of specie so vastly less than its 
 usual measure, as $100,000,000 or even $200,000,000 would 
 be, would be tantamount to the violent destruction of vast 
 interests and a wrenching of all the relations of industrial 
 and social life. Imagine workingmen's wages at twelve- 
 and-a-half cents a day in this coontry, while they stood at 
 $2 in France or England. Imagine our railway corpora- 
 tions forced to pay their rents on long leases, and the inter- 
 est on long bonds, in daily appreciating gold. Would not 
 this be quite as unjust as, on the other hand, by issuing a 
 daily depreciating interchangeable token, to gratuitously 
 save them from that disaster? 
 
 The other reply that I anticipate to the objection that 
 we cannot obtain gold enough wherewith to resume, is 
 this: "We can obtain the gold from Europe." Can we? 
 Let us examine this point. 
 
 CAN WE GET GOLD ENOUGH FROM EUROPE WHEREWITH TO 
 RESUME SPECIE PAYMENTS? 
 
 "When a merchant purposes to buy a large quantity of a 
 given article, his first thought is to compute how much his 
 demand will raise the price of the article during the pro- 
 gress of the purchase. The first element in this calcula- 
 tion is the stock on hand, the next is the current supply
 
 100 
 
 and demand. It is the same with the stock operator, in 
 short, with dealers in all commodities. AVhy should it 
 not be the same with Government when it goes into the 
 market for 1350,000,000 of gold ? 
 
 The current demand and supply of this article has been 
 discussed. There is no stock of it on hand in the same 
 sense that there is a stock or accumulation of merchan- 
 dise. The stock of merchandise is the unused portion — 
 the surplus. There is no unused stock of gold coin in the 
 world, no surplus. It is all in use to support prices; * with, 
 draw it, and the whole fabric of prices and credits falls to the 
 dust. The stock of gold in Europe and the countries settled 
 by Europeans amounts to about $2,600,000,000. On every 
 one of these dollars stands a vast and almost toppling super- 
 structure of credits in every conceivable form. You now 
 propose to purchase one-eighth, almost one-seventh, of this 
 entire basis of the rest of the Occidental world's exchano^es 
 and credits. Do you believe you can do it? Do you believe 
 you can oft'er your bonds or your merchandise in the 
 markets of Europe low enough to purchase with them 
 1350,000,000 of gold? Do you suppose that United States 
 5 per cent, bonds at par, or 90, or 80, or even 70, will accom- 
 plish it? Or, to put it another way, suppose you determine 
 not to sell your bonds under par: do you suppose that you 
 can place them at any rate of interest to which the self- 
 respect of this country would submit, or which its resources 
 would justify ? Do you suppose that when you commenced 
 to draw gold from Europe, the Bank of England and other 
 like institutions, would not raise their rate of interest 
 to 7, 8, 10, or even 12 per cent.? You know that this is 
 always done when specie is observed to be flowing out. 
 You know that it must be done. And do you suppose 
 that when it is done that you can place your bonds at any 
 lower rate of interest than the bank rate ? Do you imagine 
 that American produce or manufactures offered to Europe 
 at three-fourths of their present market prices will do it ? 
 
 *The legal tender portioii at a full ratio of acti\ity; the subsidiary 
 coins at a lesser rate.
 
 101 
 
 Well, then, I do not. To induce Europe and the European 
 world to part with one-seventh of its measure of exchanges 
 and basis of credit, within the time fixed for the resump- 
 tion of specie payment in this country, you would have to 
 sell all your moveables — for remember that lands, which 
 constitute more than one-half of our wealth, cannot be 
 exported — at prices which would bankrupt every industry 
 in this country. You might get $10,000,000, or $20,000,- 
 000, or, perhaps, even §50, 000, 000, in gold. By dint of 
 hammering the bond market (and you would have to author- 
 ize the Treasury to sell below par, at any price the bonds 
 would fetch) during the two years and a half now remain- 
 ing, you might even get .$100,000,000 of metal; but when 
 you shall have taken |100, 000,000 away from Europe you 
 will have produced a commotion and a fall in prices on 
 the other side, that, if it did not lead to the closure of the 
 European stock markets to American bonds, would cer- 
 tainl}^ precipitate a tremendous financial convulsion.* As 
 for this side, the effects would be no less alarming. 
 
 Recollect, gentlemen, that the problem is that of taking 
 $350,000,000 in gold out of a fully occupied and heavily 
 over-topped basis of only $2,600,000,000 in the Occidental 
 world. It is not the whole stock of metal, both silver and 
 gold, that we can now call upon, as in former days. Silver 
 has been demonetized in several countries of Europe ; it 
 has been demonetized here. We have thoughtlessly so 
 
 * "When the negotiations were going on in Loudon for the sale of tlie 
 largest amount of United States bonds that have ever been sold tliere at 
 one time, it was foreseen by the Bank of England tliat a quantity of 
 coin would accumulate as the proceeds of tliese bonds to the credit of 
 the Goyernment of the United States. xVs a matter of fact there was 
 an accumulation of about $21,000,000. The Banli of England, foresee- 
 ing tliat tliere would be an accumulation of coin to the credit of the 
 United States, which might be taken away bodily in specie, gave notice 
 to the officers of the Treasury Department of the United States that the 
 power of that institution would be arrayed against the whole proceeding 
 unless we gave a pledge tliat the coin sliould not be removed, and that 
 we would reinvest it in the bonds of tlie United States as they were 
 offered in the markets of London. We were compelled to coinph/!" — 
 Speech of Senator BoidivelU formerly Secretary of the Treasury, 
 (Cong. Becord, 43d Cong., 1st Session, vol. 2, part 6, p. 23 of Ajjpendix.)
 
 102 
 
 worded our laws that, until we alter them, we can only 
 pay in gold. The Latin Union, Germany and Scandina- 
 via, together with England and Portugal, &c., have so 
 worded their laws, whether thoughtlessly or not, you can 
 decide for yourselves, that gold alone is the legal-tender 
 in those countries for the payment of large sums, and its 
 value is the st mdard of all payments, large or small. 
 We would demand of them one-seventh of their entire 
 stock, which now, unlike the period from 1848 to 1865, is 
 not increasing; which, in fact, has a strong tendency to 
 decrease. Who, under these circumstances, will have the 
 hardihood to assert that this problem is a practical one? 
 And who will venture to deny that, if it is solved at all, it 
 can only be solved at a sacrifice more overwhelming than 
 any which has presented itself to the consideration of finan- 
 ciers since the study of money, its functions and its vicissi- 
 tudes, first became a science? 
 
 OUR INTEREST CHARGE ANOTHER OBSTACLE TO RESUMPTION 
 
 IN GOLD. 
 
 On top of the many insuperable difliculties which lie in 
 the way of resumption in gold, lies another one which is as 
 great as any of them, and which you would augment by 
 attempting to resume in gold. I allude to the interest on 
 the public debt, which debt is very largely held abroad. 
 This interest now amounts to nearly ^100,000,000 per an- 
 num. By selling bonds to the extent of $350,000,000, say 
 at 10 per cent. — for it is perhaps hopeless to expect to do it 
 at a lesser sacrifice — you will add $35,000,000 a year to your 
 gold interest debt, and those $35,000,000 to the portion held 
 abroad. Where are these $35,000,000 to come from? 
 Where are the whole $135,000,000 to come from? Your 
 annual interest charo-e will alone amount to more than the 
 whole world's product of gold. So far as the portion of it 
 which is paid to bondholders in this country is concerned, 
 it may stay here and be thrown upon the market, and pur- 
 chased by the Government, and so used over and over 
 again, as is the case now. But not so with the portion 
 that goes abroad. You cannot hope to get any of that back
 
 103 
 
 without selling the merchandise of the country at lower 
 rates than Europeans will be willing to take for similar 
 merchandise of their own production, and after you shall 
 have drained Europe of one-fifth of its specie, (one-seventh 
 of the whole Occidental world's, or one-fifth of Europe's,) 
 prices will fall to a very low point there, and you would 
 have to sell very low to compete. Are your farmers 
 ready to deliver their wheat in Europe at the rate of 40 or 
 50 cents a bushel? Are your manufacturers prepared to 
 sell their cotton prints at 2 cents a yard? 
 
 I warn you, gentlemen, that the attempt will be futile; 
 that the thought is absurd; that the whole theory of en- 
 deavoring to destroy one-half of the world's accumulation 
 of the precious metals or of taking part in the attempt, as 
 you would do by attempting to resume in gold alone, is 
 sheer madness. 
 
 COMPARATIVE EASE OF RESUMING IN THE DOUBLE STANDARD. 
 
 ]!^ow let us contrast with this impracticable scheme the 
 ease of resuming specie payments in both the metals, or, on 
 the basis of that double standard which the world has used 
 for thirty centuries, and after an endless variety of experi- 
 ments, without being able to dispense with it or even ven- 
 turing to trifie with it until Change Alley found that money 
 was to be gained by inducing these experiments to be made 
 in England and on the Continent. 
 
 If we resolve to resume in gold and silver, instead of 
 having to draw upon a fund of $2,600,000, 000 and an an- 
 nual supply of $97,500,000, as in the case of gold alone, we 
 would have a fund of §5, 700,000,000 and an annual supply 
 of §170,000,000 to draw upon. Not only is the fund more 
 than twice as great, and the supply nearly twice as great, 
 but both the fund and the supply are more widely distrib- 
 uted. Instead of having to draw upon the Occident alone, 
 we would have the whole World to draw upon. Three 
 hundred and fifty millions in gold form one-sev^enth of the 
 entire stock of that metal; the same sum in both the metals 
 forms less than one-sixteenth of the entire stock. If a 
 draft of one-seventh would occasion a fall in prices of 15
 
 104 
 
 per cent., a draft of less than one-sixteenth would occasion 
 a decline of less than 6 per cent.; and while 15 per cent., dur- 
 ing two-and-a-half years — equal to 6 per cent per annum — 
 would sweep away all and more than all the profits of in- 
 dustry, which, on the whole, do not net over 3 or 4 per 
 cent., 6 per cent, in two-and-a-half years, equal to 2|- per 
 cent, per annum, would enable us to get back to a sound 
 measure of values without the loss of more than a very 
 small portion of our current industrial profits. 
 
 It has been objected to the monetization of silver by the 
 United States that the Comstock lode was vomiting forth 
 a vast surplus of that metal. It is only to be regretted that 
 this is not the fact; for if gentlemen will consult the statis- 
 tics of the precious metals, they will perceive that since 
 1852, when the product of gold and silver was 1223,000,000, 
 the annual supply has fallen off" so that in 1875 it was but 
 $170,000,000, aud in 1876 will probably not be more. 
 There is therefore great danger of a dearth of metal, aud it 
 would be fortunate if the yield of the Comstock lode were 
 more prolific than it is. 
 
 My fear is that this prolificity, such as it is, will have 
 reached its maximum within the present year. It is the 
 candid opinion of a man who has devoted nearly thirty 
 years of his life to the practical working and management 
 of gold and silver mines that, so far the Comstock lode is 
 concerned, and he is entirely familiar with this great silver 
 deposit, we have arrived at the beginning of the end. We 
 now know the probable dimensions and bearings of the 
 ore producing chimneys, and can very plainly foresee their 
 early exhaustion. Whatever the fact may be with regard 
 to the Comstock lode, and at best it is but matter of opinion, 
 we know that for the present and so far as we can see 
 ahead, the combined annual product of the two metals 
 throughout the world, as compared with late years, is 
 decreasing. 
 
 If now the question be asked : Where will you get your 
 $350,000,000 from, upon which to resume ? the best answer 
 we can make is: From the world at large; from a stock of 
 $5,700,000,000 in gold and silver coin; from an annual
 
 105 
 
 supply of $170,000,000 ; from Europe, from Mexico and 
 South America, from Asia, and, readiest and best of all, 
 from our own mines. 
 
 In buying metal from the rest of the world, as we should 
 have to do had we no great mines of our own, we should 
 have to buy it with the accumulated charges of transport 
 and coinage upon it. In buying it from our own mines 
 we can buy it at its worth upon the spot of production, 
 without transportation or coinage, or interest charges 
 upon it. 
 
 RESTORATION OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD AND OUR MINING 
 
 INTERESTS. 
 
 And here let me say that the mining interests of this 
 country are represented not, as some persons absurdly sup- 
 pose, by a few millionaires, but for the most part by a vast 
 number of persons, with no other resources than their in- 
 telligent minds and willing hands, who work in the mines 
 for daily bread, and by a scarcely less numerous class of 
 small proprietors, themselves also workingmen, who hold 
 each a few shares in the mines in which they are employed. 
 
 The miners of the West are among the most stalwart 
 and spirited yeoman in the world. They are inured to 
 danger and toil, and are brave, strong, intelligent, and 
 self-reliant. In weary processions across alkaline deserts, 
 under equatorial and blistering suns, across mountain and 
 valley, desert and plain, amidst the attacks of savages and 
 the fevers of tropical swamps, they marked the path and 
 blazed the trail of Western Empire. They overcame every 
 hostile condition and builded, on foundations of Liberty 
 and Justice, three great States in your western border. 
 They conquered the Genius of Sterility in its stronghold, 
 built cities 10,000 feet above the level of the sea and hewed 
 out thrifty workshops 2,500 feet below the surface of the 
 earth. They have organized mining with the exactness 
 and thoroughness of science, and in this respect placed 
 this country in the vanguard of the nations. They have 
 neither avoided your tax-gatherers, sought your subsidies, 
 nor demanded your protective legislation. Nor do they
 
 106 
 
 do so now. They only ask that you shall legislate in re- 
 spect of this great question in view of the history of the 
 world, the Constitution of the country, and the facts that 
 surround you. 
 
 While the miners of this country have the highest right 
 both by reason of their birth, their indomitable love of 
 freedom, and the perilous nature of their industry, to de- 
 mand both favor and advantage from the Government, 
 they do not ask for either. But they demand that the 
 Constitution shall be respected, and the laws enforced 
 under which they established the great industry which 
 they represent. They know full well that the world's 
 accumulated stock of silver is too vast and the annual 
 diminution from abrasion and loss too great, to fear any 
 permanent or continued fall in the price of that metal. 
 They know that silver must continue to remain the money 
 of a main part of the world for centuries to come, and that 
 it cannot be dispensed with in any part of the world. 
 They understand too well the fluctuating character of the 
 supplies of gold, to fear that this metal will permanently 
 usurp the place of silver in the money of the world, or in 
 the money of any considerable part of the world. They 
 perfectly well comprehend the fact that the present slight 
 fall of silver is due to the mad attempt to demonetize it 
 wholly or partly in the countries of the Latin Union 
 and Germany, and are not at all alarmed, either as to the 
 success of this attempt or the future price of silver. They 
 believe, as Jefferson said in discussing this very same 
 subject nearly a century ago, that the world's long and 
 constantly-tried experience of silver is a kind of precedent 
 which it is tolerably safe to trust to. 
 
 Our miners understand that silver is of constant, steady, 
 and moderate supply; keeping pace with the world's 
 expanding industry, and no more. They understand that 
 gold is of inconstant, fluctuating, and. either superabund- 
 ant or inadequate supply; and they have no fears as to the 
 marketability of their silver product. 
 
 The question before us is therefore not one of favor or 
 advantage to any industry, even though that industry be
 
 107 
 
 largely American aud of a nature and importance that 
 should command for it every advantage which legislation 
 could confer. 
 
 RESTOKATION OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD A NATIONAL AFFAIR. 
 
 The question is one of advantage to the nation, to soci- 
 ety, to the world at large. It has to deal not only with 
 the industrial interests of to-day, but of all time. It is the 
 question of the measure which shall be applied not only to 
 the labor of the present time, but to the labor of all time 
 past, the labor of all time to come. It proposes to goage 
 this labor by the measure which has guaged it forever — by 
 the guage that can measure it most fairly and equitably; 
 by the only guage that can truly measure it at all — to wit, 
 the double standard of gold and silver. It is opposed to the 
 impracticable project of measuring it by a new and smaller 
 measure; by an inconstant, a fluctuating, a monopolized 
 measure. This is the nature and magnitude of the ques- 
 tion before us; a question to the elucidation of which the 
 most intellectual men of all nations and in all times have 
 largely devoted their attention ; a question which lies 
 down at the ver}^ basis of property, of industry and of 
 progress ; a question which not only affects the wealth of 
 nations, the rank of nations, the welfare of nations, but 
 the very conditions of social existence itself. 
 
 It is too large, it is too grand a question to be belittled 
 by any such vulgar and familiar approaches as have, I re- 
 gret to say, been made toward it by one or two gentlemen 
 who have alluded to the subject in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. Fifty centuries of the world's accumulated 
 wealth are before us to be answered in our deliberations 
 upon this question ; fifty centuries of mute, but colossal 
 interrogatories; fifty centuries of trial, of suffering, of toil, 
 of conflict, of ever perishing and ever renewing human 
 life, every element of which has contributed, one way or 
 another, to mould the ponderous scale of the precious met- 
 als in which the work of the world is measured, and which 
 some madmen would raise their Vandal hands to destroy. 
 
 These men are chiefly the plutocrats of England aud
 
 108 
 
 Germany. They want the debts which the nations of the 
 earth owe to them, and which were made in Manchester 
 cottons and Birmingham wares, to be paid, not in the base 
 currencies in which they were nominally or really engen- 
 dered — not even in good money, in gold and silver, which 
 is the money of the world, and has been so for all time — 
 but in that particular metal which they have observed is for 
 the time diminishing in supply and daily becoming more 
 difficult and expensive to purchase. To accomplish this 
 object they are ready to revolutionize the currency of the 
 world ; to help demonetize, and advise others to help de- 
 monetize, a stock of over $2,000,000,000 of silver, the pre- 
 cious moiety of the world's standard of values, stored up 
 from the ages, and in its place to set up their own moon- 
 calf of gold, recking not how much suffering the inadequate 
 substitution will occasion. 
 
 LET ENGLAND AND GERMANY ADHERE TO THE GOLD STANDARD 
 
 IF THEY WILL. 
 
 The worst punishment which can befall this reckless tri- 
 fling with the interests of society, is that which it itself in- 
 vites, and which must beftiU it if the rest of the world refuses 
 to take part in such trifling. By leaving England and Ger- 
 many to the enjoyment of their self-erected standard of gold, 
 it would result in the end that gold would become cheaper 
 in those countries than elsewhere and prices would rise 
 therein. The co-ordinate use of silver with gold in the rest 
 of the world would tend to drive gold into England and 
 Germany, where it would accumulate and become cheap. 
 Gold would inevitably flow into the countries where it was 
 most in demand, viz: England and Germany, just as now 
 silver flows into Asia. And as silver has accumulated in 
 Asia and enhanced the prices of commodities and services 
 in that portion of the world, so would gold accumulate in 
 England and Germany and enhance the prices of commod- 
 ities and services there. When this happened, and the 
 plutocrat perceived that his fund or his income of gold 
 would purchase less of other men's labor than before, his
 
 109 
 
 punishment will have arrived, and richly will he have 
 deserved it. 
 
 "What will then be his resource, his only resource from 
 the loss of purchasing power ? The same resource to which 
 his narrow selfishness has always instinctively led him : that 
 of endeavoring to change the standard to the dearer metal, 
 which will then be silver. He will then have to purchase 
 his silver from us, as he now asks that we shall purchase 
 his gold from him, and we shall be able to fix as high a 
 price upon silver as he would now fix upon gold. 
 
 TO ADHERE TO THE GOLD STANDARD IN THE UnITED StATES 
 IS TO GRATUITOUSLY ENHANCE THE MORTGAGES UPON THE 
 
 NATION. 
 
