Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 42

The most important measure consummated during this Congress was the adoption of the 15th amendment of the const.i.tution of the United States, declared, in a proclamation of the Secretary of State, dated March 30, 1870, to have been ratified by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven states, as follows:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

It is a question of grave doubt whether this amendment, though right in principle, was wise or expedient. The declared object was to secure impartial suffrage to the negro race. The practical result has been that the wise provisions of the 14th amendment have been modified by the 15th amendment. The latter amendment has been practically nullified by the action of most of the states where the great body of this race live and will probably always remain.

This is done, not by an express denial to them of the right of suffrage, but by ingenious provisions, which exclude them on the alleged ground of ignorance, while permitting all of the white race, however ignorant, to vote at all elections. No way is pointed out by which Congress can enforce this amendment. If the principle of the 14th amendment had remained in full force, Congress could have reduced the representation of any state, in the proportion which the number of the male inhabitants of such state, denied the right of suffrage, might bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age, in such state. This simple remedy, easily enforced by Congress, would have secured the right of all persons, without distinction of race or color, to vote at all elections.

The reduction of representation would have deterred every state from excluding the vote of any portion of the male population above twenty-one years of age. As the result of the 15th amendment, the political power of the states lately in rebellion has been increased, while the population, conferring this increase, is practically denied all political power. I see no remedy for this wrong except the growing intelligence of the negro race, which, in time, I trust, will enable them to demand and to receive the right of suffrage.

The most important financial measure of that Congress was the act to refund the national debt. The bonds known as the 5-20's, bearing interest at six per cent., became redeemable, and the public credit had so advanced that a bond bearing a less rate of interest could be sold at par. The committee on finance of the Senate, on the 3rd day of February, 1870, after more care and deliberation, than, so far as I know, it has ever bestowed on any other bill, finally reported a bill to fund the public debt, to aid in the resumption of specie payments, and to advance the public credit.

The first section authorized the issue of $400,000,000 of bonds, redeemable in coin at the pleasure of the United States, at any time after ten years, bearing interest at five per cent.

The second section authorized the issue of bonds to the amount of $400,000,000, redeemable at the pleasure of the government, at any time after fifteen years, and bearing interest at four and a half per cent.

The third section authorized the issue of $400,000,000 of bonds, redeemable at any time after twenty years, and bearing interest at the rate of four per cent.

The proceeds of all these bonds were to be applied to the redemption of 5-20 and 10-40 bonds, and other obligations of the United States then outstanding.

It will be perceived that this bill provided for the issue of securities, all of which were redeemable within twenty years, and two-thirds of which were redeemable within fifteen years, so that if the bill, as reported by the committee on finance, had become the law, no such difficulty as we labored under eighteen years later, when we had a large surplus revenue, would have existed.

The bill pa.s.sed the Senate, in substantially the form reported from the committee on finance, by the large vote of 33 to 10, and was, perhaps, the most carefully prepared of any of the financial measures of the government.

In opening the debate, I called the attention of the Senate to the great advantage the government had derived from making its bonds redeemable at brief periods, like the 5-20 bonds, the 10-40 bonds, and the treasury notes. I also called attention to the fact that the same principle of maintaining the right to redeem had been ingrafted in the bill then before the Senate, that the duration of the bonds was divided into three periods of ten, fifteen, and twenty years, during which time, by the gradual application of the surplus revenue, the whole debt might be paid. This was the bill sent by the Senate to the House of Representatives, and if it had been adopted by the House, there would have been no trouble about the application of the surplus revenue, but by common consent it would have been used in the speedy extinction of the public debt.

The bill was sent to the House of Representatives on the 11th of March, and there seems to have slept for nearly three months without any action on the part of the House.

On the 6th of June the committee on ways and means reported House bill 2167, covering the same subject-matters as were contained in the Senate bill. The consideration of this bill was commenced, by sections, on the 30th of June. The material part of the first section of this bill is as follows:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to issue, in a sum or sums not exceeding in the aggregate $1,000,000,000, coupon or registered bonds of the United States, in such form as he may prescribe, and of denomination of $50, or some multiple of that sum, redeemable in coin of the present standard value at the pleasure of the United States after thirty years from the date of their issue, and bearing interest payable semi-annually in such coin at the rate of four per cent. per annum."

