cannot repeal the Constitution. We cannot say that every power, every branch, every institution, and every law of this government, shall not have all the force, all the sanction, and all the protection, which the Constitution gives it." 1 Such was the opinion of the great "Defender of the Constitution." He believed that the power of a State to tax the securities of the United States is prohibited by a higher authority than a statute of Congress; that it is prohibited by the Constitution itself. I have made the quotation to show that Mr. Webster did not believe that Congress could constitutionally delegate to the States the authority to tax the securities of the United States. 1 Works of Daniel Webster, Vol. III. pp. 409, 410. MR. STEVENS AND THE FIVE-TWENTY BONDS. PERSONAL EXPLANATION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF MR. R. SPEAKER,- I will first ask the Clerk to read some remarks made by the gentleman from Pennsylvania on Friday, the 17th instant, so that the statements to which I desire to reply may be recalled to the recollection of members. He was speaking of the payment of the five-twenty bonds. The Clerk read as follows: - "MR. STEVENS of Pennsylvania. I want to say that if this loan was to be paid according to the intimation of the gentleman from Illinois,1- if I knew that any party in the country would go for paying in coin that which is payable in money, thus enhancing it one half, if I knew there was such a platform and such a determination this day on the part of any party, I would vote for the other side, Frank Blair and all. I would vote for no such swindle upon the taxpayers of this country; I would vote for no such speculation in favor of the large bondholders, the millionnaires, who took advantage of our folly in granting them coin payment of interest. And I declare — well, it is hard to say it but if even Frank Blair stood upon the platform of paying the bonds according to the contract, and the Republican candidates stood upon the platform of paying bloated speculators twice the amount which we agreed to pay them, then I would vote for Frank Blair, even if a worse man than Seymour headed the ticket. That is all I want to say." 2 A few days afterward I expressed my surprise at these statements of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and referred to the fact that, in the debate of 1862, on the passage of the bill authorizing the five-twenty bonds, the gentleman distinctly declared that these bonds were payable in gold, and that such was the 1 Mr. Ross. 2 Congressional Globe, July 17, 1868, p. 4178. unanimous opinion and intention of Congress at that time. Yesterday the gentleman read from manuscript the following: "Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania, rising to a personal explanation, said: I desire to say a few words relating to what I observe reported in the Globe of the remarks of General Garfield and others with regard to what I said in debate on the passage of the five-twenty bill. I find that it is all taken from the report of Secretary McCulloch, which I had never read. I am therefore free to presume that what those gentlemen quoted, rather than said, is a total perversion of the truth. Had it not been introduced from so respectable a quarter in this House, it would not be too harsh, as there presented, to call it an absolute falsehood. I do not know that I should have taken any notice of what the various papers are repeating, some of them half Rebel, some half Secession, and more of them, I suppose, in the pay of the bondholders. I shall not now undertake to explain the whole of this matter, as I am too feeble; but I shall take occasion hereafter to expose the villany of those who charge me with having said, on the passage of the five-twenty bill, that its bonds were payable in coin. The whole debate from which they quote, and all my remarks which they cited, were made upon an entirely different bill, as might be seen by observing that I speak only of the payment of gold after twenty years, when the bill I was speaking of, as well as all other liabilities, were payable in coin, as no one doubted the resumption of specie payments. My speech was made upon the introduction of the legal-tender bill, on which the interest for twenty years was to be paid in currency. No question of paying the interest in gold arose till some time after, when the bill had been passed by the House, sent to the Senate, returned, and went to a committee of conference, when, for the first time, the gold-bearing question was introduced; and yet all that these wise and truthful gentlemen have quoted from me took place in debate some weeks before the gold question, either principal or interest, had arisen in the House. I only now wish to caution the public against putting faith in the fabrications of demagogues and usurers, and they will find that every word which I have asserted with regard to myself is true to the letter." "1 Now, Mr. Speaker, I can permit no such denial of the truth of my statement, and particularly no such personal attack, to go