 The true meaning of the sinister advice which we receive 
 from this class, is, that, by adopting the gold standard, we 
 should gratuitously and needlessly enhance the value of the 
 mortgages, which, in the shape of Government bonds, they 
 hold upon the industries of this country. We are not 
 ashamed of these mortgages. Though they were given 
 for inadequate consideration, yet they were given in a 
 time of peril and uncertainty. We have not the slightest 
 intention to repudiate them. We have already paid upon 
 them in interest vastly more than their entire face, and 
 shall continue to pay this interest promptly and as fast 
 as it comes due. But while it is neither to our taste, (for 
 we are a proud nation, and disdain to submit our honor 
 to the scant measure of a doubtful law) nor to our inter- 
 est, to repudiate our obligations, we do not propose to go 
 beyond the limit which our organic laws have set to the 
 standard in which debts shall be paid. We do not pro- 
 pose, by resuming specie payments in gold, to increase 
 the demand for and purchasing power of gold, and thus 
 enhance the value of the mortgages upon our industry. 
 The law of this country made our standard the bi-metallic 
 one of gold and silver. This is not only the law of the 
 United States; it is the law of nations; the law of ages; 
 the law of the World. We refuse to be led up and down
 
 110 
 
 hill, first into one standard and then into the other, at 
 the heck of a short-sighted and selfish class of men, to 
 whom the world owes no debt of gratitude. We refuse to 
 pull up and destroy our ancient moorings. We refuse to 
 part with the ages and with the rest of the world, to which 
 both our present and our future interests unite us; to the 
 rest of Europe; to South America, to Africa, and to Asia. 
 We propose to stand where we have always stood ; where 
 the nations stand; where stands the world; we propose to 
 stand on the double standard; the standard of the popula- 
 tions; the standard wliich the natural fitness and general 
 distribution of the precious metals has indicated to be the 
 only safe one. 
 
 GOLD AND SILVER MINING UNPROFITABLE, AND TO INTERRUPT 
 
 IS TO DESTROY IT. 
 
 There is 2rreat dansrer, I miarht even without exasrocer- 
 ation say, appalling danger, in abandoning the double 
 standard. This arises from the fact that the mining of the 
 precious metals is, on the average, always conducted upon 
 the verge of loss. Therefore the moment you demonetize 
 one metal 3'ou temporarily cheapen it, and help to throw 
 it out of production. To stop production is the work of 
 an instant, to reinstate it again is the work of years ; and 
 when, as is bound to be the case, the discarded metal is 
 once more in demand, it is the work of long time to obtain 
 sufficient supplies of it again. We know that in the case 
 of the Siberian gold mines over three thousand years 
 elapsed between the time of their abandonment (by the 
 Persians) and reoccupation (by the Russians) ; in the case of 
 the Spanish silver mines fifteen hundred years ; in the case 
 of the Mexican silver mines, during the first half of this 
 century, some twenty or thirty years. It matters not what 
 the cause of those several abandonments was; whether it was 
 wars, or the insufiiciency of known mechanical resources, 
 or trifling with the standard. It is sufi&cient if we know 
 that no matter what cause put an end to the production of 
 the metals, the most urgent after demand for the aban-
 
 Ill 
 
 cloned metal was inadequate for a long period to stimulate 
 its reproduction. 
 
 When mines are abandoned, water flows into them and 
 fills them up; earth, stones, and otiier debris clog and 
 choke them, and frequently bury them up out of sight and 
 even remembrance; the supporting timbers of galleries 
 rot away, the galleries themselves fall in ; and these cir- 
 cumstances often render it practically impossible to reopen 
 the mines. And you cannot find silver and gold mines at 
 pleasure, as you can wheat fields or suitable sites for mills 
 or manufactories. The whole surface of Central America 
 and California, and the Sierra Nevadas has been ripped 
 and torn up in the search for the precious metals. The 
 valleys have been explored, the streams turned from their 
 natural courses, the hills washed away with artificial hy- 
 draulic power, the mountains honey-combed with shafts 
 and tunnels, Not a district has been left undisturbed. 
 The Pacific coast of America has been ransacked ip modern 
 days even more thoroughly than were Northern Africa and 
 the Spanish Peninsula in ancient days; for this ransacking 
 has been done by the hardiest among the foremost races of 
 the world. 
 
 But in the exploration of natural resources man has no 
 pity for Nature or posterity. He exploits the land in the 
 pursuit of agriculture as our Virginian forefathers did the 
 noble valleys of the Atlantic coast in the cultivation of 
 tobacco; as the planters of the cotton States did the table 
 lands of Georgia and Alabama and the bottom lands of 
 Mississippi in the cultivation of cotton; as the western 
 men are now doing the richly-wooded lands of their 
 country, for the sake of the timber which stands upon 
 them. In a similar way have the Pacific States been ex- 
 ploited for mines. 
 
 There are probably but few, of even measuredly, rich 
 deposits left to discover. The most that we can henceforth 
 do is to exhaust what have been found. There are no 
 more great bonanzas in the the Sierra Nevadas ; probably 
 there are not elsewhere in the world deposits of ore of
 
 112 
 
 such magnitude. I do not mean deposits found ; I mean 
 found or unfound.* 
 
 Already many of the less profitable silver mines of the 
 world have ceased to be worked. The slight and tem- 
 porary fall in silver, occasioned by the partial demonetiza- 
 tion of the metal in Europe, its prospective practical 
 demonetization in this country, and the hitherto abundant 
 yield of the bonanza mines, have been sufficient to throw 
 many of the poorer paying silver mines of the world out of 
 production. t 
 
 By resuming specie payments in this country upon the 
 basis of the fatally erroneous law of 1873 we would render 
 practical and immediate that demonetization of silver 
 which, as yet, while paper notes form nearly the entire 
 circulating media of the country, is but prospective, and 
 therefore not practical. More than this : the example of so 
 great a country as the United States vT-ould be apt to lead 
 other countries into the same erroneous way, and silver 
 would soon become entirely demonetized in the Occidental 
 world. 
 
 *It must always be borne in mind that the order of progress in mining 
 is from the poor to the richer, just as the venerable and celebrated Henry 
 C. Carey has shown it to be in agriculture. This order of progress in 
 mining results from the fact that men always seek first the most easily 
 accessible sources of production. When the ontcroppings of a great 
 mine are discovered it is rare tliat exploration proceeds further than a 
 few hundred feet beneath the surface where the ore lies in widespread 
 lenticular masses. Then comes the "barren zone," which is seldom 
 explored at first. The richer but fewer deposits of ore below, the great 
 bonanzas, concentrate in perpendicular veins far apart, and are never 
 reached except at gi'eat outlay and expense, and as tlie result of organ- 
 ized and scientific mining. Whoever is fortunate enough to strike one 
 of these bonanzas makes great profit from it, whilst the others sustain 
 loss, and on the whole the product of metal is diminished. 
 
 I This fact is not only deducible from the statistics of the World's annual 
 yield of silver given above, but it has come under my own observation 
 that man}'' of the low grade ore deposits, even of the Comstock lode, have 
 either been abandoued or soon will be abandoned. These low grade mines, 
 though fully provided with shafts, adits, railways, engines, mills, etc. 
 which were profitably employed while silver bore a higher price in 
 market, are being abandoned, the improvements put upon them are lost, 
 and great numbers of miners have been thrown out of employment.
 
 113 
 
 Did gold promise to continue in very abundant supply 
 the ruinous consequences of this error might to some ex- 
 tent be mitigated; though under no circumstances could 
 they be entirely mitigated, owing to the always fluctuating 
 nature of gold supplies. But even this degree of mitiga- 
 tion is not to be expected. Gold is so far from being pro- 
 duced throughout the world in great abundance, that the 
 present annual product is dangerously insuflicient, and even 
 this supply is declining. "We are invited to abandon a good 
 ship and enter a sinking one; to desert solid ground and 
 stand upon a quagmire; to renounce a system which has 
 stood the test of centuries, and adopt one which has been 
 tried but by a single nation, England, and that only since 
 1816, or rather from 1824 to 1848, and at the expense of 
 retarding and crushing the prosperity of her industrial 
 classes during the period of such trial. 
 
 I have said that the mining of the precious metals is 
 always conducted, on the average, upon the verge of loss. 
 This statement is supported by all writers upon the subject. 
 
 The ready marketability of the precious metals, a fact 
 which renders the product of the miner's labor available 
 on the instant, forms a strong inducement to their produc- 
 tion, and the competition is so great as to push the pro- 
 duction to the verge of loss, perhaps even beyond it. The 
 moment you destroy or impair this marketability of the 
 precious metals, as you do by demonetizing silver, you 
 diminish the production. You could not do the same 
 with wheat or other commodities. Upon these the laws 
 confer no privilege of marketability; they are not legal 
 tender for the payment of debts. Their production, there- 
 fore, never ventures beyond the area of profit — I mean, of 
 course, profit on the average. Present and future demand 
 alone regulate their supply. It is not the same with the 
 precious metals. Their supply has reference to the past 
 as well as the present and future. There is a stock of 
 these metals in the world which has come down to us from 
 the earliest ages of history, and every additional ounce pro- 
 duced, aflects this stock. There is no similar stock of any 
 8
 
 114 
 
 other commodities. Even arable lands and stone edifices 
 fail to escape the ravages of time. With metal produced 
 to-day you can discharge obligations for commodities and 
 services sold or rendered years ago. You cannot do the 
 same with wheat or any other commodities. Why ? Be- 
 cause the laws make the precious metals legal tenders for 
 the payment of debt. You cannot force a creditor to re- 
 ceive payment in wheat or lands, but you can force him 
 to accept payment in money. Hence the superior market- 
 abilit}' of the precious metals — a marketability which is 
 due, in the first place, to their intrinsic qualities of supe- 
 rior homogeneity, divisibility, re-unitability, portability, 
 etc., and in the second place to the law. 
 
 If you impair this marketability by demonetizing one 
 of the metals, you reduce it to the same rank as any other 
 commodity, to the rank of commodities which are produced 
 only when such production is profitable. You will not 
 destro}' the production of the demonetized metal. Far 
 from it. The precious metals are too valuable for a great 
 variety of industrial purposes. They will still continue to 
 be produced, only the quantity produced will be less; and 
 after the stock of demonetized coin shall be absorbed irre- 
 trievably into the arts, the price will be higher. Why? 
 Because the production of the metal will only be continued 
 where it proves profitable. The supply will become regu- 
 lated by the present and future demand. Rather than push 
 the production of the metal to the verge of loss, men will 
 prefer to engage in some other occupation. The price will 
 not only rise on account of diminished production, but 
 also, and chiefly, because the producer will demand in it a 
 profit, ]^ow he does not; he cannot. The competition is 
 too keen to admit of profit. The production of the precious 
 metals is perhaps, even on the whole, a constant source of 
 loss. Still men will engage in it, not only on account of 
 the occasional fortunate and unexpected prizes which it 
 yields, and which is the same in diamond washing and 
 pearl fishing, but also because of the superior, the instant, 
 marketability of the product. This instant marketability 
 is due in part to the law. It enables the gold or silver
 
 115 
 
 r 
 
 miner to realize the product of liis labor at once. It in- 
 duces him to make the most of that labor; it leads him to 
 overwork; and eventually it destroys him. The valleys of El 
 Dorado are strewn with the wrecks of human lives, wrecks 
 which lie bleaching in the sun to warn away the newcomer. 
 But they warn in vain ; and tlie production of the precious 
 metals contitmes in spite of loss, and sickness, and pre- 
 mature death. Conducted at this great sacrifice, eon- 
 ducted thus always upon the verge of loss, and perhaps 
 beyond it, the moment the production of the precious 
 metals, or either of them, is discouraged by demonetization, 
 from that moment it sinks to the rank of all other com- 
 modities and demands a profit in its price. Suppose you 
 der^nonetize silver, and thus limit its production to the ex- 
 tent of the demand for it in the arts ; and when the stock of 
 silver coin becoaies melted up and absorbed, as it soon 
 would be, you discover, as you will be sure to discover, that 
 you have made a mistake: at what price is it imagined can 
 this silver be repurchased? At 15 for 1 of gold? At 12 for 
 1, 10 for 1, 8, for 1? I fanc}^ not. Gold was demonetized 
 in Japan, and not more than twenty-five years ago it could 
 be purchased in that country at four times the price of 
 silver. Later on they re-monetized gold in that country, 
 and were obliged to purchase it at the rate of 1 for 15^ ol' 
 silver. 
 
 Had Japan not been a country at that period very back- 
 ward in civilization, divided into great feudatories, whose 
 tributes and rents were payable in grain, the difficulty of 
 again monetizing the discarded metal would have been 
 insuperable. Even as it was, the measure was accom- 
 panied by a violent social revolution and the entire destruc- 
 tion of the existing system of government. 
 
 Are you prepared to hazard an experiment of this char- 
 acter? For the sake of pursuing the idle, mischievous 
 theory called monometalism, urged by an interested, self- 
 ish, and shortsighted class of men in England and Ger- 
 many, and indorsed by certain flippant and conceited 
 writers on political economy, are you ready <"o invoke the 
 tremendous risk of banishing a metal which constitutes
 
 116 
 
 one-half of the world's stock of money, and which, if once 
 banished, can never be recalled without the propitiating 
 sacrifice of all vested interests, of all existing relations of 
 property, of all the institutions of society? The great in- 
 stitution of Japan was the feudal system, and the moment 
 she opened herself to the influence upon prices and rela- 
 tions which was exercised by the precious metal which she 
 had previously forbidden to compose part of her standard, 
 that great institution was shivered to atoms. The great 
 institution of the United States is popular suffrage. Are 
 we prepared, by abandoning the olden way, the double 
 standard, and exposing ourselves to the social revolution 
 which, after abandoning that standard, would inevitably 
 accompany its re-establishment — are we prepared to see 
 our great institution shivered to atoms, too ? 
 
 It cannot be doubted that resumption in specie and lim- 
 itation to the single gold standard would, in time, produce 
 these alarming results. But we are not a people who 
 would open the door to such consequences. TVe would 
 endeavor to obviate them. And the only way to obviate 
 them would be to go on with irredeemable paper, with 
 violent abberrations of prices, with bankruptcies, and with 
 the pandemonium of the stock exchange. 
 
 THE DOUBLE STANDARD WILL HAVE TO BE RESTORED. 
 
 There are, perhaps, those who do not perceive any rea- 
 son which would compel a nation to return to the double 
 standard after having abandoned it. These reasons have 
 already been given, and I regard them as unanswerable. 
 Thev are : 
 
 1. The insufficient stock of gold in the world to effect 
 its exchanges without a great, rapid, and overwhelming 
 fall in prices to one-half of present prices in specie. 
 
 2. The insufficient annual supplies of gold; there not 
 being more than enough produced to supply the arts and 
 maintain the stock of coin. 
 
 3. The fluctuating nature of gold production, which 
 would give rise to violent aberrations of prices from time 
 to time.
 
 117 
 
 4. The monopolization of the supply of gold, whicli now 
 is chiefly from countries covered by the British flag. 
 
 And many other reasons, which these few will serve, 
 perhaps, to recall. 
 
 When the tremendous decline and violent fluctuations 
 in prices which must accompany a single gold standard, 
 have worked as much ruin and destruction of existing 
 relations as the nation will bear, the revulsion in favor of 
 again monetizing silver will be too great to resist: yet 
 re-monetization may have to be efl:ected in the face of 
 difiiculties and dangers quite as great as those from which 
 escape is sought to be made. It would be Charybdis on 
 one side; Scylla on the other; mischief, danger, ruin on 
 both. 
 
 At the bottom of this dangerous effort to abolish the 
 double standard of this country, lies nothing but selfish- 
 ness and injustice — the selfishness of a class who desire 
 to receive payment for debts and obligations in a met»I 
 which, for the moment, and at the mean natural relation 
 is a few per cent, dearer than the other. 
 
 SOCIETY CAN ONLY BE RULED WITH EQUITY — THE GOLD STANDARD 
 
 INEQUITABLE. 
 
 Opposed to the consummation of this injustice, not only 
 does all Nature array herself, but so also do the unconscions 
 instincts of humanity, the occult working of social insti- 
 tutions. Consummate it, if you can, and you will have 
 poverty, distress, commotion, and perhaps revolution. 
 Having consummated it, try, then, to undo it, and you 
 will find the task beset with great difiiculties. 
 
 Neglected dislocations of the human frame are ditficult 
 to remedy; because the wrenched member finds for itself 
 a new socket. The dislocation of the social fabric which 
 threatens to result from the effects of the act of 1873 may 
 yet be averted by the timely measure of restoring the 
 double standard before we attempt to resume specie pay- 
 ments. 
 
 You cannot expect to take a nation by the throat, hold 
 it down, squeeze the last drop of substance out of it, no
 
 118 
 
 matter in what sacred name, wliether of Honor or Justice, 
 without running the risk of being taken by the throat 
 vonrselves. No matter how cunning the injustice is, it is 
 sure to be found out when it comes to work, and sure to be 
 avenged when it is found out. All the interests of s(K*iety, 
 even the safety and permanence of vested interests, demand 
 the exercise of equity in the affairs of government; and I 
 teH those who represent such interests that, in the long run, 
 they will best consult their advantage in being just at the 
 outset. They have got the people of this country by the 
 throat in the ambiguously worded act of February 25, 
 1862. They pinned the people down by the coin-paying 
 act of March 18, 1869, and now they would squeeze the 
 last drop of substance out of them by the single gold stand- 
 ard act of February, 1873, which they propose to carry 
 into eiFect by the Kesumption Act {a very proper act of itself) 
 of 1875. And now ray advice to them is, to stop and undo 
 the worst part of their work, by repealing so ranch of the 
 act of 1873 as prevents the silver dollar frora being ten- 
 dered for the payment of debts. The people have paid 
 their full ransom to Brennus ; let him not attempt to over- 
 load the scale with the weight of his sword, or they raay 
 take it up and use it. 
 
 OUR COMMERCE WITH ASIA DEPENDS UPON THE DOUBLE STAND- 
 ARD. 
 
 Turning from these considerations of danger in abolish- 
 ing the double standard to those of profit and advantage 
 in retaining it, perrait rae to call your attention to the 
 influence which this subject is destined to exercise upon 
 our commerce. 
 
 It has been the interest in all ages of certain classes to 
 deny that Commerce is beneficial, and that agriculture and 
 manuftictnres or mining are alone entitled to political con- 
 sideration ; but such a position is utterly untenable. Pro- 
 duction cannot advance beyond the rudest limits without 
 commerce, whose essential function it is to exchange that 
 which is not needed, for that which is, or, to reraove com- 
 modities from places where they are not wanted, to places
 
 119 
 
 where they are. In fact, commerce is inseparably bound 
 up with production ; there is no actual dividing line be- 
 tween them. The carriage of seeds to be planted, of textiles 
 to be woven, of ores to be smelted, and the removal of the 
 results to places of deposit or consumption, are all com- 
 mercial functions. Foreign commerce is in like manner 
 inseparable from production, and forms part of it. The 
 implements, materials, agencies, and even remoter sources 
 of national productive industries, depend upon foreign 
 commerce, and would perish without it. Commerce has 
 exercised a potent influence in propagating and extending 
 religion. In its train have ever followed opulence, national 
 strength, political liberty, letters, arts, and sciences. Its 
 advance has always been marked by a general progress in 
 the condition of men; its retardation })y a corresponding 
 retrogradation ; and its discouragement or decline by pov- 
 erty, national dissolution, tyranny, slavery, ignorance, and 
 crime. It has destroyed tlic barriers of distance, alienage, 
 race, religion, and caste. It has equalized the conditions 
 of life in various parts of the earth, and tended to promote 
 that homogeneousness of the human race which the pro- 
 foundest thinkers have maintained is au indispensable 
 preliminary to its highest development. 
 