Thus it will be perceived that instead of the three series of bonds provided by the Senate, the House proposed to authorize the issue of $1,000,000,000, redeemable in coin after thirty years from the date of their issue, with interest at four per cent. This difference in the description of the bonds was the chief difference between the propositions of the House and the Senate. To emphasize this difference I quote what was said by the chairman of the House committee, Mr. Schenck, in reporting the bill:

"It is a proposition to refund a portion of the public debt of the country at a very much lower rate of interest. It is a proposition that $1,000,000,000 of that debt shall take the form of bonds, upon which the United States will agree to pay only four per cent. per annum. But, in order to make those bonds acceptable to capitalists at home and abroad, further provision is made that the bonds themselves shall have a longer time to run, not merely for thirty years, but that they shall only be redeemable after thirty years; thus giving them, without the objections, the advantages which in a great degree attach to a perpetual loan."

This bill, with a very limited debate, pa.s.sed the House on the 1st of July, and then immediately was offered as a subst.i.tute for the Senate bill, and was adopted.

Those two rival propositions, differing mainly upon the question of the character of the bonds to be issued, were sent to a committee of conference, composed on the part of the Senate of Messrs. Sherman, Sumner and Davis. The chief controversy in the conference was as to the description of funding bonds to be provided for. After many meetings it was finally agreed that the bonds authorized should be $200,000,000 five per cent. bonds, $300,000,000 four and a half per cent. bonds, of the character described in the Senate bill, and $1,000,000,000 of four per cent. bonds, as described in the House bill. In other words, it was a compromise which, like many other compromises, was in its results an injury of great magnitude, but it was an honest difference of opinion between the Senate and the House, in which, tested by the march of time, the Senate was right and the House was wrong. But it was perfectly manifest that without this concession by the Senate to the House, the bill could not have pa.s.sed, and even with this concession, the first report of the committee of conference was disagreed to by the House, because of certain provisions requiring the national banks to subst.i.tute the new bonds as the basis of banking circulation.

This disagreement by the House compelled a second committee of conference, in which the contested banking section was stricken out, and the bill agreed to as it now stands on the statute books.

And thus thirty-year securities, subsequently at a premium of more than twenty-five per cent., were forced into the law by the determined action of the House.

This proved to be an error. No bonds should have been authorized that did not contain a stipulation that the government might pay them at pleasure, after a brief period and before they became due.

This stipulation during the war was inserted in the 5-20 and the 10-40 bonds. Its wisdom and importance were demonstrated by the early subst.i.tution of bonds bearing a lower rate of interest for the 5-20 six per cent. bonds. When this precedent was cited, and its saving to the government shown, it was strongly urged by the House conferees that such a provision would prevent the sale of bonds, and that there was no probability that bonds bearing less than four per cent. could be sold at any time at par. This was proven to be an error within a short period, for securities of the United States bearing three per cent. interest have been sold at par.

Some years later, Senator Beck, of Kentucky, arraigned me for consenting to the issue of bonds running thirty years, but I was able to show by the public records that I resisted this long duration of the four per cent. bonds, that the House insisted upon it, and that Mr. Beck, then a Member of the House, voted for it. The same objection was made by the Senate conferees to the bonds bearing four and a half and five per cent., that no stipulation was made authorizing the government to antic.i.p.ate the payment of these bonds.

Under the Senate bill the bonds would have been redeemable in a brief period, and would, no doubt, have been redeemed by bonds bearing four, three and a half, or three per cent. interest.

The bill, as it pa.s.sed, authorized the conversion of all forms of securities, then outstanding, into the bonds provided for by the refunding act at par one with the other. The Secretary of the Treasury could sell the bonds provided for by the refunding act at par, and with the proceeds pay off the then existing securities as they became redeemable. In the discussion of this bill in the Senate, on the 28th of February, 1870, I made a carefully prepared speech, giving a detailed history of the various securities outstanding, and expressed the confident opinion that the existing coin bonds bearing six per cent. interest, and other securities bearing interest in lawful money, could be refunded into bonds running for a short period, bearing a reduced rate of interest.

I said:

"After a long and memorable debate of over two months in both Houses of Congress, the act of February 25, 1862, was adopted. That was a revolutionary act. It was a departure from every principle of the financial policy of this government from its foundation. It overthrew, not only the mode and manner of borrowing money, but the character of our public securities, and was the beginning of a new financial system, unlike anything that had been ventured upon by any people in the world before. This new policy was adopted under the pressure of the severest necessities, and only because of those necessities, and was intended to meet a state of affairs never foreseen by the framers of the const.i.tution.

"Now, sir, it is important to understand the principles of this act; for this act was the foundation of all the financial measures during the war. It was upon the basis of this act, enlarged and modified from time to time, that we were enabled to borrow $3,000,000,000 in three years and to put down the most formidable rebellion in modern history. This act was based upon certain fundamental conditions.

"Extraordinary power was conferred upon the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow money in almost any form, at home or abroad, practically without limitation as to amount, or with limits repeatedly enlarged.

