judgment, can be had. No better currency can be invented.

The proposition of the gentleman from New York authorizes the issuing of seven per cent bonds, payable in thirty-one years, to be sold ($250,000,000 of it) or exchanged for the currency of the banks of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

"Sir, this proposition seems to me to lack every element of wise legislation. Make a loan payable in irredeemable currency, and pay that in its depreciated condition to our contractors, soldiers, and creditors generally! The banks would issue unlimited amounts of what would become trash, and buy good hard-money bonds of the nation. Was there ever such a temptation to swindle?"

On the following page, and near the end of his speech, he says:

"Here, then, in a few words, lies your choice. Throw bonds at six or seven per cent on the market between this and December, enough to raise at least $600,000,000, . . . . or issue United States notes, not redeemable in coin, but fundable in specie-paying bonds at twenty years."

In a few moments after the conclusion of this speech the House voted to reject the substitute of Mr. Horton, and adopted the bill advocated by Mr. Stevens. It was sent to the Senate, and but few important amendments were made, the chief of which was that the legal-tender clause should not apply to duties on imports, but that they should be paid in coin, and the coin should be applied to payment of the interest on the bonds, and to the reduction of the principal of the debt. No change was made in the bill which in any manner affected the question of the payment of the principal of the bonds. On the 14th of February the bill came back to the House, and was made a special order for February 19, when it was again debated, some of the amendments adopted, and some rejected; and after submitting the differences between the two houses to a conference committee it was passed, February 25, and on the following day became a law by receiving the approval of the President.

I have carefully gone over all the proceedings, as recorded in the Globe and in the Journal of the House, and I have not found an intimation made, directly or indirectly, by any member, that it was ever dreamed the principal of these bonds could be paid in anything but gold. On the contrary, all who did refer to the subject spoke in the most positive terms that, as a matter of course, they were payable in gold.

1 Mr. Conkling.

Mr. Spaulding, of New York, said: "They intend to foot all the bills, and ultimately pay the whole amount, principal and interest, in gold and silver." 1

Mr. Pomeroy, who is now a member of the House, said: "The credit of the government is alike bound for the payment of both classes of indebtedness ultimately in gold. Each derives its entire value from that." 2

Mr. Pike, of Maine, now a member of the House, said: "With all due deference to the gentlemen who differ with me on this subject, it does seem to me that this matter of the payment of the interest in coin is a controversy about goats' wool. The interest will be paid in coin in any event." 3

Now, Mr. Speaker, I have proved from the record the correctness of every declaration I made in reference to the opinion of Congress at the time of the passage of the five-twenty bill, and particularly the opinion of the gentleman from Pennsylvania. This might seem sufficient, but I wish to carry the investigation a step further.

About one year later, when the House was debating the bill for issuing what are now known as ten-forty bonds, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, who had offered an amendment to make. the interest payable in paper, held the following colloquy with Mr. Horton, of Ohio:

"MR. STEVENS. It would be fair, I suppose, to state that my amendment proposes to pay for these bonds at the end of ten years in coin, but to pay the interest in currency, while the bill of the Committee of Ways and Means proposes to redeem the bonds in currency.

"MR. HORTON. I cannot state what the gentleman asks me to state, because, according to my view, it is not correct. The bill of the Committee of Ways and Means does not contemplate paying in paper.

"MR. STEVENS. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question? "MR. HORTON.

"MR. STEVENS. ever that is?

"MR. HORTON. "MR. STEVENS.

Certainly.

Are not the bonds payable in lawful money,' what

No, sir.

Then the Committee of Ways and Means and I do not agree as to its meaning.

"MR. HORTON. I speak only for myself, and I appeal to the bill. The policy of the bill is to pay the interest in coin, and to collect the imposts in coin, and to redeem the bonds in twenty years in coin." 4

1 Congressional Globe, Feb. 19, 1862, p. 882.

8 Ibid., p. 887.

2 Ibid., p. 885.

4 Ibid., Jan. 19, 1863, p. 388.

So far as I can learn, this was the first word ever spoken in Congress suggesting the possibility of paying these bonds in anything but coin.