 Asia Major, with the products of its varied climes and its 
 teeming populations of Tartary, Persia, India, China, and 
 Japan, has in all ages been the objective point of com- 
 merce, and the nations who found the best route to it, 
 have, in turn, all held the sceptre of commercial greatness. 
 The Phoenicians opened a route (not the ancient canal of 
 Necho) to Asia by way of Suez; the Hebrews, overland, 
 by way of Palmyra or Tadmor. The Suez route was re- 
 opened by the Greeks and successively kept open by the 
 Romans and Venetians. The Genoese penetrated to Asia 
 by way of the Euxine; the Portugese led the way by the 
 Cape of Good Hope; the Hansards opened an overland 
 route by way of Novgorod; Spain sought for a path west- 
 ward and stumbled upon a New World; England discov- 
 ered a route by way of Cape Horn, and America has paved 
 with iron rails, first one route by way of Panama and after-
 
 120 
 
 ward another da Sau Fraiicisco. France has acquired both 
 glory and profit by reopening the long-abandoned Suez 
 canal of the Egyptians; Enghmd has reawakened the 
 commercial hopes of her statesmen by purchasing a large 
 interest in this canal; the Medieval prosperity of Italy has 
 been revived through her proximity to it; and Russia is 
 exciting the jealousy of England by extending her borders 
 and military posts to the northwestern limits of India. 
 
 The commercial diadem of the world, the commerce with 
 Asia, lies within easier grasp of the United States than that 
 of any other nation, of the Occident. We not only possess 
 the two shortest or best routes to the Orient, those by way 
 of Panama and San Francisco; we are not only in fact the 
 next-door neighbor to Japan and China, stretching, as our 
 possessions do, within sight of Kamskatka and holding 
 almost the entire shores of the northeastern Pacific ; we 
 are not only at peace with Asia, and regarded by her with 
 more friendliness than any other nation — we possess that 
 commercial object for which Asia is as anxious to seek the 
 Occident as we are the Orient for tea, spices, and silk. 
 We are at the present moment the largest producers of 
 silver in the world, and silver is the main, almost the only, 
 object of foreign commerce to Asiatics. Even yet, al- 
 though Europe has for centuries been pouring what silver 
 she could spare into Asia; although all of Atahualpa's 
 treasures and almost all the silver product of Mexico has 
 found its way to Asia Major, the price of agricultural labor 
 in that country is scarcely more than a penny a day, and 
 the taxes levied by its monarchs are paid in rice. These 
 facts prove the necessity and demand for silver in Asia and 
 the comparative scarcity of it even at the present day. 
 
 I have already stated that it is estimated that Asia pos- 
 sessed a stock of coin, almost entirely silver, amounting 
 at the beginning of the present century to about $700,- 
 000,000; in 1829 to about $800,000,000; in 1848 to about 
 $900,000,000; and in 1872 to about §2,100,000,000. A\^ith 
 a population, stationary, and of, say, 700,000,000, this 
 amounted to one dollar per capiia at the beginning of the 
 century and three dollars per capita at the present time.
 
 121 
 
 Merely to keep this stock of coin preserved from the effects 
 of abrasion and loss, Asia requires sonae $30,000,000 in 
 silver every year. To increase it, she requires more. 
 
 Suppose we persist in demonetizing our silver, suppose 
 we lessen the demand for its use in the Occident and help 
 to throw upon the markets of the world a stock of silver 
 which we must replace with a stock of gold : is it not 
 patent to the humblest understanding that we would lower 
 its value, and be obliged to sell it to Asia, who, having 
 then no competitor for its possession, would be likely to 
 obtain, it at a very low price in her commodities? Is it 
 not plain that under ^uch circumstances, and for a long 
 seriesof years to come, our annual product of silver would 
 follow the way of our rejected stock, and fall into the 
 hands of the Orient at a degraded price. Should we not 
 have to pay more, much more, than now, for the teas, 
 spices, silk, rice, textiles, and other raw materials which 
 we obtain from that quarter of the world ? And were 
 we obliged, eventually, as 1 believe we should be, to buy 
 back this thoughtlessly demonetized and abandoned stock 
 of silver, should we not have to purchase it at a very high 
 price, seeing that meanwhile all prices in Asia would have 
 become greatly enhanced ? 
 
 Hence if we let slip the present favorable opportunity 
 to purchase silver for the purposes of resumption we may 
 find it very difficult to do so in future. When Occidental 
 silver once gets to the Orient it rarely returns and it never 
 will return in any considerable quantity until the scale of 
 prices in the two great divisions of the globe become more 
 nearly equalized than they are at present. Tliis may be 
 centuries hence. 
 
 Nature has furnished us with such advantages for seeking 
 the commerce of Asia, advantages of route, of amicable 
 relations, of an ample supply of silver, that if we do not 
 senselessly throw them away, we are almost certain to 
 monopolize the Asiatic trade and the vast profits that 
 accrue from its pursuit. Asia stands in urgent need of 
 silver; that silver we possess, and she must now come to 
 us for it and purchase it from us, and, as we can aftbrd t'<
 
 100 
 
 sell it to lier cheaper than Europe can, h}- the difTeronce 
 of carriage, insurance, interest, commissions, &c., we are 
 almost certain to secure the monopoly of her trade and 
 with it a market, not only for our silver, but also for our 
 coal and iron, our wheat and Indian corn, our manufac- 
 tures, our literary and our art products. And moreover 
 we shall inevitably become what England is now, the 
 Occidental world's emporium for Japanese, Chinese, and 
 East India products. Instead of being obliged to go to 
 Europe for these products, as now, Europe will be obliged 
 to come to us for them. 
 
 Was it mere forgetfulness or a perversion of correct 
 views which induced some of our public men to entertain 
 even for an instant the notion of abolishing the double 
 standard and degrading our silver product, or was it the 
 sinister advice of nations, whose far-seeing commercial 
 policies detected the advantages which we possessed over 
 them in the future rivalry for the rich trade of the Orient? 
 
 Already has the partialdemonetizationof silver in Europe 
 had the effect of helping to treble the stock of silver which 
 Asia possessed at the opening of this century, and yet so 
 small is the stock of coin among Asiatic nations that, if 
 silver is not entirely demonetized in the Occident, there is 
 not the slightest chance that the surplus silver of the world 
 for centuries to come will suffice for the wants of Asia. 
 Even with a partial demonetization of silver in the Occi- 
 dent, Asia will be able to absorb such portion of the sur- 
 plus current supplies of the world as can be spared, as well 
 as a large portion of the stock, without being saturated 
 with silver. 
 
 SILVER CANNOT BECOME CHEAPER THAN IT IS AT PRESENT. 
 
 To those who indulge the insane fear that the late de- 
 cline of silver caused by European demonetization will 
 continue, it is only necessary to say that the thing is im- 
 possible. This decline cannot continue after the discarded 
 stock of silver is worked off, and when the cost of its pro- 
 duction again becomes the principal factor of its price. 
 And should this country wisely conclude at this favorable
 
 123 
 
 juncture of affairs to remonetize silver, the time necessary 
 for it to advance to its foi-nior relation with gold, would be 
 comparatively short. 
 
 Specie is too scarce in China and India, prices are too 
 low, and the mere maintenance of their present stock of 
 coin demands a supply of many millions a year. I have 
 seen the Humboldt, Truckee and other rivers which flow 
 between the eastern slope of the Sierra iSTevadas and the 
 western walls of the Wahsatch, and which, near their 
 sources in the mountains, flow in great volume, sink all 
 at once into the sands of the desert and disappear from view 
 forever. An attempt to saturate Asia with silver, would, 
 to my mind, be as successful as one to saturate the great 
 American desert with the waters of these rivers. 
 
 But let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Asia 
 cannot take the surplus silver of the Occidental world and 
 demands gold instead fur the balance of her foreign trade. 
 Would this not make gold so scarce as to force us of the 
 Occident to keep our own stock of silver which we now 
 would banish ? And if it would force us to keep it then, why 
 should we not keep it now ? Why change and disturb prices 
 only to come to the same result at last? Why place our- 
 selves in a dilemma either horn of which is dangerous ? 
 Why attempt to banish silver to Asia or force her to send 
 it back to us, which she would do in case the above suppo- 
 sition be well founded; a supposition not borne out either 
 by philosophy or fact. 
 
 Banish silver from the western world, and you will help 
 to banish progress with it ; you will unwittingly and 
 powerfully assist the growth and development of China and 
 India at the expense of our own progress, and precipitate a 
 monetary i-evolution whose overwhelming and widespread 
 efiects no man can fully estimate or foresee. 
 
 THE MEXICAN AND CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN TRADES. 
 
 Similar considerations, scarcely less important, demand 
 that our double standard shall be restored in respect of 
 our commercial and other relations with Mexico and Cen-
 
 124 
 
 tral and South America. All these countries, except Bra- 
 zil and Chili, have either the single silver standard or the 
 double standard of gold and silver. Omitting Brazil and 
 Chili, these countries contain an aggregate population of 
 more than 25,000,000 souls. This vast population is at 
 the present time entering upon an unprecedented era of 
 activity and progress. Their trade with the manufactur- 
 ing States of the world belongs naturally and by reason of 
 proximity, to the United States. Shall we run the risk of 
 losing it by unnecessarily depressing the quotations of 
 South American products in our markets, as we should 
 do if we limited ourselves to a single gold standard ? Shall 
 we offer to them for their productions a stinted measure 
 of the metal which they do not want, instead of a fair 
 measure of the metal which they do want ? Shall we force 
 them to manufacture for themselves, rather than purchase 
 the fabrics they need, from us, in exchange for their val- 
 uable raw materials? 
 
 THE CRESCENDO AND DIMINUENDO THEORY OF THE ACTION OF 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 I now come to those considerations in reference to this 
 subject which have ever commanded the most serious 
 attention of statesmen and publicists. I allude to the 
 effects of increasing or diminishing money upon the social, 
 moral, and religious welfare of peoples. 
 
 I have already shown how profoundly the diminution 
 of coin in the Occidental world, from the period of the 
 Roman empire to that of the discovery or reintroduction 
 of bills of exchange, affected the welfare of Igurope. But 
 as, perhaps, it uuiy be disputed that the Dark Ages, and 
 the awful social wretchedness which characterized them, 
 are attributable wholly, or even in great part, to the dim- 
 inution of money which occurred during that period, I 
 have deemed it best to bring into view moi-o recent and 
 familiar eras of similar character, eras whicli pertain, not 
 like the Dark Ages, to a remote period and an entire
 
 125 
 
 continent, but to later times and particular countries, 
 wherein the relation of the mutations of the currency to 
 the welfare of the people is so close as to admit of little 
 doubt, concerning the influence and action of one upon 
 tlie other. 
 
 I have already stated that, from the nature and function 
 of money, it made no difference to the welfare or conven- 
 ience of society whether the total sum of money was large 
 or small, provided that it was neither so large nor so small 
 that the substance of which it was made, the precious 
 metals, could practically be coined into pieces of con- 
 venient size for transportation or handling, and for the 
 transactions of the ordinary business of life. 
 
 While this is quite true, it nevertheless does make a 
 most important difference whether the sum of money be 
 increasing or diminishing. This diiference, and the social 
 phenomena connected with it, has been very fitly termed 
 by the author of the Essay on Currency in the original 
 edition of Johnson's Cyclopedia, the Crescendo and Dimin- 
 uendo theory, a phrase derived from the terminology of 
 music, an art whose terms are essentially expressive of 
 movement in time. 
 
 SOCIAL EFFECTS OF INCREASING AND DIMINISHING MONEY. 
 
 Crescendoor increasing, and diminuendo or diminishing, are 
 terms which have been deemed convenient for the expres- 
 sion of the movement of the stock of money in time. While 
 this stock is increasing, prices rise; exchange or commerce 
 is stimulated; new enterprises are set afoot; the products 
 of agriculture, manufactures, and mining are increased; 
 the commercial and industrial classes find abundant em- 
 ployment, and earn remunerative profits and wages ; 
 bankruptcies and suicides rarely happen; marriages are 
 promoted; the newly-born survive in greater numbers; 
 population increases in quicker ratio; letters, the fine 
 arts, and the sciences make most rapid strides; education, 
 intelligence, morality, and the observance of religion are
 
 126 
 
 promoted; and the general happiness of mankind becomes 
 greatly enhanced. 
 
 What is the cause of all this industrial activity and social 
 [)rogress ? AVhat action or influence of the increasing 
 stock of money lies at the bottom of it ? Simply this : 
 that an increasing stock of money tends to distribute 
 wealth, and it is the distribution of wealth which effects 
 these wonderful results. " Oh ! it is agrarianism or com- 
 munism that you propose? You would go on increasing 
 artificially and by legislation (for it is only artificially that 
 it can be done) the sum of the currency forever, in order 
 that wealth may be continually distributed, industrial 
 activit}' stimulated, and social progress promoted." 
 
 I propose nothing of the sort. I have depicted the con- 
 sequences of au increasing stock of money, not in order to 
 advocate an artificially increasing currency, but as prelim- 
 inary to depicting the consequences of an artificially di- 
 minishing currency, and with the view of warning the 
 country against submitting to any such diminution. I 
 do not propose to rob the capitalist; but neither do I pro- 
 pose to permit the capitalist to rob society. 
 
 Whilrit the stock of money is diminishing prices fall; 
 commerce is depressed; enterprises are abandoned or ne- 
 glected; industry is paralyzed; itsproducts are diminished; 
 its supporters defeated in their just expectations or thrown 
 out of employment; bankruptcies anfl forced sales are in- 
 creased; marriages are discouraged; suicides become com- 
 mon; the newly-born perish; the increase of population is 
 retarded; the cultivation of letters is abandoned; the arts 
 and sciences fall into decaj-; education, intelligence, moral- 
 ity and religion are neglected; crime increases; and general 
 misery prevails. 
 
 What is the connection between the stock of money and 
 these appalling social phenomena? Simply this : that a 
 diminishing stock of money tends to concentrate wealth, 
 and the concentration of wealth is a cause suflicient to pro- 
 mote all of these evils. " Would 3'ou, then, legislate with 
 the view of preventing the stock of money from being
 
 127 
 
 decreased ? Would you repeat those measures of medieval 
 coercion which distinguished the reign of Henry V, 
 who forbade gold or silver to be used in the arts in order 
 to prevent the stock of money from being diminished?" 
 
 I would do nothing of the sort. I propose neither to 
 increase the currency by artificial means nor to diminish 
 it by coercion. I propose to follow and advocate that 
 policy which little minds never perceive the advantage of 
 pursuing, but which the great men of the world have 
 recognized to be the only safe one in commercial aflairs. 
 I propose to let things alone. Lais sez fair em money is as 
 important to the waiX being of the world as laissez faire in 
 corn. 
 
 Is it not time, Mr. President, that we republicans, we the 
 exemplars of civil freedom to the world, should abandon 
 and renounce this mischievous policy of meddling with the 
 affairs of commerce; this policy which has been handed 
 down to us by the tyrants and marplots of the world; the 
 men with bloody hands and the men with ruthless pur- 
 poses? Is it not time that we practiced freedom as well as 
 preached it? 
 
 For five thousand years has the world been amassing a 
 stock of gold and silver money wherewith to conduct its 
 comm.erce, and yet in one instant and by a single blow, 
 would our irreverant and mischievous hands annihilate one 
 half of this stock. The act of 1873 essentially impaired the 
 character of silver as money in this country, a character 
 which it did not owe to legislation, but to fitness and im- 
 memorial usage. Could the act have afi*ected other coun- 
 tries as it did this one alone, it would have demonetized 
 silver throughout the world. 
 
 What is the principal effect of demonetizing silver? It 
 reduces the entire stock of money by one-half. This eflect 
 may be mitigated by permitting a small sum of debased 
 silver coins, as tokens, to pass current for petty payments 
 in each country, but even then its chief harm remains. The 
 money of the world commences to diminish; prices fall; 
 wealth becomes centralized and concentrated in a few
 
 128 
 
 hands; property is sacrificed to pay debts incurred before 
 the diminution ; bankruptcies ensue; industry' is petrified; 
 want and wretchedness stare the commercial classes in the 
 face, and to escape from these disasters they take refuge in 
 dishonesty and immorality, and in the end wind up with 
 crime and destruction. 
 
 The evidence of these deplorable consequences of arbi- 
 trarily diminishing the stock of money is to be found in 
 the social statistics of all countries. It is only for the sake 
 of brevity that I content myself with adducing a portion of 
 those only of this country. And here let me remark to the 
 possible objection that the statistics of the currency of the 
 United States include paper promises, that the principle is 
 the same, whether the currency is of money alone or money 
 and paper combined. So long as the promises are deemed 
 to be good enough to pass current as money their efiect 
 upon prices is precisely the same. It does not follow from 
 this, as some theorists erroneously maintain, that paper 
 promises would pass current as money without a money 
 basis. On the contrary, repeated experience proves that 
 they will not. Nor does it follow that, because a dimin- 
 ishing stock of money or mixed currency produces the 
 evils alluded to that these evils can be avoided by recourse 
 to a forced currency of paper. They can only be avoided 
 by letting the currency alone, and the sooner we learn and 
 appreciate the importance of this great truth the better will 
 it be for our country and the world at large. 
 
 [For the tables alluded to in the text, see Appendix.] 
 
 THE AVORLd's stock OP THE PRECIOUS METALS THE GREAT 
 CONSERVATOR OF ITS CIVILIZATION. 
 
 It will perhaps be remarked that, no statistical evidence 
 has been oiFeredto support the assertion made with regard to 
 the eftect of the movement of the currency upon letters, the 
 arts, etc. The reason for this is that, while statistics have 
 made such progress that they now fully cover certain fea- 
 tures of civilization, and concerning these features afi^brd
 
 129 
 
 most thorougli and convincing testimony, they do not yet 
 fully cover certain other features, such as those omitted 
 from the illustrations adduced. Within the boundaries to 
 which thus far its conquests have been confined, the use of 
 statistics is of the highest importance, to the student, the 
 publicist, and the legislator; beyond that, such use is 
 almost valueless, and want of discrimination as to where 
 to stop in the employment of statistical evidence, can have 
 but the single result of bringing statistics into undeserved 
 disrepute. 
 
 We know a priori, that the gradual diffusion of wealth 
 means also the gradual ditfusion of the work of life, wherein 
 no feudal tyrant or merciless plutocrat can lord it over the 
 masses of a community bound to exacting toil or hopeless 
 slavery. It is only during this tendency (mark, I say tend- 
 ency) toward a distribution of rewards according to etfort 
 that letters and the arts can flourish. At all other periods, 
 if they make any progress at all, it is confined to a few 
 favored persons, and soon perishes; for the acquisition 
 of letters must be the result of leisure and exemption from 
 toil, and the community that is bound to continual labor 
 can never hope to enjoy the fruits of this divine art. 
 
 Therefore such an increment of the stock of money as 
 would work out a gradual diffusion of wealth, and with 
 it the more equitable distribution of work and leisure than 
 would result from a stock of money which was decreasing 
 or stationary while population advanced, could not fail, 
 and it has never yet failed, to promote the progress of let- 
 ters, the arts and sciences, morality and religion. JSTor 
 could any greater increment occur than one which would 
 be sufficient to induce a gradual diffusion of wealth ; that 
 is, so long as the world retained its present vast stock of 
 the precious metals. Estimating this stock at $5,700,000,- 
 000, it requires §85,500,000 a year to keep it from waste by 
 abrasion and loss, and the annual supply of the precious 
 metals or so much of them as is available for coin has rarely 
 been so much in excess of this sum as to be sufficient to pro- 
 duce more than a very inconsiderable and gradual diffusion 
 9
 
 130 
 
 of wealth. If the increase by population be considered, the 
 process would be extremely slow. 
 