unchallenged. I therefore appeal to the records. On the 22d of January, 1862, Hon E. G. Spaulding, of New York, from the Committee of Ways and Means, reported House Bill No. 240,- a bill to authorize the issue of United States notes, and for the redemption or funding thereof, and for funding the floating debt of the United States. It con 1 Congressional Globe, July 22, 1868, p. 4335. sisted of three sections. The first authorized the issue of $100,000,000 legal-tender notes; the second authorized the issue of $500,000,000 six per cent twenty-year bonds, with which to fund the legal-tender notes, and other floating debt of the United States; the third was mainly administrative (see copy of original bill, Globe, Vol. XLVI. p. 522). This bill, with but few important changes, became the act of February 25, 1862. On the day of its introduction it was printed, and made the special order for January 28, when a searching debate on its provisions began, and continued with an interruption of but one legislative day to and including the 6th of February. The gentleman from Pennsylvania took no active part in the debate until the day of its passage, when, after general debate on the bill in Committee of the Whole was closed by order of the House, Hon. E. G. Spaulding yielded to Mr. Stevens most of the hour to which he was entitled, and then the gentleman made a vigorous and incisive speech, as he always did, attacking the several substitutes that had been offered, and defending the bill of the Committee of Ways and Means. One substitute had been offered by Mr. Vallandigham, of Ohio; another, by Mr. Roscoe Conkling, of New York; another, by Mr. Morrill, of Vermont; and another, by Mr. Horton, of Ohio, which embraced the leading features of all the others, and was finally selected as the one to be voted on in opposition to the bill of the committee. This substitute did not make United States notes a legal tender for private debts, and this was the chief issue between the advocates and opponents of the bill of the committee. A large part of the speech of the gentleman from Pennsylvania was devoted to the defence of the legal-tender clause of the bill. He held that without the legal-tender provision the notes would depreciate; with it, they would remain at par. He quoted a long passage from the English writer, McCulloch, to show that paper money which is a legal tender will always be at par as long as the amount issued is not in excess of the wants of the country. At that point a question was asked him by Mr. Thomas, of Massachusetts. I quote the following: "MR. THOMAS. I desire to ask the gentleman a question in connection with that passage. McCulloch laid down the doctrine, that the paper is limited to the amount necessary for currency. Let me ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania whether he now expects, in managing these financial matters, to limit the amount of these notes to $150,000,000. Is that his expectation? "MR. STEVENS. It is. I expect that is the maximum amount to be issued. "MR. THOMAS. You do not expect to call for any more? "MR. STEVENS. No, sir; I do not." 1 The gentleman then proceeded to show that these legal-tender notes would soon be used to buy the bonds authorized in the second section, and that the bonds would be a good investment. He said: "This money would soon lodge in large quantities with the capitalists and banks, who must take them [the notes]. But the instinct of gainperhaps I may call it avarice—would not allow them to keep it long unproductive. A dollar in a miser's safe unproductive is a sore disturbance. Where could they invest it? In United States loans, at six per cent, redeemable in gold in twenty years, the best and most valuable permanent investment that could be desired. The government would thus again possess such notes in exchange for bonds, and again reissue them. I have no doubt that thus the $500,000,000 of bonds authorized would be absorbed in less time than would be needed by government, and thus $150,000,000 would do the work of $500,000,000 of bonds. "When further loans were wanted, you need only authorize the sale of more bonds. The same $150,000,000 of notes would be ready to take them." 2 "Gentlemen are clamorous in favor of those who have debts due them, lest the debtor should the more easily pay his debt. I do not much sympathize with such importunate money-lenders. But widows and orphans are interested, and in tears lest their estates should be badly invested. I pity no one who has his money invested in United States bonds, payable in gold in twenty years, with interest semiannually." He then proceeded to review the several substitutes, stating first the plan of the committee. I quote from the same page: "Let me restate the various projects. Ours proposes United States notes, secured at the end of twenty years to be paid in coin, and the interest raised by taxation semiannually; such notes to be money, and of uniform value throughout the Union. No better investment, in my 1 Congressional Globe, February 6, 1862, p. 688. 2 Ibid., p. 688. |