Now, notice the effect of this suggestion. On the following day, January 20, while the same bill was pending, Mr. Thomas, of Massachusetts, moved to amend by inserting the words “in coin" in the first section. Mr. Morrill, of Vermont, moved to add the words "and bullion." Then the following discussion took place :

"MR. HORTON. I am opposed to the amendment of the gentleman from Vermont, which is to include bullion with gold in the payment of these bonds; and am in favor of the amendment of the gentleman from Massachusetts, to make them payable in gold. I wish to say here that the Committee of Ways and Means, in framing this bill, never dreamed that these twenty-year bonds were to be payable in anything other than gold, until the gentleman from Pennsylvania told it yesterday upon the floor of the House.

"MR. STEVENS. I do not like to refer to what occurred in committee, but I ask the gentleman from Vermont whether he did not state that he expected they would be paid in legal money?

"MR. HORTON. I say to the gentleman and to this committee that I never heard an expression by any member of the Committee of Ways and Means of the possibility that these bonds were to be payable in anything other than coin. The form here proposed is the form always used by the government in the issue of these bonds, and they have always been paid in coin up to this day; even as late as the 31st of December the bonds then coming due were paid in coin, in accordance with the uniform established practice of the government.

"MR. STEVENS. I ought to say that I am informed by the gentleman from Vermont that he did not make the remark in the committee which I just attributed to him. I so understood him.

"MR. HORTON. I know nothing of any such remark.” 1

The amendment of Mr. Thomas was then adopted without division.

Thus, Mr. Speaker, I have shown that when the original fivetwenty bond bill passed the House, in 1862, all who referred to the subject stated that the principal of those bonds was payable in gold; that the gentleman from Pennsylvania so stated five distinct times, and no member suggested anything to the contrary; that when, in 1863, that gentleman raised a doubt on the

1 Congressional Globe, January 20, 1863, p. 412.

subject, he was promptly met by the statement of a leading member of the Committee of Ways and Means that he never before heard such a suggestion, and nobody on the Committee of Ways and Means dreamed of the possibility of paying them in anything but coin; and finally, from abundant caution, and because of the doubt thus raised, the words "in coin" were inserted in the law authorizing the ten-forty bonds, and, so far as the record shows, no other member, either in 1862 or in 1863, shared the gentleman's doubt. Let it be remembered that I have not discussed the language of the law, but only its history, and the construction placed upon it by those who made it at the time they made it.

INDIAN AFFAIRS.

REMARKS MADE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS.

On the 8th of December, 1868, Mr. Garfield reported, from the Committee on Military Affairs, a bill providing for the removal of the Indian Bureau from the Interior Department to the War Department. He supported the measure in the remarks following.

The Indian Peace Commission mentioned below was organized August 6, 1867, under an act approved the previous July, and consisted of four civilians and four army officers. The object of the Commission was “to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes." More definitely, it was to remove, if possible, the causes of war; to secure, as far as practicable, the frontier settlements, and the safe building of the railroads to the Pacific; and to suggest or inaugurate some plan for the civilization of the Indians.

MR

R. SPEAKER, -I wish to take the time of the House for but a few moments. I shall state briefly the purpose of the bill, and will then yield some time to the gentleman from Minnesota,1 chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs.

It will be noticed in the first place, as the title of the bill indicates, that it proposes to restore the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Department of War, where all that class of business was originally transacted. When the Department of the Interior was formed, in 1849, the management of Indian affairs was taken from the Secretary of War and placed in the hands of the Secretary of the Interior. This bill does not raise the question of the Indian policy to be pursued; it does not propose to settle any theory of tribal relations, or the relation of the government to the Indian tribes; it does not propose to determine whether we shall continue to treat them as separate nations subject to treaty stipulations; nor does it touch the establishment or man1 Mr. Windom.