 Viewed from this point, it will be seen that the world's 
 stock of the precious metals has really been the great Con- 
 servator of Civilization. It is this stock and its slow incre- 
 ment since the sixteenth century, which has kept prices, on 
 the whole, steady and slowly rising; just as it was the decre- 
 ment of this stock which threatened the extinction of civiliza- 
 tion during the Middle Ages. It was the little of it that sur- 
 vived throughout that memorable era which prevented the 
 total subversion of society, and with it letters and the arts, 
 in a word, civilization, and it Avas in the country that pre- 
 served the greatest stock of it during that period that civil- 
 ization held aloft its highest torch.* 
 
 THE RESERVOIR OF THE PRECIOUS METALS. 
 
 Lest tliis phrase, " the great Conservator of Civilization," 
 sounds too grand, let it be supposed that at the present 
 time no reservoir of the precious metals existed, or that 
 the entire stock of money was destroyed in an instant. 
 Setting aside the incalculably calamitous consequences of 
 such a catastrophe, is it not plain that the annual supply 
 of the metals, now amounting to about one hundred mil- 
 lions, would assume a new importance in the distribution 
 of wealth and each individual's share of production. As- 
 suming that the precious metals would continue to be used 
 for money, because no other materials would answer the 
 purpose so well, would not these supplies, as fast as they 
 came forward, affect the prices of commodities and services 
 so enormously and suddejily as virtually to place society at 
 the mercy of the few persons who might be able to control 
 or anticipate such supplies? 
 
 *Prof. Jolin W. Dt-aper, in his recent \vork entitled "The Conflict be- 
 tween Science and Religion," states that Aluiansor, tlie Moorish king of 
 Grenada, then the foremost countrj' of Enrope in civilization, population, 
 and wealth, left at his death a treasure of gold and silver amounting in 
 value to $150,000,000. IIow much of this sum consisted of coin is not 
 stated.
 
 131 
 
 In the immensity of the world's stock of the precious 
 metals, which forms a measure of value of such vast pro- 
 portions that no vicissitudes of production can sensibly 
 affect it, society therefore possesses a guarantee for the 
 conservation of all those institutions upon which civiliza- 
 tion depends; upon diffusion of wealth, adequate reward 
 for effort, due proportion of production, liberty, leisure, 
 letters, the arts, morality, and religion. And yet it is one 
 half of this precious stock that madmen would now destroy 
 or degrade to the level of gewgaws and bangles. 
 
 In the face of the significant facts which we have found to 
 correspond with the movement of the currency, whether in 
 the same is counted only the real money in circulation, or 
 the real money combined with the credits based upon it, 
 (if due allowance be made for their differing ratios of ac- 
 tivity,) I ask you, are you prepared to confirm and ratify 
 the thoughtless act of 1873, which demonetized silver as a 
 legal tender in the United States, or will you restore that 
 metal to its rightful position in the money of the country? 
 
 Have the industrial, the commercial, the active, the pro- 
 gressive, the working classes of the country, no rights that 
 legislation is bound to respect? What authority has this 
 Chamber to shorten or curtail the standard by which their 
 labor is to be measured? What justice, what wisdom, 
 what safety is there in assisting to destroy the efficiency of 
 one-half of the world's stock of specie, one-half of that 
 measure of value which has come down to us sanctified by 
 fifty centuries of toil, of usage, of experiment, of universal 
 approval? Can you look on with unconcern and permit 
 the entire relations of society to be disturbed in the fancied 
 interests of that small class of persons, who in every coun- 
 try are wealthy enough to monopolize the possession of its 
 measure of value — which, at best, is limited, and barely 
 suflicient to keep pace with the increase of population and 
 commerce ? 
 
 Such is the pressing scarcity of money, both of gold and 
 silver, throughout the world, that every conceivable form 
 of substitute for it, both safe and unsafe, is in use to eke it
 
 132 
 
 out. Every country of the world is using credit in some 
 form as a temporary substitute for money; yet you would 
 arbitrarily demonetize one-half the stock of money, under 
 the erroneous impression, either that one metal is a measure 
 of value less fluctuating than two, or the equally erroneous 
 one that the option of two metals to pay with is derogatory 
 to the rights of creditors which accrued while that option 
 was open.* 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEaAL ASPECTS OP THE CASE. 
 
 I shall now endeavor to show that under our Constitu- 
 tion both the precious metals are made legal tender for 
 the payment of debts. 
 
 I hold— 
 
 1st. That the word " money,"' as used in article one, sec- 
 tion eight, of the " Constitution for the Unit-ed States," 
 means both the precious metals, silver and gold, and, by rea- 
 son of the context, cannot mean either paper promises or 
 one of the metals only. 
 
 2d. That the power to " regulate the value thereof" was 
 necessary in order to render this meaning eff^ective, and 
 
 *The main argument used in favor of the gold valuation is this : '' If 
 a creditor, liaving stipulated for a fixed payment, may be paid by the 
 debtor in either gold or silver, the latter chooses tlie material wliich 
 comes cheapest to him, and tlie creditor suffers an injustice." Without 
 inquiring whether the creditor on entering upon the contract also exer- 
 cised his option in furnisliiug tlie debtor with either material, and there- 
 fore cannot claim anotlier treatment — without inquh-ing wlietlier, as he 
 can also part with tlie material received on the same terms, and must do 
 so, I can show you that the dogma is one untrue, botli in practice and in 
 theory. * * * Tlie large business of exchanging contracts, as well as 
 all such dealings in capital and commodities, in which tlic '-creditor" 
 stands in the position assumed above, is carried on by accounts, checks, 
 and clearing systems without the use of any currency, and so the great 
 system depends upon the exchange of equivalents of value alone. * * * 
 There can be no question of any ditTex'ence or disproportionate "cheap- 
 ness" between them, (the metals.) The debtor, in order to obtain either 
 gold or silver coin, must render up the same equivalent for eitlier. 
 (Ernest Seyd, Journal of the Roj^al Society of Arts, March 10, 1S76, p. 
 320.)
 
 133 
 
 that, had "money" meant one metal instead of two the 
 power to regalate value would have been supererogatory, 
 abortive, and absurd. 
 
 3d. That no other construction of the phrase " to regu- 
 late the vahie thereof" is admissible, because even in theory 
 law cannot reguhite values, unless the things whose values 
 are to be regulated are specified, and, practically, unless also, 
 the law-power or Government possesses control of the sup- 
 ply or demand of the things to be valued. As all things 
 cannot be specified, and as Government only has control 
 of the supply of gold and silver coins, it follows that the 
 value of these commodities, one to the other, is all that can 
 be " regulated" under the Constitution, and that this regu- 
 lation constitutes both silver and gold as money and legal 
 tender. 
 
 I. Article one, section eight, of the Constitution for the 
 United States provides that " the Congress shall have power 
 * * * * to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of 
 foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures." 
 
 What is money ? Gold and silver coined. This was the 
 only meaning attached to " money " when the Constitution 
 was framed, and it is the only proper meaning. In late 
 days the word, money, has been used to mean any circu- 
 lating media, whether gold or silver coined, or promises 
 to pay. That such is not the meaning of the term as em- 
 ployed in the Constitution is evident fromthe phrase " to 
 coin," which prefixes the word, " money." Promises to 
 pay cannot be coined, nor were any other metals than gold 
 and silver used as money in this country or any other at 
 the period of the Constitution; therefore, money, as men- 
 tioned in that instrument meant gold and silver coined, 
 and could not have oaeant anything else. 
 
 Nor could it have meant either one of these metals sep- 
 arately, because of the aflix, " and regulate tbe value 
 thereof." 
 
 What is value? The relation between two services or 
 commodities exchanged, or, to be more precise, the quan- 
 titative relation in services or commodities between two
 
 134 
 
 services or commodities exchanged. I have ah'eadj' ex- 
 plained the meaning of this term. (See p. 19, ante.) It 
 must not be compared with worth, utility, or desirability, 
 which are intrinsic qualities or characteristics without 
 quantity; whilst value is an extrinsic and a quantitative 
 characteristic which is only determinable in exchange. 
 Worth, utility, and desirability may reside in an object 
 without reference to exchange. Value wdthout exchange 
 is impossible. Law cannot regulate the worth, utility, or 
 desirability of a commodity. Why? Because these are 
 intrinsic and incommensurable characteristics, and are, 
 therefore, not sus<3eptible of regulation. Law can regu- 
 late value, because value is an extrinsic characteristic, de- 
 terminable by exchange. But law cannot regulate the 
 value of a commodity generally, and as to all things, un- 
 less it specifies separately the quantity of all things which 
 shall be interchangeable. This is not only palpably im- 
 practicable, but, even were it practicable, is clearly inad- 
 missible as a construction of the constitutional phraseology. 
 An attempt to regulate the value of money as to all things 
 would produce the utmost injustice and confusion in indus- 
 trial affairs, and entirely subvert the Constitution and the 
 objects for which it was established. The power to regu- 
 late the value of money w^as therefore confined to gold and 
 silver only. It could not have been with reference to other 
 things. 
 
 11. Even with reference to gold and silver, the power to 
 regulate the value of money would have been supereroga- 
 tory unless money meant both gold and silver, and value 
 the relation between them ; for value in respect to an 
 isolated thing is inconceivable and impossible, value being 
 a relation and not an intrinsic quality. If "money," 
 according to the Constitution, meant both gold and silver, 
 the power to regulate the value thereof was a necessary 
 incident to that of coinage, and this view aftbrds the only 
 explanation of the employment of the phrase "to regulate 
 the value thereof" in the Constitution. Otherwise the 
 phrase was powerless, meaningless, and absurd. To coin
 
 135 
 
 money and regulate the value thereof are, therefore, in- 
 separable powers, and although Congress is not required 
 to exercise them, but is merely permitted to do so, yet, if 
 exercised, they can only be exercised together, and the ex- 
 ercise of one power without the other is unconstitutional. 
 Therefore, so long as any coins of the United States are in 
 existence the suppression of the silver dollar by the act of 
 1873 is void.* 
 
 III. Practically, the Government has control of only two 
 commodities among all those known to the world : these two 
 are gold and silver coins. The Constitution gives to the 
 Government exclusively the power to coin money, and this 
 power gives it practical control over the supply of gold and 
 silver coins. It may be held, indeed, that the same power 
 gives it also control over any substances which it may choose 
 to employ as money, for example, copper, tobacco, musket- 
 balls,wampum-peag, paper promises, etc. But the impracti- 
 cability of regulating the value of substances of such heter- 
 ogeneous composition and limitless supply merely serves to 
 show the absurdity of attempting to extend the meaning 
 of the phrase " money" beyond that which was clearly at- 
 tached to it at the time of the Constitution, viz : gold and sil- 
 ver coins. These various substances, and many others, had 
 all been employed in this country as substitutes for money, or 
 as tokens, previous to the Constitution, and some of them 
 were in wide use at the time of that instrument. But it is 
 quite clear that none of them were referred to in the phrase 
 "money," and that gold and silver alone were meant. 
 
 Having control of the two commodities, gold and silver 
 coins, and of these tw^o only, it was not and is not practi- 
 cable for the Government of the United States to regulate 
 the value as between any other commodities than gold and 
 silver coins. f 
 
 *Tlie word dollar was tir.st detiaed in the coinage act of April 1792. 
 Therefore, the powers of coining and regulating value were first exer- 
 eised togctiier. There was no regulation of value before coining : there- 
 fore no regulation of the value of tlie foreign coins which circulated in 
 tlie United States previous to 1792. 
 
 t jSTot even between gold and silver bullion.
 
 136 
 
 Having made this regulation, Congress went as far as it 
 bad power to go. In the regulation that " the proportional 
 value of gold to silver in all coins which shall by law be 
 current as money within the United States, shall be as 
 fifteen to one, according to quantity in weight of pure gold 
 or pure silver," (Act of April 2,1792, section 11,) Congress 
 exercised all the kind of power which was conferred upon 
 it by the Constitution regarding the regulation of values. 
 
 VIEWS OF THE LAST GENERATION ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL 
 
 QUESTION. 
 
 The view herein taken is that which has hitherto been 
 taken by all who have carefully considered this subject. 
 In a report to this Chamber by one of its members, Mr. 
 Sanford, the chairman of a " Select Committee to consider 
 the State of the Currency," appointed by the 21st Con- 
 gress, (see Ex. Doc, 2d Session, 21st Cong., Dec. 15,1830,) 
 he held the following language : 
 
 " The Constitution of the United States evidently con- 
 templates in the power conferred upon this Government to 
 coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
 coins, and the restriction imposed on the States, to make 
 nothing but gold and silver coins a tender in paj^ment of 
 debts, that the money of this country shall be gold and 
 silver. Our s^^stem of money established in the year 1792, 
 fully adopts the principle that it is expedient to coin and 
 use both metals as money, and such has always been the 
 opinion of the people of the United States." 
 
 At this period (1830) there was not a dollar of gold in 
 the country. England had nearly depleted u5 of what 
 little we had previous to 1817, in order to prepare for the 
 resumption of specie payments, which had been suspended 
 in England since 1797, and ^^hich resumption the ruling 
 classes of England had unwisely or selfishly planned upon 
 the basis of a single metal. This depletion went on from 
 1817 until after 1820, perhaps until 1821 or 1822. Then it 
 stopped, so far as we were concerned, from sheer exhaus- 
 tion on our part. We had no more gold to sell. At that
 
 137 
 
 period we had nearly $70,000,000 of bank paper afloat. 
 What condition this country would have been left in, had 
 our statesmen been as indifterent then as they appear to 
 have been in 1873, in regard to the constitutional require- 
 ment to make both gold and silver legal tender money, 
 I leave to the imagination. Oar population was then 
 10,000,000. We had but lately emerged from a war with 
 England, at the close of which gold had stood, in our ex- 
 cessive paper issues, at 117, and an attempt to resume in 
 1817 was met by a revulsion in 1819, and a secondary re- 
 vulsion in 1821. 
 
 Imagine 10,000,000 of people, exhausted by war and 
 the sores of a double revulsion, depleted of every dollar of 
 gold, and divested of the power to resume in silver or use 
 that metal in the payment of debts. Do you suppose, if 
 the statesmen of 1822 had been as forgetful of the interests 
 of their country and as oblivious of constitutional law as 
 seem to have been those of 1873, that any respect would 
 have been paid to their legislation, and that if it had been 
 respected, the country could have been saved from revul- 
 sion and repudiation? I fancy not. 
 
 And this episode of our history conveys more than one 
 warning, more than the warning that monometalism, if 
 persisted in, may bring the country to great social and polit- 
 ical disturbances. Some people are so filled with the sense 
 of security that a warning of repudiation seems to them a 
 mere bugaboo. Simple failure in an attempt to resume 
 specie payments is, to them, an event of far greater likeli- 
 hood, if not of importance. Very well, then; the episode 
 before us contains the warning of such a failure; of two such 
 failures. Wetried to resume in 1817; we tried again in 1821; 
 and on both occasions distress followed. What was the 
 cause? Lack of specie. We tried to redeem sixty or seventy 
 millions of paper with twenty or twenty-five millions of 
 coin. What was the cause of the lack of specie? England 
 had drained us of our gold, which she virtually overvalued 
 in order to prepare for her own resumption. 
 
 But for silver, the use of which as legal tender had been
 
 138 
 
 preserved for us by the Coustitutiou, we should not have 
 resumed at all, at least not for forty years after; wheu Cal- 
 ifornia opened. The case is similar now. England again 
 has drained us of our gold. We have $800,000,000 of 
 paper afloat, and less than $50,000,000 of specie wherewith 
 to redeem it. Yet Congress orders resumption to take 
 place, and forbids the employment of silver wherewith to 
 resume. Is it not plain that resumption is quite impracti- 
 cable; that a sum of gold sufficient for the purpose cannot 
 be purchased throughout the world at any prices for bonds 
 or exports at which we would be willing to sell ; and that 
 any attempt to resume, unless the constitutional require- 
 ments as to the monetization of silver are obeyed, will 
 plunge the country into all the disasters of monetary re- 
 vulsion? 
 
 VESTED INTERESTS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Ever since Mr. Webster's time it has been an oft-quoted 
 doctrine that under the Constitution the destruction or 
 impairment of a vested interest by act of Government is 
 in the nature of a breach of contract. Without giving 
 adhesion to this doctrine, it ought to be remarked that, as 
 a rule of law it appears to work too many ways to be prac- 
 ticable, because legislation is impossible without disturb- 
 ance of social relations, and therefore, of existing interests. 
 However this may be, the rule has been held to apply with 
 peculiar force, though I know not why, to the vested inter- 
 ests of the public creditor, and prejudice has been arrayed 
 against the return to the double standard, because it is held 
 that payments in silver might aflect the interests of the 
 public creditor. To this I have already adverted and I do 
 not propose to raise that question now. But while on the 
 subject of vested interests and breach of contract there is 
 something more to be said. That something relates to the 
 mining interests of this country, interests which, I think it 
 will be admitted, are quite as important to the welfare of 
 the country as those of the public creditor.
 
 139 
 
 The mining interests of this country came into existence 
 under clauses of the Constitution which it was well under- 
 stood made both gold and silver money legal tender for the 
 payment of debts. During the first three-quarters of the 
 period of our national existence, silver chiefly and for the 
 most time only was employed as money; during the last 
 quarter of the period gold was chiefly so employed. But 
 not until 1873 (and that merely by implication) was either 
 metal demonetized. It was therefore while both metals were 
 money that the entire gold and silver mining interests of 
 this country were created and built up, at first upon allu- 
 vial findings and washings, and afterward with the profit 
 from those upon the more ditficult and expensive ores in 
 veins and lodes. These interests, once so few, now so nu- 
 merous that they yearly throw into the lap of the country 
 $100,000,000 of the precious metals, more than one-half of 
 the product of the entire world, and suflicient, if rightly 
 managed, to render our country the clearing house of the 
 world, were literally built up with the naked fingers, with 
 the rude pick and cradle. This single foundation was that 
 clause of the Constitution which makes the precious metals 
 money, but for which they would have had no existence, 
 and upon the continued and faithful observance of which 
 they depend even to-day for maintenance, because though 
 of gigantic dimensions in the aggregate their average 
 profit is so small that it vanishes with the slightest disturb- 
 ance in the value of the precious metals. Yet there are 
 those who hold in respect of these permanent, important, 
 and well deserving interests vested in mining, that the 
 interests of a pack of clamorous money-lenders in London, 
 Berlin, and Frankfort are of vastly more account than 
 theirs. The recent project of a Boston correspondent to 
 pay the interest on the public debt in silver dollars they 
 sneered at as "a nice down-east joke," and bullied about 
 the rights of vested interests under the Constitution. 
 
 The Constitution! Sir, when I come to pronounce that 
 word 1 do so with a respect that is akin to reverence ; for 
 under the shadow of that instrument, so wisely and so
 
 140 
 
 wondrously drawn as to have lasted a century of the 
 "World's busiest times, there has grown up from thirteen 
 feeble and jealous colonies, containing 3,000,000 people 
 of varied origin and conflicting interests, a nation of thirty- 
 eight proud States, containing 45,000,000 people, free, 
 homogeneous, prosperous, strong, and progressive. When 
 and where else in the World's history has such a growth 
 been seen ? The constitution of the Roman republic, 
 though nominally it lasted longer, really did not last so 
 long, for it was frequently and essentially- altered and 
 modified. It had to deal with a far lesser number of 
 States, interests, or people, and the progress under it was 
 nothing as compared with our progress. Take the most 
 important of modern States, England, France, or Ger- 
 many. In which of them will you find the same freedom, 
 the same equality, the same ingenuity and adaptability, the 
 same energy, the same elasticity, the same rapidity of 
 growth, either in numbers or wealth ? Since the date of our 
 Constitution England has scarcely trebled her population. 
 France has not yet doubled hers, while ours has increased 
 fifteen times. Our national life has not been without its 
 vicissitudes, but who can deny that it has been grand, 
 noble, and progressive, and that it is due all of it to that 
 sacred instrument which we rightly terra the Constitution 
 for the United States. 
 