Every form of security which the ingenuity of man could devise was provided for by this act or the acts amending it. Under these acts bonds were issued, payable in twenty years, treasury notes were issued, certificates of indebtedness, compound-interest notes, and other forms of indebtedness, with varying rates of interest. There were, however, distinct limitations upon the nature and character of these loans. It was stipulated first, that more than six per cent. interest in gold should not be paid on the bonds issued, nor more than seven and three-tenths interest in currency should be paid on the notes issued; and _second, all the loans provided by this act were short loans_, redeemable within a short period of time at the pleasure of the United States. Thus the gold bonds were redeemable after five years, the treasury notes were redeemable after three years, and all forms of security were within the power of the United States at the end of five years at furthest. And third, no securities were to be sold at less than par. Their unavoidable depreciation was measured, not by the rate of their discount, but by the depreciation of the currency. We held our bonds at par in paper money, though at times they were worth only forty per cent. of gold. . . .

"Now, Mr. president, it may be proper to state the reasons for this policy. Short loans were adopted that we might not bind the future to the payment of usurious rates of interest. We recognized the existence of a great pressing necessity that would tend to depreciate the public credit; and we took care, therefore, not to make these loans for a long period, so as to bind the future to the payment of the rates which we were then compelled to pay.

"We provided for gold interest and gold revenue, to avoid the extreme inflations of an irredeemable currency. We wished to rest our paper fabric on a coin basis, and to keep constantly in view ultimate specie payments. I believe but for that provision in the loan act of February 25, 1862, that in 1864 our financial system would have been utterly overthrown. There was nothing to anchor it to the earth except the collection of duties in coin and the payment of the interest on our bonds in coin.

"But, sir, the most important and the most revolutionary principle of the act of February 25, 1862, was the legal tender clause. This was a measure of imperious and pressing necessity. I can recall very well the debates in the Senate and in the House of Representatives upon the legal tender clause. We were then standing in the face of a deficit of some $70,000,000 of unpaid requisitions to our soldiers. Creditors in all parts of the country, among them the most powerful corporations of this country, had refused our demand notes, then very slightly depressed. We were under the necessity of raising two or three million dollars per day. We were then organizing armies unheard of before. We stood also in the presence of defeat, constant and imminent, which fell upon our armies in all parts of the country. It was before daylight was shed upon any part of our military operations. We adopted the legal tender clause then as an absolute expedient. Remembering the debate, I know with what slow steps the majority of the Senate came to the necessity of adopting legal tenders."

The debt of the United States on the 31st of August, 1866, when it reached its maximum, amounted to $2,844,649,627. On the 1st of March, 1870, the debt had been reduced to less than $2,500,000,000, of which about $400,000,000 was in United States notes, for the redemption of which no provision was made. It was the confident expectation of Congress, which proved to be correct, that before the refunding operations were complete, the debt would be gradually reduced, so that the sum of $1,500,000,000, provided for in the law, would be sufficient to refund all existing debts, except United States notes, into the new securities.

The process of refunding progressed slowly, was confined to the five per cent. bonds, and was somewhat interrupted by the financial stringency of 1873.

By the act approved January 20, 1871, the amount of five per cent.

bonds authorized by the act approved July 14, 1870, was increased to $500,000,000, but the act was not to be construed to authorize any increase of bonds provided for by the refunding act.

Prior to the 24th of August, 1876, there had been sold, for refunding purposes, the whole of the $500,000,000 five per cents. authorized by that act, and on that day Lot M. Morrill, Secretary of the Treasury, entered into a contract for the sale of $40,000,000 of the four and a half per cent. bonds authorized by the refunding act. By this process of refunding an annual saving had been made of $5,400,000 a year, by the reduction of interest in the sale of $540,000,000 bonds. On the 9th day of June, 1877, I, as Secretary of the Treasury, terminated the contract made by Mr. Morrill, my predecessor, and placed on the market the four per cent. bonds provided for by the refunding act. The subsequent proceedings under this act will be more appropriately referred to hereafter.

The more difficult problem remained of advancing United States notes to par in coin. This could be accomplished by reducing the amount of these notes outstanding, and, thus, by their scarcity, add to their value. They were a legal tender in payment for all debts, public and private, except for duties on imported goods and interest on the public debt. As long as these notes were at a discount for coin they could circulate only in the United States, and until they were at par with coin, coin would not circulate as money in the United States, except to pay coin liabilities. The notes were a dishonored, depreciated promise, the purchasing power of which varied day by day, the football of "bulls and bears." In many respects these notes were better than any other form of depreciated paper money, for the people of the United States had full confidence in their ultimate redemption. They were much better and in higher favor with the people than the state bank notes which they replaced and which were not only depreciated like United States notes but had been often proven worthless in the hands of innocent holders. They were as good as national bank notes, however well secured, for these notes were not payable in coin, but could be redeemed by United States notes. Still, with all their defects the United States notes were the favorite money of the people, and any attempt to contract their volume was met by a strong popular opposition.