 In pronouncing the name of this instrument I do so with 
 the respect due to the mighty agencj' which it has had in 
 building up a great nation and promoting the progress of 
 man in all countries. 
 
 In this remembrance I should almost regard it as sacri- 
 lege to invoke its support of a false doctrine, to twist it, 
 distort it, or seek to turn it aside from its plain meaning. 
 And I regard it as sacrilege when I see it used as a cover 
 to protect the sharp-toothed greed of plutocracy. 
 
 That gold and silver are both the money of the Consti- 
 tution is so obviously the meaning of that instrument that 
 the question, so far as I am aware, was never fully raised 
 until lately and after the passage of the act of 1873. That
 
 141 
 
 the Constitution either directly or by the remotest impli- 
 cation throws any mantle of protection over the public 
 creditor, which does not at the same time as ampl}^ cover 
 the third greatest industrial interest of the whole country 
 — this I deny. 
 
 Between an interest which has become "vested" by 
 dint of hasty and ill-considered legislation, and one which 
 has become " vested " through bold adventure, the peril 
 of life, the miasma of death-inclosing valleys, the snows 
 of lofty mountains, the arid and burning plains, through 
 incessant labor, and far awa}^ from " home " and familiar 
 faces — between these classes of vested interests there is a 
 wide difference. One of these classes demands the main- 
 tenance of the act of 1873, because it fears that the over- 
 throw of that act may have some possible bearing upon the 
 advantages which it has secured; the other asks for its 
 immediate abolition because it is unconstitutional, it is 
 unwise, it is sapping the foundation of an industry of vital 
 importance to the country. Let the Senate decide between 
 them, and choose whether it will intrust the welfare of the 
 nation rather to the money-dealers of Lombard street and 
 the Continent than to the hardy mountaineers of the Sierra 
 ISJ'evadas, whose occupations are environed with danger 
 and whose unceasing watch-word is Liberty! 
 
 WHAT THE HAND OF THE DESTROYER HATH SPARED. 
 
 Some of the greatest nations of the earth have been de- 
 stroyed, and it has been asserted that nothing remains to 
 attest their existence except the language they employed. 
 Such is the case with the ancient Arabians, the Phoeni- 
 cians, and the Carthaginians, who were all of the same 
 race. Such, also, was the case with the ancient Malaya, 
 Egyptians, and Toltecs. Ofthe Lake Dwellers of Switzerland 
 or the Mound Builders of America, it is said that not even 
 language remains. And yet all of these nations and many 
 other prehistoric ones, as the Pelasgians, the Etruscans, 
 etc., have left a legacy to mankind. That legacy is the
 
 142 
 
 precious metals which they employed for money. Much 
 of it must still be in existence in some form or other of 
 usefulness. The hand of the destroyer, Time, hath spared 
 this, even while he hath not spared language. And }^t 
 there are impious men to-day, who, for the sake of a tem- 
 porary personal advantage, would strike down this last and 
 precious vestige of nations who fought and labored scores 
 of centuries ago that we might now live in peace and 
 plenty. 
 
 WORSE THAN DESTROYING THE MINES. 
 
 The demonetization of silver would not merely have the 
 same result as the stoppage of all the silver mines of the 
 world; the result would be far worse: it would be as 
 though one-half of all the labor of past ages, except what 
 doubtful legacy has remained in the shape of land im- 
 provements, were blotted out of existence. This would 
 be worse than destroying the mines; for they might be 
 reopened, whereas the demonetized metal would be irre- 
 trievably lost in the arts and otherwise. 
 
 " LET THINGS STAND AS THEY ARE." 
 
 "Let things stand as they are" is the false and treach- 
 erous maxim of those who have wrongfully obtained an 
 advantage over others. Laissez /aire does not mean "let 
 things stand as they are," but "let alone" altogether. 
 The existing state of affairs may be the result of a good 
 deal of meddlesomeness. To let them remain as they are 
 would be to let ruin work its own way. The single 
 standard foisted upon this nation by the act of 1873 was a 
 mischievous interference with trade, and things cannot be 
 let alone until this act is repealed. The suppression of 
 the double standard cannot be compared with the usury 
 laws. It is ten thousand times, nay, infinitely worse; for 
 in the rate of interest for money there is competition 
 between money-lenders, whereas, concerning the kind of 
 metal in which they will demand to be paid, there will
 
 143 
 
 be no competition whatever. Herein the interests of all mon- 
 ey lenders are identical. The only way to meet their rapacity 
 is by restoring the double standard, to give the debtor the 
 same option in paying that the creditor had in lending. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF MONEY — PREHISTORIC NATIONS EXPERIMENTS 
 
 IN MONEY GOLD STANDARD — PLATINUM COINS. 
 
 Hitherto, in alluding to the antiquity of gold and silver 
 money, I have sometimes used the expression thirty or 
 fifty centuries, the former referring to the oldest coins 
 now extant, the latter to the earliest period for which we 
 have indisputable evidence concerning the use of these 
 metals for money. But if there is any credence to be 
 reposed in the numerous authorities quoted in Baldwin's 
 " Prehistoric N'ations," both gold and silver were em- 
 ployed as money by the ancient Arabians or Cushites, from 
 sixty to a hundred centuries ago. The precise antiquity 
 of money is, however, of little consequence in this con- 
 nection. It is sufficient if we know that it is of very great 
 antiquity, and of this there is no doubt whatever. 
 
 During all this time every conceivable sort of experiment 
 was made with money. It was tried in ingots, in " dust," 
 in wire coils, and in coins; round, square, oblong, punc- 
 tured, buttoned, milled, and unmilled coins; coins with 
 and without alloy ; pure coins, composite coins, base coins, 
 plated coins, coins of brass, tin, iron, nickel, and plat- 
 inum. 
 
 The history of platinum coins exemplifies the results of 
 all these experiments. These coins were adopted in Rus- 
 sia in 1826, during the notable decline in the product of 
 the precious metals, which occurred from 1810 to 1840, 
 and before the Ural and Siberian mines were opened. 
 No substance was intrinsically more suitable to answer the 
 purposes of money than platinum. It was only inferior to 
 the precious metals in one respect; but that respect proved 
 fatal to its continuance. There was no srreat stock of 
 platinum in the world to modify the vicissitudes of its cur-
 
 144 
 
 rent production as there is of the precious metals ; no 
 reservoir of antiquity ; no heirloom of the centuries. 
 Consequently, every time the annual production of plati- 
 num greatly increased, prices in platinum coins were 
 suddenly and violently advanced, and every time the pro- 
 duction of platinum fell off, prices fell. These violent 
 aberrations proved fatal to the continued use of this metal 
 for coins, and it was discontinued. The same thing had 
 previously occurred with coins of brass, iron, tin, etc., and 
 if our nickel coins were anything more than tokens, mere 
 promises to pay stamped on base metal, the same thing 
 would happen with them. 
 
 Substitutes for money form another class of experiments 
 which have ended disastrously in bank panics, in commer- 
 cial crises, in stay-laws, and in repudiation. The trouble 
 is the same with bank credits as with coins of any other 
 substances than the precious metals. There is no stock 
 on hand to modify the influence of great supplies. 
 
 The adoption of the single gold standard is another ex- 
 periment in money of similar character, and subject in a 
 measure to the same fatal objection. In this case the 
 stock on hand is very great; but it is only one-half as 
 much as that of the two precious metals combined; and 
 this important fact must settle the fate of the experiment. 
 
 COMPARATIVE FACILITY AND COST OF TRANSPORTING GOLD 
 
 AND SILVER. 
 
 During the great Continental wars of three-fourths of a 
 century ago, the necessity of having large military chests 
 in the service of armies rendered it necessary to transport 
 large sums of specie in the field. For this purpose gold 
 was found to be superior to silver on account of its lighter 
 weight in proportion to value. While the fact was then 
 so important that it may have had no little influence in 
 reconciling the British nation with that formal adoption 
 of the single gold standard which followed shortly after 
 these wars, it is now of no importance whatever, even in
 
 145 
 
 Europe, and never has been of any importance in this 
 country. Armies do not employ military chests now-a- 
 days. Russia, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, and eveu 
 England, have fought their greatest campaigns with the 
 aid of treasury or bank paper. In America all our wars 
 have been fought with paper. The colonial Expedition to 
 Louisbourg, in 1745, was conducted with paper, our war of 
 Independence was fought with paper, our Rebellion was 
 put down with paper. Whatever may be the evil effects 
 of paper, it is hopeless to expect that it will not be issued 
 by Governments in the event of great wars. War is of 
 itself the greatest of evils, and the lesser evil of paper 
 merely follows in its wake, as sharks do the mutinous ship. 
 
 In times of peace the cost of transporting a given sura 
 in gold or silver is the same, notwithstanding the lighter 
 weight of the former. Freights upon gold and silver are 
 rated according to value, and not according to bulk or 
 weight. The freight upon a ton of gold from California 
 to New York is now more than sixteen times as much 
 as that upon a ton of silver, and this is the same upon 
 railway, and steamship, and other transportation lines 
 throughout the world. The curious will find the actual 
 freights quoted in M. Cernuschi's work on Bi-metalism. 
 
 The rating of freights upon gold and silver by value 
 instead of bulk or weight is due to the important consider- 
 ation of risk. The bulk or weight of a million dollars in 
 silver is far greater than that of a million dollars in gold; 
 but the risk of loss from accident or robbery is far greater 
 in the case of gold than in that of silver. An ingot of 
 gold worth $2,000 could be very easily lost, and would be 
 very difficult to recover in case of a railway collision, a 
 fire, the breaking of a bridge, a robbery, etc. An ingot 
 of silver worth $2,000 would be difficult to lose and easy 
 to recover; nor could a thief conveniently carry it off, be- 
 cause it would weigh over a hundred pounds. No guards 
 are required to conduct a shipment of silver bars because 
 no highwaymen could lift them, while gold ingots of the 
 same value could be stowed away in the pocket, and there- 
 
 10
 
 146 
 
 fore have to be guarded by armed men. The expense in- 
 curred in this and other wa^'s fully counterbalances the 
 saving- which arises from inferior bulk or weioht in trans- 
 portation. 
 
 As to the alleged superiority of gold in handling sums 
 of money suitable for the ordinary payments of commercial 
 life, it is the merest moonshine. One would suppose, to 
 hear this claim made, that such an institution as banking 
 was unknown to the world, instead of being, what is the 
 fact, of seven hundred years' growth. Only the most nar- 
 row theorist will contend that the resumption of specie 
 payments in this country will he followed by the extinction 
 of banks. After resumption banks will receive specie on 
 deposit and issue bills in its place, and these bills will be 
 used for payments from hand to hand, just as similar bills 
 were used before suspension. The only dift'erence will be 
 that, thanks to the superiority of the national over the old 
 State bank systems, the bills will be better secured, indeed, 
 we may say, absolutely secured, provided, of course, that 
 no relaxation is made of the admirable and sound condi- 
 tions and principles upon which this system was founded; 
 and of such relaxation we need entertain no fears. 
 
 In such case, and in all cases, we always have a perfect 
 expedient to obviate the inconvenience of handling coins, 
 that of depositing the coins with the Government, which 
 shall issue therefor, dollar for dollar, bills to be declared 
 by law receivable for a,ll payments, public and private. 
 
 This project I need not elaborate at this time or in this 
 connection. Its suggestion merely serves to show that in 
 any event our money, whether of gold or silver, or both, 
 as it should be, can always be made easy enough to handle, 
 through the medium of representative paper. 
 
 It should always be borne in mind that, as M. Cernusclu 
 remarks, a bill of exchange (or bank note) for silver does 
 not weigh any more than one for gold. 
 
 THE SINGLE STANDARD COMMERCIALLY UNPROFITABLE. 
 
 If we look at the question from the national and not
 
 147 
 
 merely the plutocratical point of view, it will appear that 
 every nation which demonetizes one of the metals and 
 limits itself to the use of the other only punishes itself. 
 It would leave more money to the other nations. Prices 
 would fall in the former countries and rise in the latter. 
 The former would have to sell their products to the latter 
 at low prices and purchase hack in high prices; just as 
 China sells to us now at low prices and buys from us at 
 high ones. If instead of selling their products wherewith 
 to pay for the products they purchased, the gold standard 
 nations sold their products wherewith to purchase the de- 
 monetized metal in which the prices of the other were 
 rated, as for instance, if England purchased silver where- 
 with to pay for East India products, she would have to 
 purchase such silver at the high prices of commodities 
 which would prevail in India after the surplus stock of 
 Europe were driven thither. In other words, the course 
 of exchange would be against the gold standard nations. 
 For example, a pound sterling of exchange upon India 
 would cost more than a pound sterling of gold in England. 
 Arrange it as you will, either product against product, or 
 product against exchange, the result will be the same. 
 The nations with a limited stock of money would trade 
 disadvantageously with nations having both the metals for 
 their standard of value. This is the secret of the profit- 
 ableness of the Oriental trade. The Oriental countries 
 employ but one metal for their standard — silver. The 
 Occidental countries have hitherto employed both metals. 
 Hence the low prices of the Orient and high prices of the 
 Occident As a measure between the labor of the two 
 great divisions of the world, it has always been favorable 
 to the Occident This advantage it is now proposed to 
 destroy. To call it madness would be but a mild stigma. 
 
 OUR MONEY SHOULD BE EN RAPPORT WITH THAT OF THE 
 
 WORLD. 
 
 Having already shown that gold and silver was the 
 money of the world — not gold or silver singly — it would
 
 148 
 
 seem hardly necessary to repl}^ more specifically to an 
 objection to the restoration of the double standard which 
 some men suggest. That suggestion is, that unless we 
 adopt the gold standard we shall not be en rapport with 
 the standard of England, the country with which we 
 transact the most commerce. 
 
 Those who suggest this objection do not appear to 
 remember how foreign exchanges are conducted. Bal- 
 ances of trade are not paid in coin, but in bullion, and it 
 makes no difterence whether the bullion is of gold or 
 silver or both. It goes for its value, whatever that may 
 be at the time. Exchanges are adjusted by means of bills, 
 which are rated in view of the standard of value in the 
 several countries upon or through which the bills are 
 drawn. Suppose our standard were of gold, and we had 
 to pay for a balance of trade to China : we would not 
 pay in gold coin, but in bullion, in gold, not ;it its price 
 in this country, but at its price in all countries. This 
 would be determined by the course of exchange, which is 
 the product of settlements between all commercial nations. 
 So, if our standard were the double one of silver and gold, 
 our balances with England would not be settled in gold 
 and silver coin, but in bullion, at its price in all countries, 
 as determined by the course of exchange. We would 
 settle in bills of exchange, as we do now, as we always 
 have done. So far as this objection goes, the discordance 
 between the standards of two countries is of no conse- 
 quence whatever. Discordance of standard is only mate- 
 rial when it has the eii'ect of locally demonetizing, for a 
 greater or lesser duration of time, an important part of 
 the world's stock of coin, and this can only happen when 
 several important countries unite in demonetizing one of 
 the metals. This is the case now. Silver is being driven 
 to the Orient, and though, in spite of demonetization, it 
 will find its way back in time, yet meanwhile, the nations 
 who unite in demonetizing it will needlessly produce a 
 revolution in prices and the relations of the various classes 
 of society, which may seriously affect the rank of such 
 nations in the scale of civilization.
 
 149 
 
 To render our standard of money en rapport with that 
 of England, while it would not prove of the slightest con- 
 venience in commercial aifairs, would tend to render our 
 institutions of government en rapport with hers. If this is 
 what gentlemen desire, they should say so openly, and not 
 under the mask of a fancied commercial advantage. Their 
 constituents will then be better able to appreciate their 
 statesmanship. 
 
 GROWING INFLUENCE OF THE WORLD'S STOCK OF SPECIE. 
 
 There was a time when the world's stock of specie was 
 80 small that the slightest vicissitude in the supply of 
 bullion from the mines was sufficient to cause violent fluc- 
 tuations in prices and violent changes of fortune. The Feu- 
 dal System owes no little of its strength and permanence 
 to this fact, for it was the only institution upon which the 
 ruline: classes, ecclesiastical and secular, could relv to 
 secure to them their monopoly of wealth. When the 
 Feudal System, through many causes,* began to lose 
 strength, the Mercantile System was adopted to serve the 
 purpose of controlling the flow of specie from one country 
 to another. At the present time the world's stock of 
 specie is so great that the vicissitudes of supply can have 
 but little influence upon prices, and as that stock becomes 
 larger and larger the influence of the supply will become 
 less and less. Another century may see society safely 
 placed beyond the influence of these mutations. 
 
 Yet now, upon the threshold of a condition of affairs 
 which must do more to equalize the fortunes of individuals 
 and advance the progress of society than any other, it is 
 proposed to destroy at one blow the work of countless 
 centuries by demonetizing one-half of the world's stock of 
 specie, and the United States are asked to assist in this 
 work of superlative madness and inhumanity. Such a 
 
 *The invention of gunpowder, the introduction of bills of exchange, 
 the discovery of America, and establishment of colonies with ample 
 arable lands, &c.
 
 150 
 
 propositiou, which could only emanate from men crazed 
 and arrogant with good fortune, is not merely an insult to 
 the genius and institutions of this country; it is a bold and 
 direct attack upon progress, upon civilization, upon liberty. 
 The men who have made it do not merely attack the pros- 
 perity of their own countries, they conspire to destroy 
 humanity, they are traitors to society ; they have urged a 
 proposition of the most violent and revolutionary character. 
 
 NOBODY HURT BY RESTORING THE DOUBLE STANDARD. 
 
 I ask gentlemen to point me out one individual who can 
 be injured by restoring the double standard, recoining the 
 silver dollar of 371 J grains fine, and making it a legal tender 
 for all amounts, as it was before. Point me out one man 
 who would suffer by it. Point me out one product of 
 the country which would be lessened in its gold price by 
 restorins: the silver dollar. Point me out one interest 
 imperiled, one sacrifice sustained. On the other hand, I 
 will point you out millions of men who will be ruined if 
 j'ou persist in retaining the gold standard. I will name a 
 thousand products of the country which will continue to fall 
 in price. I will show you a myriad of interests in jeop- 
 ardy and innumerable sacrifices to be sustained. 
 
 TOE STOCK OF MONEY MAKES PRICES, AND THE COURSE OF PRICES 
 
 AFFECTS CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Double the world's stock of money to-day, and you will 
 double all prices. Diminish it one-half, and prices will 
 fall one-half. This relation of money and price is axiom- 
 atic. You will find it in all the books on political 
 economy. ]^o writer has ever ventured to doubt it; not 
 even Tooke, who doubted everything, even his own opin- 
 ions. 
 
 Price is the expression of the measure of value, which 
 is money. The larger the measure the larger the expres- 
 sion or price; the smaller the measure the smaller the 
 expression or price. Hence, with a large stock of coin
 
 151 
 
 in the world, prices would be high; with a small stock, 
 prices would be low. To increase the stock of coin is to 
 enhance prices, alleviate the burdens of the debtor class, 
 and distribute wealth, to decrease it is to lower prices, 
 increase the claims of the creditor class, and concentrate 
 wealth. One result leads to social progress; the other to 
 decay. Every dollar hewn out of the rocks, no matter 
 w^hom it enriches in the iirst instance, has an immediate 
 eflect in alleviating the general condition of mankind. 
 Every dollar, worn out, lost, or demonetized by plutocrat- 
 ical legislation, tends to lower prices and concentrate 
 wealth, tends to impoverish the needy and enrich the 
 affluent. 
 
 The proposition to resume specie payments in this 
 country on the gold standard is tantamount to demonetiz- 
 ing one-tenth of the world's stock of silver or one-twentieth 
 of its entire stock of coin. When the long period which 
 has been required to accumulate this stock is taken into 
 consideration, it is not too much to say that this act will 
 set us back in the command of some of the most important 
 factors of civilization as much as a century of constitutional 
 freedom has set us forv^ard. 
 
 THE STANDARD OF VALUE IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES IN 1870. 
 
 The standard of value which existed in the various 
 principal countries of the world in 1870 was as follows: 
 population in millions : 
 
 Double standard. Silver standard. Gold f^tandard. 
 
 Country. Population. Country. Population. Country. Population. 
 
 United States* 39 India 200 United Kino-doni. 31 
 
 France 36 China 250 Turkey* 30 
 
 Italy* 26 Russia* 82 Brazil* 10 
 
 Spain 17 Germany 41 Portui^al 4 
 
 Belo;inm 5 Austria* 36 Chili 2 
 
 Switzerland 3^ Mexico 9 Australia 2 
 
 Greece* 1| Sweden "I g 
 
 Peru 4 Norway! 
 
 New Granada 3 Denmark 2 
 
 Equador 1 Holland 4 
 
 Central America.. 2J 
 
 * Specie payments suspended.
 
 152 
 
 AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD CONVENTION. 
 
 It would be desirable for all nations to adopt perma- 
 nently the same standard of value, and if the same were, as 
 in my opinion it no doubt would be, the double standard, 
 to adopt the same relation between the metals. To effect 
 this object all that is necessary is an international standard 
 convention, which can be called by any one of the great 
 powers, and should be called by the United States. Pro- 
 vision should be made that no other projects but the stand- 
 ard and ratio should be determined upon, and that the 
 nations should vote according to population or wealth, or 
 on a mixed basis consisting of both. For such an interna- 
 tional convention, to be called by the United States, there 
 is imminent necessity. I regard this project as likely to 
 lead to results of the highest importance. It may become 
 the forerunner of that federation of the nations of which 
 poets have dreamed and bards have sung. The initial 
 point of such a federation is most fitly the Standard of 
 Value, for this lies at the base of all social and governmental 
 arrangements; it determines the institution of property. 
 
 THE PECUNIARY INTEREST OF ENGLAND AND GERMANY IN THE 
 
 GOLD STANDARD. 
 
 In a paper published in the Journal of the Society of Arts 
 for March 10, 1876, Mr. Ernest Seyd estimates the amount 
 of foreign debt (governmental, corporative, and other) held 
 in England, Germany, and France, as follows: 
 
 England from $5,000,000,000 to $5,500,000,000. 
 Germany " 2,750,000,000 " 3,000,000,000. 
 France " 2,500,000,000 " 2,750,000,000. 
 
 Confining our view to England and Germany only, we 
 shall see how great a present pecuniary interest these coun- 
 tries have in establishing and upholding a single gold 
 standard. According to Mr. Seyd's estimates these two 
 countries alone hold over $8,000,000,000 of foreign debt. 
 By limiting themselves to the single gold standard and 
 endeavoring to influence others nations (our own among
 
 153 
 
 the number) to adopt it, they have already succeeded in 
 produchig a decline of about 7-| per cent, in the relation 
 of gold and silver, this being the ratio of the dilference 
 between 15.63 and 16.69, the average relation of silver to 
 gold in 1872 and 1875 respectively. Now, 7h per cent, on 
 $8,000,000,000 amounts to no less a sum than $600,000,000, 
 which is the measure of the profit of the British and' Ger- 
 man plutocracy on the foreign debts they hold. Descend- 
 ing from the principal to the interest on these debts, if 
 we estimate the average annual interest at 6 per cent, per 
 annum, which is certainly within the mark, the difference 
 to these plutocracies between obtaining their interest in 
 gold and obtaining it in silver during the years 1872 and 
 1875 inclusive has been no less than $36,000,000 per annum. 
 Since the introduction of the Demonetization Act into the 
 American Congress these gentry have gained $108,000,000 
 by having their interest paid in gold instead of silver. The 
 magnitude of this advantage, every dollar of which has been 
 a clear and gratuitous loss to the debtor nations, is surely 
 enough to account for the vehemence of the plutocratical 
 objection to the double standard. With $36,000,000 a year 
 at stake, there is little wonder that they have succeeded 
 in marshaling to their aid so imposing an array of advo- 
 cates in the legislatures and the press of the victimized 
 countries from which this extra and gratuitous tribute was 
 drawn. 
 
 THE RIGHT TIME TO REHABILITATE THE SILVER DOLLAR. 
 
 The right time for us to rehabilitate the silver dollar, to 
 restore the double standard, is not when the necessities of 
 nations shall compel them, as it will compel them all, to 
 go into the market for silver. A simultaneous demand 
 from Germany and the United States alone would put that 
 metal up to 15, perhaps for the time even to 14. The 
 right time for us is now, while silver is temporarily cheap, 
 and no other nation of the Occident is bidding for it. Last 
 month silver stood at 17.82, and already it is up to 17.69.
 
 154 
 
 Before the year has expired it may etand at 15.50. It is 
 dangerous and costly to delay. The present time is there- 
 fore the most favorable one which may present itself. Let 
 us liot postpone reform until it is too late to accomplish it. 
 European demonetization and an exceptional mine gives 
 us a great advantage. Why should we not use it? 
 
 PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE SINGLE STANDARD IN ENGLAND. 
 
 When an outflow of specie threatens to occur in Eng- 
 land the occurrence is sought to be averted and its eflieets 
 mitigated by raising the rate of discount at bank. This 
 action at once clogs all financial operations by rendering 
 them expensive and diflicult of accomplishment. Raising 
 the rate of discount at bank is like putting the breaks on 
 a railway train ; lowering it is like taking the breaks off. 
 
 The Bank of England was established in 1694. From 
 that year to the year 1816, a period of 122 years, there were 
 only sixteen changes in the bank rate. This rate never 
 fell below four per cent., and (except in two instances to 
 six) never rose above five per cent. During this period 
 the double standard existed in England. In 1816 the dou- 
 ble was changed to the single gold standard. From 1816 
 to 1847 — a period of 31 years — there were sixteen changes 
 in the bank rate; as many as had occurred under the dou- 
 ble stand'ard during a period of 122 years. But these 
 changes, numerous as they were, compared with the few 
 that had previously taken place, were few themselves 
 compared with the number that took place after 1847, 
 when the gold product of California began to make itself 
 felt in the markets of the world. From 1847 to 1874, in- 
 clusive, a period of twenty-seven years, the number of 
 changes in the Bank of England rate was no less than 223, 
 and the rate fluctuated violently from 2-1 to 10 per cent, 
 per annum. 
 
 These fluctuations have been ascribed by various writers 
 to various causes, bur none of these causes appear to have 
 had so potential an eftect as the mutations of the gold pro-
 
 155 
 
 duction of the world, for these must have operated with 
 peculiar and great force in a country which alone, among 
 all the great countries of the world, ]iad committed itself 
 to so unstable a measure of values as gold. 
 
 PRACTICAL WORKING OF THE DOUBLE STANDARD IN FRANCE. 
 
 While I have not been able to obtain in time for the 
 present purposes the statistics of the changes in the rate of 
 discount by the Bank of France, my general recollection 
 on the subject enables me to say that these changes have 
 been very few and, except at certain critical financial 
 junctures, they have been unimportant. In a word, the 
 rate of discount charged by this great institution, which is 
 second only to the Bank of England in the magnitude of 
 its resources and operations, has been changed but seldom 
 and slightly from the period of its foundation, in the year 
 1800, to the present day. Even at the financial junctures 
 alluded to, I am unable to lind any record of a higher rate 
 than 6| per cent., and this occurred during the suspension 
 which followed the Franco-German war. This steadiness 
 of the rate is attributable to the double standard. 
 
 THE BANK RATE REGULATES ALL COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS. 
 
 The rate of discount at bank not only regulates the out- 
 flow of specie; it also very powerfully affects all com- 
 mercial transactions. It is the price at which money caii 
 be borrowed to carry domestic produce, to import and 
 export merchandise abroad, to construct railways and 
 other public improvements, to pay debts, meet maturing 
 obligations, and the like. Every commercial speculation, 
 every financial scheme, is influenced by its fluctuations. 
 It is the merchant's inverse barometer, whose fall indicates 
 prosperity, and whose rise points to bankruptcy and ruin; 
 whilst its modifying influence acts like a breakwater to 
 protect the country from the flerce currents of the financial 
 ocean. 
 
 NO SUCH REGULATOR IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In the United States there is no National Bank par
 
 156 
 
 excellence, no great central institution whose operations 
 govern those of all smaller ones, and at once influence the 
 course of trade. There has been no such institution in 
 this country since 1837. The so-called " national banks" 
 are private institutions, and national only to the extent 
 that they are chartered by the Federal Government, and 
 must conform to its regulations as to securities and circu- 
 lation. They may each of them charge whatever rate of 
 discount they please within the rate permitted by the laws 
 of the State wherein thej^ are situated. As the legal rate 
 of interest differs in nearly all the States, and the banks 
 are not combined under any single management, there is 
 no uniformity in the rate of interest they charge, and it 
 follows that, except so far as concerns the action of certain 
 prominent banks in the leading financial cities of the 
 country, there is no practical check which can be exerted to 
 restrain or modify a threatened outflow of specie, or any 
 other financial disaster or inconvenience. 
 
 THEREFOKE THE UNITED STATES LESS ABLE THAN ENGLAND, 
 FRANCE, OR GERMANY TO RUN THE RISKS OF A SINGLE 
 STANDARD. 
 
 Hence for the United States to trust its commercial 
 prosperity to the violent hazards of a single standard, 
 would be even more improvident than it has proved in 
 the case of England. That country, in its great National 
 Bank, possesses a "governor" upon whose action it can 
 rely to break the force of sudden and great movements of 
 specie. Even with this "governor," we have seen, in the 
 fluctuations of the rate of interest, how violent these move- 
 ments have been. France possesses a similar " governor ; " 
 so does Germany. The former country has never run the 
 risk of trusting to it in this matter by abandoning the 
 double standard, while the latter, during a contemplated 
 change from the silver to the gold standard, has halted 
 midway at the double standard. 
 
 Yet, although quite destitute of that great financial 
 mechanism, even with the aid of which France and Ger-
 
 157 
 
 many hesitate to encounter the great peril which England 
 has invited them to share with her, we of the United States 
 are asked to adopt the single gold standard, and run the 
 risk of immediate shipwreck. This may be sound advice; 
 but I must confess it does not appear to come from people 
 who have evinced any solicitude for the welfare of the 
 country. 
 
 OPPOSITE AND UNEXPECTED EFFECTS OF THE FPvENCn INDEMNITY. 
 
 As a consequence of the victory of German}- over France 
 in 1870, the last-named country was compelled to pay to 
 the first-named, an Indemnity, amounting to the enormous 
 sum of $1,000,000,000. One would naturally have sup- 
 posed that this indemnity would prove a heavy burden to 
 France, and a source of great prosperity to Germany; but, 
 owing, as it seems to me, chiefly to the retention of the 
 double standard in France, and the attempt to establish 
 the gold standard in Germany, these consequences have 
 been reversed; the burden is upon Germany; the pros- 
 perity has fallen to the share of France. The presence of 
 a large stock of silver coin in France enabled that country 
 to raise the enormous indemiiitj^ fund from its own people, 
 who oiFered the Government five times as much as it asked 
 for, and at a low rate of interest. This stock of silver 
 would not have been found in the country but for the 
 retention of the double standard of 1803. The rate at 
 which it was loaned was so low that the country scarcely 
 feels the burden, and its industrial activity has received 
 no check. 
 
 Germany, on the other hand, no sooner received the 
 indemnit}'^ than she unwisely attempted to follow the short- 
 sighted footsteps of England, and changed her standard of 
 silver to gold. What have been the consequences ? Panic, 
 interruption of industry, commercial stagnation, and popu- 
 lar distress. To this distress, Germany, unlike England, 
 cannot afford to turn a deaf ear, for the greatness of the 
 former country depends upon its people, and not like the
 
 158 
 
 tlie latter, upon its wealth. Already Germany hesitates, 
 and she will soon be obliged to retrace her ill-advised 
 steps. If slie does not, it is quite safe to foretell that her 
 efforts to establish the gold standard will do more to alien- 
 ate from her the affections of her heterogeneous popula- 
 tions than the Laud Reforms of Stein and Hardenbergh 
 had done to win them. If such a result as a change from 
 the silver or the double standard to the gold one is the 
 natural result of receiving a great war indemnity, it will 
 be the better for Germany the next time she wins a victory 
 to pay an indemnity rather than receive one. 
 
 LEGISLATION ON THE STANDARD OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 Table showing the various acts of the United States Government author- 
 izing the coinage of silver and gold dollars, or their multiples or frac- 
 tions^ the weight of the same in pure metal, the extent to ichich the same 
 were made legal tenders for tlie pagnient of debts., arid the legal relation 
 thus established between silver and gold. Also the London market rela- 
 tion of the metals at the period ofthej^assage of such acts. 
 
 Act. 
 
 April •2,1702 
 July 31, 1S34. 
 
 July 18,1837, 
 Feb. 24, 1853. 
 
 Act r§ 3516. 
 Feb. 1 i 3513, 
 
 12, I 
 1&73, ^ I 3513, 
 Rev. 
 Stat. 
 
 .? 3511, 
 
 Coins. 
 
 i Silver dollar 
 Gold dollar, mul- 
 tiples of* 
 Silver dollar 
 s Gold dollar, mul- 
 
 (^ tiples of 
 
 ( Silver dollar and 
 
 fractions off 
 
 Gold dollar, mul- 
 tiples of. 
 
 f Silver dollar 
 
 j Gold doll:'r and 
 
 inultipli .- of, 
 
 Silver dollar, frac- 
 tions of. 
 
 Silver dollar 
 
 Silver dollar, fr.ac- 
 
 tions of. 
 
 Silver "trade dol- 
 lar" 
 
 Gold dollar and 
 multiples of. 
 
 x; « 
 
 371.25 
 
 24. 
 371. 
 
 23. 
 
 371. 
 
 23. 
 .371. 
 
 23. 
 
 345. 
 
 1347, 
 
 378, 
 
 23. 
 
 Extent of 
 leg.\l tender. 
 
 } 
 
 Unlimited. 
 
 Unlimited. 
 Unlimited. 
 
 Unlimited. 
 
 Unlimited. 
 
 Unlimited. 
 Unlimited. 
 
 Unlimited. J 
 
 Five dollars. 
 Interdicted. 
 
 Five dollars. 
 
 gFive dollars.] 
 
 Unlimited. J 
 
 Legal RBL.i- 
 
 TION. 
 
 15.00000 to 1 
 16.00215 to 1 
 
 15.98837 to 1 
 15.98837 to 1 
 
 16.27907 to 1. 
 
 o « 
 
 
 < 
 
 ( About 
 (14.9 to 1 
 
 f .\bout 
 1 15.8 to 1 
 
 J About 
 11.5.7 to I 
 
 / Aboul 
 1 1.5.3 to 
 
 1 
 
 ■ About 
 15.9 to 1 
 
 * Eagles, h.alf-eagles, and quarter-eagles. 
 
 t Half-dollars, quarters, dimes, and half-dimes. 
 
 J The act (February 12, l,S73) prescribes the weight of the debased fractional silver 
 coins in -'grams," which another act (Revised Statutes, section 3570) defines to be 
 15.432 grains each. 
 
 ?The making of the trade-dollar a limited legal tender by section 3586 of the Re- 
 vised Statutes is believed to have been unintentional.
 
 159 
 
 THE VOICE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 The voice of authority has ever been in favor of the 
 double standard and opposed to the single. I have only 
 time to quote some of the most eminent statesmen, econ- 
 omists, bankers, writers, and practical men on this subject: 
 
 Alex. Hamilton.— 
 
 "To amuil the use of either of the metals as inonej'- is to abridge 
 the quanfitt/ of ciroilaiiii;/ medium, and is liable to all tlie objec- 
 tions vvhicll arise from a comparison of the benefits of a full, ivHh 
 the evils of a scanty, circulation.'''' (Report to Congress, 1791.) 
 
 Thos. Jefferson. — 
 
 " 1 return you the report on tlie mint. I concur with you 
 tliat tlie unit must stand on both metals.'''' (Letter to Hamilton, 
 February, 1792.) 
 
 Leon Fauchet.— In his '•' Recherchcs sur Vor et sur V argent,'''' 1843, 
 Leon Faucliet said : 
 
 "If all tiie nations of Europe adopted the system of Great 
 Britain, tlie price of gold would be raised bej'ond measure, and 
 we should see produced in Europe a result lamentable enougii. 
 Tlie Government cannot decree tliat legal tender shall be only 
 gold, in place of silver, for that would be to decree a revolution, 
 and the most dangerous of all, because it would be a revolution 
 leading to unknown results [qui marcherait vers riiiconiiu.y 
 
 M. WOLOWSKi.— In a memoir read before the French Institute in ISGS 
 jVl. A\"olowski said : 
 
 "The suppression of silver would bring on a veritable revolu- 
 tion. Gold would augment in value with a rapid and constant 
 progress, which would break the faith of contracts, and aggra- 
 vate the situation of all debtors, including the nation. It would 
 add at one sti-oke of tlie pen at least three milliards to the twelve 
 milliards of the public del)t." 
 
 Thougli the voices and votes of this great statesman and pub- 
 licist, and of those who sided with him in the debates of the 
 Monetary Convention of 1865, were overpowered, yet they still 
 reverberate throughout the world, for truth and right caiuiot be 
 suppressed. 
 
 Babon de Rothschild. — A monetary commission appointed by tlie 
 French Goverinnent in ISOiJ took the testimony of practical 
 financiers, who were luianimous against the proposed demone- 
 tization of silver. Before this connnissiou M. le Baron Alphonse 
 de Rothschild said : 
 
 "The actual state of tilings, that is to say, tlie simultaneous 
 employment of the two precious metals, is satisfactory and gives 
 rise to no complaint. What is most needed in commerce is facil- 
 ity in its operations, and to-day it employs, according to its needs, 
 sometimes gold and somi'iimcs silver, and the partial replace- 
 ment of silver by gold, wliieli has taken place in these later 
 times, has been ett'ected without inconvenience." 
 
 "They now demand that silver sliould be demonetized, as 
 fifteen years ago they demanded tiiat gold should be. The 
 French government wisely refused to demonetize gold then, and 
 it will be equally wise to refuse to demonetize silver now. In 
 fact, whether gold or silver dominates for the time being, it is 
 always true that the two metals concur togetlier in forming the 
 monetary circulation of the world, and it is the general mass of
 
 160 
 
 the iwo ynefah combvied which acrvci as the measure of the value 
 of things. In coiiiitrios witii the double standard the principal 
 circnlation will always be established of tliat metal which is the 
 most abundant. It is searccl}'^ twenty j^ears ago tliat silver was 
 the principal element in our transactions. Since tiie discoveries 
 of the California ainl Australian mines, it is gold which has 
 taken its place. Xo person can forsee what the future lias in 
 store for us, or can predict tliat the proportion in which the two 
 metals are now produced majr not be changed in favor of silver." 
 *■' It appears to me that there are r(!al advantages in maintain- 
 ing silver in circulation and none in its suppression, since it is 
 now actually a partof the circulation. I should regi-et tlie demon- 
 etization of silver in its relations to our internal circulation, our 
 connnercial intercourse with other countries, and tiie always 
 uncertain eventualities of the future. But I should regret it even 
 more if our example shoidtl be followed by other nations., for that 
 suppression of silver ivould amount to a veritable destruction of 
 values without any compensation.'''' 
 
 "Without doubt the two metals are not always in tlie same 
 measure at our control ; tliere is alwaj'sone more abundant than 
 the other; but neither of them has ever completely disappeared, 
 and we have alwa\'s been able to lind the one of wiiich we had 
 need." 
 