As already stated, the gradual reduction of the volume of United States notes, urged so strongly by Secretary McCulloch, and provided for by the resumption act, met with popular opposition and was repealed by Congress. Under these conditions it became necessary to approach the specie standard of value without a contraction of the currency. The act to strengthen the public credit, already referred to, was the beginning of this struggle. The government was, by this act, committed to the payment of the United States notes in coin or its equivalent. But when and how was not stated or even considered. The extent to which Congress would then go, and to which popular opinion would then consent, was the declaration that the "United States solemnly pledges its faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period for the redemption of United States notes, in coin." Many events must occur before the fulfillment of this promise could be attempted.

CHAPTER XXII.

OUR COINAGE BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR.

But Little Coin in Circulation in 1869--General Use of Spanish Pieces--No Mention of the Dollar Piece in the Act of 1853--Free Circulation of Gold After the 1853 Act--No Truth in the "Demonetization"

Charge--Account of the Bill Revising the Laws Relative to the Mint, a.s.say Offices and Coinage of the United States--Why the Dollar was Dropped from the Coins--Then Known Only as a Coin for the Foreign Market--Establishment of the "Trade Dollar"--A Legal Tender for Only Five Dollars--Repeated Attempts to Have Congress Pa.s.s a Free Coinage Act--How It Would Affect Us--Controversy Between Senator Sumner and Secretary Fish.

At the date of the pa.s.sage of the act "to strengthen the public credit," on March 19, 1869, there was but little coin in circulation in the United States except gold coin, and that was chiefly confined to the Pacific coast, or to the large ports of entry, to be used in payment of duties on imported goods. Silver coins were not in circulation. The amount of silver coined in 1869 was less than one million dollars and that mainly for exportation. Fractional notes of different denominations, from ten to fifty cents, were issued by the treasury to the amount of $160,000,000, of which $120,000,000 had been redeemed, and $40,000,000 were outstanding in circulation or had been destroyed. These fractional notes superseded silver coin as United States notes superseded gold coin.

The coinage laws as they then existed were scattered through the laws of the United States from 1793 to 1853, and were in many respects imperfect and conflicting.

The ratio fixed by Alexander Hamilton, of fifteen ounces of silver as the equivalent of one ounce of gold, was, at the time it was adopted, substantially the market ratio, but the constant tendency of silver to decline in relative value to gold had been going on for years and it continued to decline, almost imperceptibly perhaps, and the legal ratio in France having been fixed at fifteen and a half to one, there was an advantage in s.h.i.+pping gold to that country from this, and consequently very little if any of our gold, even if coined, came into circulation. By the act of 1793 foreign coins were made a legal tender for circulation in this country, and the Spanish silver dollar, on which ours was founded, with the 8th or "real" pieces, found great favor. Singularly enough, in Mexico and the West Indies, the Spanish population would exchange their dollars for ours, dollar for dollar, although their pieces, if not worn, were each three grains heavier. This led to an exchange of our dollars for the Spanish ones, which were promptly recoined at the mint at a fair profit to the depositor.

This put upon the government the expense of manufacturing coins with no advantage. The evil grew so great that in 1806 the further coinage of our silver dollars was prohibited by President Jefferson, in an order issued through the state department, as follows:

"Department of State, May 1, 1806.

"Sir:--In consequence of a representation from the director of the Bank of the United States, that considerable purchases have been made of dollars coined at the mint for the purpose of exporting them, and as it is probable further purchases and exportations will be made, the President directs that all the silver to be coined at the mint shall be of small denominations, so that the value of the largest pieces shall not exceed half a dollar.

"I am, etc., "James Madison.

"Robert Patterson, Esq., Director of the Mint."

The coinage of the silver dollar at our mint was not resumed until 1836. The small and worn Spanish pieces, being legal tender, also drove from circulation our fractional coins coming bright and plump from the mint. Bank notes and these worn pieces furnished the circulation of the country.

The condition of the currency became so objectionable that in 1830 the subject was taken up by a special committee of the House of Representatives, appointed for the purpose. Three reports were submitted, in one of which the committee stated that of $37,000,000 coined at our mints only $5,000,000 remained in circulation. A bill was submitted to the House fixing the ratio at 15.625 to one, and was strongly urged. There appeared no special opposition to the measure for a time, but the feeling of opposition to the circulation of bank bills had become very strong among the people and was reflected by the administration.