 This is not the voice of plutocracy; it is the utterance of a 
 great financial Power, whose self-interest is grand, eidightened, 
 and in harmony with the other great interests of tlie world. 
 
 M. D'EiCHTAL. — M. d'Eiclital, a director of the Bank of France, said : 
 "In cotton, every fall in price brings an increase in consump- 
 tion. But in silver, if you take away its title of legal money, 
 which makes an unlimited outlet for it, it must fall exceedingly 
 low before it would find an emplo^'uient equal to the one j^ou 
 take away." 
 
 M. RouLAND. — M. Rouland, the Governor of the Bank of France, said : 
 "We have not to do with ideal theories. Tlie two moneys 
 have actually coexisted since the origin of human society, with- 
 out any disadvantage, and even with actual advantage in all 
 countries which have availed themselves of them. They coexist 
 because the two together are necessary, by their quantity, to meet 
 the needs of circulation. This necessity of the tivo metals., has 
 it ceased to exist 1 Is it established that the quantity^ of actual 
 ' and prospective gold is such that we can now renounce the use 
 of silver witliout disaster? In place of the two moneys, is it 
 entirelj' sure that the whole world can be usefully served with 
 only one? " 
 
 M. WOLOWSKI. — M. Wolowski said : 
 
 "To adopt one metal, gold, to the exclusion of the other, it 
 is not merely as if they closed all existing mines of silver, but 
 as if tlie.y suppressed in this regard the labor of all past ages. 
 The sum total of the precious merals is reckoned at fift}' mil Hards.* 
 one-half gold and one-half silver. If, by a stroke of the pen, 
 they suppi-ess one of these metals in the monetar.y service, thej'^ 
 double the demand for the otlier metal, to tlie ruin of all 
 debtors.'''' 
 
 M. DuiviAS. — At the sitting of the French Senate on the 28th of January, 
 1S70. wliich has properly been chai-acterized as "memorable," 
 from the magnitude of the subject of the debate, and from the 
 
 • M. Wolowpki here refers not to coin only, but to the precious metals in coin and 
 plate, <fec.
 
 IGl 
 
 disfiiity and o-ravity witli wliicli llio (Tiscii«^ion was niaiiitaiiiod. 
 Dumas, a Seiialoi-, to \vli()S(> words learniiii;', pxpcriciKH', virlu<;, 
 and age combined to give weii4iit, invoked the bod}^ to pause be- 
 fore concluding- to make a change which " would affect the ichole 
 human race,'''' He said : 
 
 ''Those who approacii these questions for tlie first time decide 
 them at once. Tliose wiio study (iiem witli care iiesitate. 'Pliose 
 who are oI)liged practically to decide, doubt and stop, over- 
 whelmed with the weigiit of the enormous responsibility. 
 
 ••'The quantities of tlie jirecious metals which an-, now sulH- 
 cient nia}^ become insuliicient, and we should proceed withgi-eat 
 prudence before we diminish tiiat which constitutes a part of (lie 
 riches of the human race. Sometimes gold takes tlie place of 
 silver. Sometimes silver takes the place of gold. ZVt('.s' keepfs 
 up the general equilibritiin. Nobody can guarantee that the 
 present vast production of gold will continue. The placers are 
 found on the siu'face of tlu^ earth, and may be exhausted by tiie 
 very facilit\^ of working them. Silver presents itself in the 
 form of subterranean veins. Science may contribute to acccd- 
 erate its extraction. In presence of the unknown, which dom- 
 inates the future, we should practice a prudent reserve." 
 Henri Ceknuschi, the eminent French political economist and author 
 of La Monnaie Bimetalliqiie, writ<;s an article in the Paris Steele 
 on the depreciation of silver, urging England and America to 
 adoi)t a double standard, and to tix the relative value of gold and 
 silver at 15J to 1 — the rate generally prevalent on the Conti- 
 nent. Dwelling specially on Anglo-Indian interests, M. Cer- 
 nuschi says : 
 
 *•' Seduced by gold ■ monouHitalism,' Europe has ceased to coin 
 silver, but it had long coined it previousl.y, and colossal sums are 
 in circulation. All this silver is to be called in and melted down, 
 tlie more so as it circulates as a forced currency for a value it no 
 longer possesses. All this silver is to be sold, and it is to Lon- 
 don it will be sent to get gold. Floods of silver going up tiie 
 Thames, floods of gold descending; scarcity and increasing value 
 of the yellow metal, Avhich is the only English cm-rency, glut 
 and depreciation of the white metal, whicli is the only Indian 
 currency— the two conflicting ' monometalisms ' are about to 
 face each other — the one sutVering fi-om ana'inia, tlie other 
 from plethora; two crises instead of one — a gold ci'isis and 
 a silver crisis. ' From (Jalle to tiie Indus what a monetary 
 shock, what a rise of prices produ(;(!d by the invasion of silver ! 
 What increasing alterations in the value of all contracts and 
 all engagements flxed in ruptM's ! The most terrible monetary 
 storm ever known, breaking out in a conquered country, amiil 
 a poi)ulation six times as large as that of the United King- 
 dom ! Can England fold her arms? Can she say to trem- 
 bling interests, 'Be patient; cTerything will end by linding its 
 level?' The indiflerent fatalism to which somnolent ulemas 
 may resign themselves is repugnant to tlie proud Urilish Nep- 
 tune. England will havi^ resolution to eliminate the evil. To 
 insure her welfare, she will desire all that is possible, rational, 
 and efflcacious. If it is demonstrated that the international 
 rehabihtation of silver is the real solution, England will not 
 hesitate ; she will convoke the nations to the congress of mone- 
 tary peace." 
 11
 
 162 
 
 R. H. Patiuorson, ;i distiiiii-uishcil ])oliticiil or-oiiomist, says: 
 
 '' It appears evuk'iit, then, that the formidable oltjeetions 
 wliieh tlieorists make to tlie existence of a double standard of 
 vahie in a ooiuitry are nnsupiKnted by facts. Tiiey conjure up 
 a vision of • hydras, i^-or^ons, and ciiimeras dire for which we 
 feel no appreliension'. If a country has enouii-h of i>-old or of 
 silver to make its coinage entirely of that metal, g-ood and well. 
 But if not — as is the case in India — by all means let it employ 
 both metals. The correctness of this opinion is abundantly 
 shown in the case of France. In that most loij-ical of countries 
 the double standard has loui;- been established, and no one there 
 has any desire to abolish it. Durinii;- the last dozen years this 
 double" standard has been subjected to the severest test that 
 could be ap])lied, and yet every one is satisfied with its work- 
 ino-. Gold is ponriuii' "in ; silver is pouring- out; a revolution is 
 being ell'eelvd in the' currency of France ; yet no one complains. 
 Evidently practical or ai)pi'e"cial)le disadvantage of any kind is 
 quite unknown. Theoretically, as we have shown, a double 
 standard cannot do much harm ; practically, we find, it does 
 none at all. And since it works under the most trying circum- 
 stances without the least injury in Finance, it may safely be in- 
 tnuhiced williout any apprehension and with great advantage 
 into India."— R. II. Patterson, The Ecoiiomi/ of Capilalljon- 
 don, ]8(;4, p. ryj. 
 Ernest Seyd. This able and impartial wi-iter has written several 
 works on coin and bullion whicli evince a thorough knowledge 
 of these ditliiMilt subjects. He says : 
 
 "The rejection of silver as a standard of value would be a 
 most unwise and dangerous proceeding. It would be a far better 
 and safer course to establish the double gold and silver valua- 
 tion. " — Bullion and Foreign Eaichanges^ London, 1SG8. 
 
 " AYe think it can be shown that tii'e gold valuation has been 
 injurious to En<;land's inter(;sts in lier foreign trade as well as 
 in iier internal llnaiicial policy." Ibid. 
 
 Similar views are entertained in Mr. Seyd's latest essay pub- 
 lislied in the -lonrnal of the Society of Arts for March, 1S7G. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I have done. For the patience and attention with wliich 
 Senators have listened to an exposition unusually lengthy 
 and somewhat tedious, I thank them, and can only plead 
 the transcendent importance of the subject. 
 
 There is yet time to utido the work of 1873, to correct 
 the grave blunder perpetrated by the Mint Act of that year, 
 in interdicting the American silver dollar and substituting 
 the single standard of gold for the money of the Constitu- 
 tion. The disastrous effects which, in my opinion, are 
 bound to flow from this attenuation of the standard and 
 the basis of prices and credit, are not yet felt; because of 
 the existing suspension of specie payments. But so soon
 
 163 
 
 as specie payments are resumed — if, indeed, they can ever 
 be resumed without the restoration and co-ordination of 
 silver in the standard — will the bad effects of this legisla- 
 tion develop themselves and make their mark upon the 
 affairs of the country. It may then be too late to re- 
 form. 
 
 The present is therefore the acceptable time to undo the 
 unwitting and inconsiderate work of 1873, and to render 
 our legislation upon the subject of money consistent with 
 the physical facts concernitig the stock and supply of the 
 precious metals throughout the world, and conformable to 
 the Constitution of the country. 
 
 We cannot, we dare not, avoid speedy action upon this 
 subject. J^ot only do reason, justice, and authority unite 
 in urging us to retrace our steps; but the organic law com- 
 mands us to do so; and the presence of peril enjoins what 
 the law commands. By idly interfering with the standard 
 of the country. Congress has led the nation away from 
 the realms of prosperity and thrust it beyond the bound- 
 aries of safety. To refuse to replace it upon its former 
 vantage-ground, would be, to incur a responsibilitv and 
 deserve a reproach, greater than that which men have ever 
 before felt themselves able to bear.
 
 A. p F E ]sr D I s: . 
 
 MOVEMENT OF THE CURRENCY. 
 
 liable J., shotving the currency of the United States from 1775 to lS75, 
 inclusive. Sums in millions of dollars arid tenths. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Coin. 
 
 United S'I'ates 
 and national 
 bank notes. 
 
 State 
 
 BANK 
 
 notes. 
 
 Total 
 
 PAPER. 
 
 o 
 z 
 
 a 
 
 ■< 
 
 o 
 
 ■< 
 
 S 
 
 B. 
 O 
 
 CM 
 
 5 
 
 si o 
 P 
 O 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 1775 
 
 $G.O 
 
 
 
 85.0 
 
 $11.0 
 
 2.5 
 
 $4.40 
 
 Lord Sheffield (Sey- 
 
 177.')-1TR1 
 
 
 
 bert, 554) says 914 
 coin. 
 Era of " Continental 
 
 1790 
 1711 
 
 Ifi.O 
 
 10.0 
 17.0 
 20.0 
 21.5 
 19.0 
 10.5 
 10.0 
 14.0 
 •17.0 
 17.5 
 17.0 
 16.5 
 IG.O 
 17.5 
 18.0 
 18.5 
 20.0 
 20.0 
 20.0 
 
 19.0 
 18.0 
 
 17.0 
 
 17.0 
 
 17.0 
 
 20.0 
 24.5 
 
 *22.0 
 *20.0 
 
 S2.0 
 
 $1.0 
 
 3.0 
 
 9.0 
 7.0 
 
 n.o 
 
 11.5 
 11.0 
 10.5 
 10.0 
 9.0 
 10.0 
 10.5 
 11.0 
 10.0 
 11.0 
 14.0 
 15.0 
 17.0 
 18.0 
 22.75 
 
 19.0 
 
 25.0 
 24.0 
 31.0 
 33.0 
 30.0 
 27.0 
 20.0 
 23.0 
 27.0 
 28.0 
 28.0 
 26.5 
 27.0 
 31.5 
 33.0 
 35.5 
 38.0 
 44.7 
 44.0 
 
 45.0 
 46.0 
 
 52.0 
 
 69.0 
 
 69.5 
 
 65.5 
 74.5 
 
 77.0 
 80.0 
 
 3.9 
 
 4.0 
 4.1 
 4.3 
 4.5 
 4.6 
 4.8 
 4.9 
 5.0 
 5.2 
 5.3 
 5.5 
 5.7 
 5.9 
 6.1 
 6.3 
 6.5 
 6.7 
 6.9 
 7.0 
 
 7.1 
 7.3 
 
 7.6 
 
 7.8 
 
 8.0 
 
 8.2 
 8.4 
 
 8.6 
 
 8.8 
 
 4.87 
 
 6.25 
 5.85 
 7.20 
 7.40 
 6.50 
 5.00 
 5.30 
 4.60 
 5.20 
 5.30 
 5.10 
 4.70 
 4.60 
 5.30 
 5.20 
 0.50 
 5.70 
 6.40 
 6.10 
 
 0.10 
 6.10 
 
 6.80 
 
 8.80 
 
 8.70 
 
 8.00 
 
 8.80 
 
 8.90 
 
 ','.1111 
 
 money." 
 
 Repudiation of Conti- 
 nental issues. 
 
 First bank U. S. 
 
 1792 
 1793 
 
 5.0 
 
 2.0 
 
 
 1794 
 
 
 
 
 1795 
 
 
 
 
 1790 
 
 
 
 
 1707 
 
 
 
 Suspension Banlv Eng- 
 land; flux of gold. 
 
 Expiration of charter 
 of First Bank United 
 
 1798 
 1799 
 
 
 
 180(1 
 
 
 
 1801 
 
 
 
 States. 
 
 1802 
 
 
 
 
 1^03 
 
 
 
 
 1801 
 
 
 
 1805 
 
 
 
 1806 
 
 
 
 
 1807 
 1808 
 
 
 
 Embargo Dec. 22; first 
 steamboat. 
 
 1809 • 
 
 
 
 24.0 
 
 Specie drain ; Mexican 
 disturbances; stop- 
 page of mines; sus- 
 pension N. E. banks. 
 
 Drain of specie. 
 
 Apprehension of war. 
 
 1810 
 
 
 
 26.0 
 28.0 
 
 35.0 
 
 52.0 
 
 51.5 
 
 45.5 
 50.0 
 
 55.0 
 60.0 
 
 1811 
 
 
 
 
 1812 
 
 
 (Drain of .specie.) 
 War declar'd with Eng- 
 
 1813 
 
 
 
 land. 
 War continued; bank 
 
 1814 
 
 
 
 mania. 
 August and September 
 
 1815 
 
 
 all except N. E. h'ks 
 suspended until Jan- 
 uary, 1817. Gold 114 
 @ 120. 
 February, peace. Gold 
 
 ISK) 
 
 
 
 115 @ 102. 
 
 Gold 116 @ 117, 107; 
 
 1817 
 
 
 
 second bank U. S. ; 
 
 England adopts the 
 
 gold standard. 
 Partial resumption of 
 
 Bank United States. 
 Height of bank mania; 
 ; gold drain. 
 
 1818 
 
 
 
 *In these years the coin was all of silver; no gold. (Report of Mr. White, H. Rep., 
 21st Cong., 2d seps., No. 95.) In the year 1830 coins in li.nnk $15,000,000, silver in circu- 
 lation $h\oi 10,000, bank notes $77,000,000; total SI 00,01 Mi,0oo. (Senate Rep., 21st Cong., 2d 
 sess., Dec. 5, 1830, tiy Mr. Sanford, from Select Com. on Cur.) 
 
 ( 164 )
 
 165 
 
 Table A — Continued. 
 
 
 
 H S 2 
 
 State 
 
 Total 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 5 
 a. 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Coin. 
 
 «^^ 
 
 BANK 
 
 < 
 
 z S 
 
 Remarks'. 
 
 
 
 a M 
 
 
 PAPER. 
 
 
 
 V ^ 
 
 
 
 
 &S z 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 0. 
 
 a t 
 
 
 
 
 z 5 ■« 
 
 
 
 -< 
 
 o 
 
 rt 
 
 
 
 
 5^« 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 
 1819 
 
 «20.0 
 
 
 
 62.5 
 
 82.5 
 
 9.1 
 
 9.20 
 
 RevuLsion. 
 
 1820 
 
 *26.5 
 
 
 
 58.0 
 
 86.0 
 
 9.4 
 
 9.00 
 
 r.e.'^umption of Bank of 
 
 
 
 England ; continued 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 eflUix of 5;old from 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 United States. 
 
 1S21 
 
 *23.0 
 *18.0 
 
 
 
 65.0 
 70.0 
 
 88.0 
 88 
 
 9.7 
 10.0 
 
 9.10 
 8.80 
 
 Spring strict're. (Tuck- 
 
 \'ii-l 
 
 
 
 er, p. 208, says 18. to 
 
 1823 
 
 *17 
 *18.0 
 *19.0 
 *20.0 
 *22.5 
 
 
 
 76.0 
 78.0 
 81.0 
 80.0 
 75.0 
 
 93.0 
 
 96.0 
 
 100.0 
 
 100.0 
 
 97.5 
 
 10.3 
 10.6 
 10.9 
 11.1 
 
 11.5 
 
 9.00 
 9.10 
 9.20 
 9.00 
 8 50 
 
 20. coin.) 
 
 1824 
 
 
 
 1825 
 
 
 
 
 1826 
 
 
 
 Tempor'y bank panic. 
 
 1827 
 
 
 
 Winter stricture. 
 
 1828 
 
 *27.0 
 
 
 
 68.0 
 
 95.0 
 
 11.9 
 
 8.00 
 
 Fir^-t railwfiy in U. S. 
 
 1829 
 
 1=31.(1 
 
 12.5 
 
 50.0 
 
 62.5 
 
 83.5 
 
 12.4 
 
 7.50 
 
 Temporary bank pan- 
 ics; Pre.s. Jackson 
 declares against re- 
 chartering United 
 States Bank. 
 
 1850 
 
 *32.0 
 
 
 
 61.0 
 
 93.0 
 
 12.8 
 
 7.20 
 
 Report of Cong. Com. 
 favoring bank 
 
 1831 
 
 35.0 
 39.0 
 
 
 
 6(i.O 
 71.0 
 
 101.0 
 110,0 
 
 13.2 
 13.(; 
 
 7.65 
 8.10 
 
 Bill introduced to rc- 
 
 1832 
 
 
 
 cliarter bank. 
 
 1833 
 
 42.7 
 
 
 
 77.0 
 
 119.7 
 
 11.0 
 
 8.50 
 
 Removal of deposits 
 
 
 
 
 from hank. 
 
 1834 
 
 CO.O 
 80.0 
 
 
 
 90.0 
 103.0 
 
 1.50.0 
 183.0 
 
 14.4 
 14.8 
 
 10.40 
 12.40 
 
 Veto of bank bill. 
 
 1835 
 
 
 
 Great fire in New York ; 
 
 
 
 
 loss, 5^20,000.000. 
 
 183G 
 
 65.0 
 
 
 
 140.0 
 
 205.0 
 
 15.3 
 
 13.30 
 
 Expiration of ciiarter 
 
 
 
 
 of Second Bank U.S. 
 
 1837 
 
 73.0 
 
 
 
 149.0 
 
 222.0 
 
 15.8 
 
 14.00 
 
 Great svspknsio-v. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Universal in.'^olvoncv ; 
 
 1838 
 
 87.0 
 
 
 
 116.0 
 
 203.0 
 
 16.2 
 
 12.50 
 
 
 banker's repudiation 
 of Morris canal stock ; 
 
 1839 
 
 87.0 
 
 
 
 135.0 
 
 222.0 
 
 16.7 
 
 13.40 
 
 
 ■ general contraction; 
 fall in prices ; stay 
 laws; bankr'p'vlaws; 
 
 1840 
 1841 
 
 83.0 
 80.0 
 
 
 
 107.0 
 107.0 
 
 190 
 187.0 
 
 17.0 
 17.5 
 
 11.20 
 10.70 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 liquidation; riots. 
 
 1842 
 
 60.0 
 
 
 
 83.7 
 
 143.7 
 
 18.0 
 
 8.00 
 
 Repudiation of the 
 
 
 
 
 States. 
 
 1843 
 
 70.0 
 
 
 
 58.5 
 
 128.5 
 
 18.6 
 
 6.90 
 
 Lowestdepression; re- 
 
 
 
 
 sumption. 
 
 1844 
 
 100.0 
 96.0 
 97.0 
 
 
 
 75.0 
 
 90.0 
 
 105.5 
 
 17.5.0 
 186.0 
 202.5 
 
 19.2 
 19.8 
 20.4 
 
 9.10 
 9.40 
 9.90 
 
 Increase of currency. 
 
 1845 
 
 
 
 
 184G 
 
 
 
 
 1847 
 
 120.0 
 112 
 120.0 
 154.0 
 
 
 
 105.5 
 128.5 
 114.7 
 131.0 
 
 225.5 
 240.5 
 234.7 
 285.0 
 
 21.0 
 21.6 
 22.4 
 2.3.2 
 
 10 07 
 11.10 
 10.50 
 12.20 
 
 
 1848 
 
 
 
 California mines open- 
 
 1849 
 
 
 
 ed. 
 
 1850 
 
 
 
 
 1851 
 
 186.0 
 204.0 
 
 
 
 15.5.0 
 156.0 
 
 341.0 
 360 
 
 24.0 
 
 24.8 
 
 14.20 
 14.50 
 
 
 1852 
 
 
 
 1853 
 
 236.0 
 
 
 
 144.0 
 
 380.0 
 
 25.6 
 
 14.80 
 
 
 1854 
 
 240.0 
 257.6 
 250.2 
 
 
 
 178.6 
 187.0 
 196.0 
 
 418.6 
 444.6 
 446.2 
 
 26.4 
 27.1 
 
 27.7 
 
 15.80 
 16.40 
 1(;.10 
 
 Australian mines. 
 
 1855 
 
 
 
 
 1856 
 
 
 
 
 1857 
 
 259.3 
 
 
 
 215.0 
 
 474.3 
 
 28.4 
 
 16.70 
 
 Temporary panic; su.s- 
 pension. 
 
 1858 
 
 251.6 
 
 
 
 1.55.0 
 
 406.6 
 
 29.1 
 
 11.00 
 
 Resumption. 
 
 1859 
 
 265.8 
 257.0 
 
 
 
 193.0 
 
 207.0 
 
 458.8 
 457.0 
 
 29.7 
 31.5 
 
 15.40 
 14.,50 
 
 
 1860 
 
 
 
 
 1861 
 
 241.4 
 
 
 
 202.0 
 
 443.4 
 
 32.3 
 
 13.70 
 
 Civil war; demand 
 
 
 
 
 notes issued. 
 
 * In these years the coin was all of silver; no gold. (Report of Mr. White, H. Rep., 
 2Ist Cong., 2d sess., No. 95.) In the year l.'<30 coins in bank $15,000,000, silver in circu- 
 lation 58,000,000, bank notes $77,000,000; total S1(KU)00,000, (Senate Rep., 21st Cong., 2d 
 ses3., Dec. 5, 1830, by Mr. Saniord, from Select Com. on Cur.)
 
 1G6 
 
 Tabic A — Continued. 
 
 
 
 < S 01 
 
 
 
 >5 
 
 !a 
 
 
 
 
 
 E- = H 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 CO t< g 
 
 State 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 f ^ 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Coin. 
 
 B Z » 
 
 BANK 
 
 ■< 
 
 ^E 
 
 Remaiiks. 
 
 
 
 - 5 a 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 PAPER. 
 
 < 
 
 CM 
 
 §5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t^-^s 
 
 
 
 C 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 18G2 
 
 298.5 
 
 
 
 184.0 
 
 482.5 
 
 22.9 
 
 21.00 
 
 Suspension; green- 
 backs issued. 
 
 1803 
 
 100.0 
 
 411.0 
 
 101.0 
 
 572.0 
 
 672.0 
 
 24.5 
 
 27.40 
 
 Circulation of State 
 banks supplanted by 
 national Ijanks. 
 
 1864 
 
 90.0 
 
 513.0 
 
 140.0 
 
 053.0 
 
 743.0 
 
 20.1 
 
 28.50 
 
 National bank notes; 
 liighe.st inflation. 
 Gold 285. 
 
 1865 
 
 85.0 
 
 604.0 
 
 05.0 
 
 609.0 
 
 754.0 
 
 30.3 
 
 24.90 
 
 Peace ; gradual con- 
 traction. 
 
 18G6 
 
 100.0 
 
 713.0 
 
 37.0 
 
 750.0 
 
 850.0 
 
 t36.0 
 
 23.00 
 
 Rehabilitation of tlie 
 South. 
 
 1S67 
 
 HO.O 
 
 704.0 
 
 nom. 
 
 704.0 
 
 844.0 
 
 t37.0 
 
 22.80 
 
 Extinction of State 
 batk circulation. 
 
 1S6S 
 
 HO.O 
 
 690.0 
 
 11 om. 
 
 099.0 
 
 839.0 
 
 t38.0 
 
 22.00 
 
 Contraction continues 
 slowly. 
 
 1S(;9 
 
 140.0 
 
 (i92 
 
 nom. 
 
 G:l2 
 
 832.0 
 
 J39.1 
 
 21.20 
 
 Contraction continues 
 
 1870 
 
 1;j2.S 
 
 704.0 
 
 nom. 
 
 7114.0 
 
 8.50.4 
 
 38.0 
 
 22.20 
 
 slowly. 
 
 1871 
 
 130.7 
 
 723.7 
 
 nom. 
 
 723.7 
 
 800.4 
 
 39.6 
 
 21.70 
 
 GreatChicasofire; loss 
 S150,000,0(I0. 
 
 1872 
 
 VlS.l 
 
 741.4 
 
 nom. 
 
 741.4 
 
 809.5 
 
 40.6 
 
 21.40 
 
 Great Boston tiro; loss 
 
 SS0,O( 10,0110. 
 
 .T;in.'7;^ 
 
 1.30.0 
 
 752.0 
 
 nom. 
 
 752.0 
 
 882.0 
 
 41.7 
 
 21.10 
 
 Silver demonetized; 
 
 Oct. '73 
 
 140.0 
 
 762.0 
 
 20.0 
 
 872.0 
 
 922.0 
 
 41.7 
 
 22.10 
 
 panic ; $20,000,000 
 elearing-hou.'ie cer- 
 tificate.s and $10,- 
 000,000 Treasury re- 
 serves issued as cur- 
 rencv ; e:old imp'rt'd. 
 
 1874 
 
 140.0 
 
 701.1 
 
 nom. 
 
 701.1 
 
 901.1 
 
 42.9 
 
 21.00 
 
 Contraction contin'ed. 
 
 1875 
 
 142.0 
 
 736.3 
 
 nom. 
 
 7311.3 
 
 878.3 
 
 44.1 
 
 19.90 
 
 Contraction contin'ed 
 
 f.'iecording to censuses taken in 1866, 1867. and 1868 by the Bureau of Statistics 
 through the Internal Revenue organization. The census of 1870 shows a smaller pop- 
 ulation than that of lsi;9, but the discrepancy is attributed to the different moans and 
 metliods adopted to effect the enumeration. The figures subsequent to 1870 are based 
 upon the census of that year. 
 
 X Estimate based on census of 1808. 
 
 FAILURES IN BUSINESS. 
 
 The followin^^ table (B) is from the Mercantile Agency 
 Reports, and shows that the number of failures in business 
 in all the States of the Union has closely followed the 
 movement of the currency: 
 
 Year. Movement of Ciin-ency. Failures. 
 
 1859 Increasing 3,913 
 
 1860 Increasing 3,673 
 
 1861 Decreasiiig 6,^93 
 
 1862 Increasing 1,652 
 
 1863 Increasing 485 
 
 1868 I)ecrca.sin"g 2,608 
 
 1869 Decreasing 2,799
 
 167 
 
 Tnldc B-Conlinned. 
 
 Year. Movement of Curreiioy. Failures. 
 
 1870 Decreasing 3,551 
 
 1871 Decrecisino; 2,915 
 
 1872 Decreasine: 4,060 
 
 1873 Decreasing 5,183 
 
 1874 Decreasing 5,830 
 
 1875 Decreasing 7,740 
 
 There were but few failures during the rapid increment of 
 the currency from 1862 to 1866. Since that period the num- 
 ber of faikires has steadily and largely increased, until now 
 it is 7,740 per annum, and during the first three months 
 of 1876 it was 2,806, or at the rate of 11,224 per annum. 
 
 The failures in New York City, taken by itself, were as 
 follows: 1871, 324; 1872, 385; 1873, 644; 1874, 645; 
 1875, 951; and during the first three months of 1876, 313. 
 
 Periot 
 1856- 
 
 '60 . 
 
 TABLE 
 
 No. 
 in 
 
 C — FIRES 
 
 of years 
 period. 
 
 . 5 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 5 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 . 1 
 
 IN NEW YORK CIT^ 
 
 Currency during- the 
 period. 
 
 Increasing" 
 
 Av'i^ annual 
 No. tire.s. 
 
 653 
 
 1861 
 
 Decreasins" 
 
 827 
 
 1862- 
 
 Increasinsr 
 
 720 
 
 
 . . Decreasing 
 
 
 1867 
 
 1,012 
 
 1868 
 
 ... Decreasing 
 
 912 
 
 1869 
 
 ... DecreasiuiT 
 
 914 
 
 1870 
 1871 
 
 ... Decreasing 
 
 .. Decreasins" 
 
 867 
 
 916 
 
 1872 
 
 . . Decreasing 
 
 922 
 
 1873 
 
 ... Decreasing 
 
 1,017 
 
 1874 
 
 ... DecreasinsT 
 
 841 
 
 1875 
 
 . Decreasinar 
 
 1,093 
 
 
 
 
 Annual average, 1867 to 1875, inclusive, 944 
 
 The number of these fires which were of incendiary ori- 
 gin are only given for the years 1855 to 1860, inclusive. 
 They were as follows: 1855,159; 1856,100; 1857,87; 
 1858,90; 1859,68; 1860,110. The ratio of incendiary to 
 total fires during this period was about 30 per cent. Ac- 
 cording to the New York Insurance Reports it is believed 
 to be now over 50 per cent.
 
 168 
 
 MARRIAGES. 
 
 The correspondence between marriages and tlie price of 
 broad-corn was shown statistically some forty years ago by 
 the illustrious Qnetelet. The following table shows the cor- 
 respondence between marriages and the movement of the 
 currency. Ohio is one of the few States of the Union in 
 which social statistics are compiled under official authority: 
 
 Table D, showing the number of 3Iarriages in Ohio. 
 Year. Movement of carreiicy. Marriao-cs. 
 
 1859 Increasing 22,671 
 
 1860 Perturbation 23,106 
 
 1861 Decreasing 22,251 
 
 1862 Increasing 19,540 
 
 1863 Increasing 19,300 
 
 1864 Increasing 20,881 
 
 1865 Increasing 22,198 
 
 1866 Increasing 30,479 
 
 1867 Decreasing 29,230 
 
 1868 Decreasing 28,231 
 
 1869 Decreasing 23,910 
 
 1870 Decreasing 25,459 
 
 1871 Decreasing 24,627 
 
 1872 Decreasing 26,303 
 
 1873 .'.. Decreasing 26,460 
 
 1874 Decreasing 26.678 
 
 1875 Decreasing 27,047 
 
 The population of the State of Ohio was in 1850 1,980,- 
 329, in 1860 2,339,511, and in 1870 2,665,260. 
 
 The decrease of marriages accompanying the diminution 
 of currency which has gone on since 1866 is complemented 
 by a corresponding increase of divorces. 
 
 DIVORCES.- 
 
 Table E, showing the number of Divorces in Ohio. 
 Year. Cun-enc}'. Divorces. 
 1866-1869 (average 3 years) Decreasing 1,003 
 
 1870 Decreasing 1,008 
 
 1871 Decreasing....... 1,077 
 
 1872 Decreasing 1,026 
 
 1873 Decreasing 1,124 
 
 1874 Decreasing 1,159 
 
 1875 Decreasing 1,299
 
 169 
 
 The above evidences of " bard times " are supplemented 
 by the statistics of desperate and criminal acts, all of which 
 have constantly diminished whilst the currency of the 
 country was increasing, and increased whilst the currency 
 
 was decreasing. 
 
 HOMICIDES AND SUICIDES. 
 
 Table F, showincj the number of inquests held upon Homicides 
 
 and Suicides in Ohio. 
 
 . , ,, Homicides and 
 
 Period. Currency. suicides. 
 
 1858-1860 (average 3 years) ... Increasing 144 
 
 1861 Decreasing 190 
 
 1862-1865 (average 4 years) ... Increasing 162 
 
 1866-1869 (average 4 years) ... Decreasing 182 
 
 1870 Decreasing 162 
 
 1871 Decreasing 128 
 
 1872 Decreasing 211 
 
 1873 Decreasing 206 
 
 1874 Decreasing 219 
 
 1875 Decreasing 261 
 
 SUICIDES. 
 
 Table Cr, showinr/ the Suicides in the Gitij of New York. 
 
 Year. Currency. Suicides. 
 
 1866 Decreasing 58 
 
 1867 Decreasing 76 
 
 1868 Decreasing 98 
 
 1869 Decreasing 102 
 
 1870 Decreasing 101 
 
 1871 Decreasing , 114 
 
 1872 Decreasing 144 
 
 1873 Decreasing 118 
 
 1874 Decreasing - 
 
 1875 Decreasing 157 
 
 12
 
 170 
 
 Table E, showing the Suicides in the City of Fhiladeljohia. 
 
 Suicides 
 
 Average. 
 
 20 
 
 31 
 
 Currency. 
 
 Perturbation. 
 
 Decreasinfj. 
 
 Increasii)sr. 
 
 lucreasing. 
 
 Increasing. 
 [^ Increasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 47 Decreasing. 
 
 59 Decreasino^. 
 
 CD 
 
 Decreasing. 
 
 PRISONERS. 
 
 Tabic I, showing the number of persons in ]jrison in all the 
 United States in June of each of the years 1850, 1860, and 
 1870, such being the periods at which the last three decennial 
 censuses were taken. 
 
 Period. 
 
 Movement of x>^ i„.; Persons in 
 
 currency. ^ Population. ^^^.^^^_ 
 
 1850 Increasing 23,191,876 6,737 
 
 1860 Perturbation 31,443,323 19,086 
 
 1870 Decreasing 38,558,371 32,904
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Asiatic coninierce 118 
 
 Autlioi'ities 1")9 
 
 Bank of Eiio'laud 154 
 
 Bank of France 155 
 
 Bank rate 155 
 
 Bankruptcies 40, 50, TO, 16G 
 
 Banks 37 
 
 Banlc suspensions 40, 50, 70, 166 
 
 Bills of excliange 36 
 
 Changing tlie standard 26 
 
 Cobden on tlie standard 55 
 
 Coinage act of United States, 4, 5, 158 
 
 Commerce 118 
 
 Comstock lode 50, 104 
 
 Constitutional argument 132 
 
 Corn rent 55 
 
 Credit 17 
 
 Crescendo and diminuendo tiieorj', 124 
 
 Currency of United States 164 
 
 Dark ages 32 
 
 Deartli of gold, 1809-48 52 
 
 Debtor and creditor S3 
 
 Debts, national 152 
 
 Demonetization, act of 1873 60 
 
 Divorces 108 
 
 Double standard, 6, 7, 08, 83, 103, 105, 
 
 116 
 Double standard, act of April 2, 
 
 1792 3 
 
 Draper's statement of coin in Gran- 
 ada 130 
 
 East India and China trade 46, 47 
 
 Effective measures of value 71 
 
 Failm-es 40, 56, 70, 166 
 
 Fairs 37 
 
 Feudal system 33 
 
 Fires 167 
 
 Fluctuations of the metals 45 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Fi-eight on specie 145 
 
 French standard 155 
 
 German demonetization 5 
 
 Germinal, law of 7th Germinal, 
 
 Anno XI, (March 28, 1803) 54 
 
 Gold chiefly a Briti.«h product 81 
 
 Gold not a cori-ect measure of 
 
 values 09, 76 
 
 Gold product 74 
 
 Gold purchased for former wars.... 145 
 
 Gold standard 104, 105, 117 
 
 Gold standard invites paper infla- 
 tions 89 
 
 Granada, coin in 130 
 
 Homicides 109 
 
 Household suffrage affected by 
 
 fluctuations of money 52 
 
 Indemnity, French 157 
 
 International Standard Conven- 
 tion 152 
 
 Interest on United States debt 102 
 
 Independent, the New York 70, 97 
 
 Japan, standard of 115 
 
 Jevon's diagram 08 
 
 Laissez faire 142 
 
 Legislation and money 158 
 
 Lord Liverpool's report on coins... 50 
 
 Marriages 168 
 
 Mexican and South American 
 
 trade 123 
 
 Military cliestsof gold 145 
 
 Mining 23, 31, 39, 104, 105, 139 
 
 Mint act of 1873 01 
 
 Mint charges 4 
 
 Monetary Convention of 1 865 60 
 
 Money and prices 150 
 
 Money and population 35 
 
 Money, cost of l(i, 17
 
 172 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Money, cHicioncy <tf 15 
 
 Money, principles of 10, 10 
 
 Mone3', stock of 6, .'51 
 
 Money, various substances used as.. "21 
 
 National debts l'i'3 
 
 XcAvtou, Sir Isaac, his report on 
 
 coins 50 
 
 Panics 40, 56. 76, 166 
 
 Paper money H8 
 
 Petty, Sir William, the first mono- 
 
 metalist 56 
 
 Platinum coins 143 
 
 Population 71 
 
 Prehistoric nations 14)^, 144 
 
 Preniiuni on specie in United Slates 
 
 during su.spension of 1814-"17.... 164 
 
 Prisoners 170 
 
 Progress in mining, order of 110 
 
 Pi'oduct of precious metals 74 
 
 Katio of gold and silver 29 
 
 Kelation of 15J, causes of 64 
 
 Eelative value of precious metals... 42, 
 
 43, 44, 46, 58 
 
 Reservoir of .specie 130 
 
 Resumption 90, 95 
 
 Eesiunption in Enj>"kiiid 94 
 
 Rise of prices in Asia 78 
 
 Russian mines 4,53 
 
 Sanford, Senator, his opinion .'. 136 
 
 Siberian mines 53 
 
 Silver product 74 
 
 Single standard of England 154 
 
 Social effects of money 125 
 
 Stability of silver 45 
 
 Standard (^barges 27 
 
 Standard of Belgium 51, 53 
 
 " " England 48, 50, 51 
 
 '' '• Germany 51, 53 
 
 " '' Greece 58 
 
 " Holland 51, 53 
 
 " Xaples 53 
 
 " *' Roumania 58 
 
 "' ■' Scandinavia 51 
 
 " " Spain 51, 53 
 
 " United States. ..51, 53, 158 
 •' " vai-ious countries in 
 
 1S70 151 
 
 Stock of specie 38, 
 
 39. 40, 41, 42, 07, 113 
 
 Subsidiary coins 78. 79 
 
 Suicides 170 
 
 Suppl}^ and consmnption, precious 
 
 metals 27 
 
 Sn-spensions 40, 56. 76, 151, 160 
 
 Transportation of specie 145 
 
 Ural Mines • 53 
 
 Value 19, 133 
 
 Vested interests 138 
 
 War, gold formerly employed in... 14$ 
 
 Wealth of tlie ancients. 29 
 
 Wheat as a standard of value 55 
 
 World's population 71 
 
 World's stock of coin 67, 71 
 
 THE LIBRARY
 
 # 
 
 f\ /t r. t
 
 I
 
 AA 000 590 496 6 
 
 I