ment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery throughout the United States. This was assented to by the Legislatures of thirtyone States, and has become a part of the Constitution. This was to make valid what was ineffectual under Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. But this change of object produced two consequences-one to unite the South and prolong the war, and the other to pacify the abolition branch of the Republican party, and unite the whole in favor of Mr. Lincoln's renomination for the presidency, upon a platform in which the abolition of slavery was a leading plank. The nominating convention did not assume that the proclamation had extinguished slavery, but it proposed to accomplish that object by an amendment of the Constitution. It will be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the object of this change, in the avowed objects of the war, was made for the purpose of securing unanimity in the Republican party and the renomination of Mr. Lincoln. It is now a matter of history that he was often made to yield by one branch or the other of his party, by its assuming an attitude of fight if he did not comply. In other words, he yielded to save himself among his political friends. The Republican party claimed to be the Government, and then appealed to the people to save their party as the nation. In other words, disunionists appealed to the people to save the Union.

110.-MR. CHASE'S FINANCIAL PLANS AND THEIR CONSE

QUENCES.

Congress did little more than register the financial plans of Mr. Chase. He was without any clear and settled system of finance. His plans partook of the character of temporary expedients for relief. Neither the character of his mind, nor his previous training, specially qualified him for the Treasury Department. His advisers were not competent for their positions. His first law, imposing a certain amount of direct taxes upon the real estate of all the States and Territories, indicated the intention of paying as we went along, and had the merit of good sense and of boldness. This act was never executed, but was postponed from time to time, and is now dead, without legislation giving it new life. Had it been executed, and money drawn from the pockets of the

farmers throughout the Union, it would have awakened their vigilance and overthrown the Republican party, a thing which he wished to avoid, if possible. He had not the boldness to ask for large loans payable in specie, but resorted to Treasury notes of numerous kinds, having different times of maturing and different rates of interest, some bearing compound interest, and others none at all—some receivable for all dues to the Government, and others not-thus producing unlimited confusion, and these various kinds of paper bearing in market different values. To augment the confusion, the poorer sort of all this vast mass of paper promises was made a legal tender to everybody except the Government at the custom-houses, where gold was demanded for all duties upon foreign imports. The greenback currency bore upon it the pledge of the Government to fund it in a six per cent. stock, payable in not less than five nor more than twenty years. After the country became flooded with this kind of paper, on his recommendation, Congress repealed the law creating this pledge, and the later issues are without it. A five per cent. loan, having forty years to run, proved a failure, as people could do better with their money than to lend for that rate of interest. This greenback currency has varied in value from thirty to seventy per cent. below par. On the 13th of June, while he was yet Secretary of the Treasury, Congress passed a law declaring it unlawful to make contracts on time for buying and selling gold, or for making them at any place except at the contractor's ordinary place of business, and forbidding the sale of gold, not at the time in the actual possession of the party selling. This act sent gold up some three hundred per cent. above greenbacks. The object was to prevent the buying and selling gold at the brokers' boards, and to compel people to use and quote greenbacks at par. But it had exactly the contrary effect. This unconstitutional and tyrannical act disgraced the statute-book just sixteen days, when, by common consent, it was repealed two days after Mr. Chase went out of office. The Republicans seemed to suppose that gold could be put down, and greenbacks forced up, by legislation. Under what clause of the Constitution they supposed they derived power to prohibit people from buying and selling and loaning

and using, or making bargains concerning gold as they chose, they have not informed us. They doubtless wished to protect their sinking currency. But it sunk lower under their protection.

The effect of throwing upon the public hundreds of millions of this depreciated currency has been fatal to the Treasury as well as oppressive upon the people. The creditor interest of the country suffered to the extent that it was below par, being forced to take it where gold was due, and where they had parted with property at gold prices, or perhaps gold itself. The effect upon. the Treasury was to nearly double the demands upon it, as every thing bought for the war commanded nearly double price. Congress has shown its appreciation of this fact by raising its own salaries from three to five thousand dollars per annum, and largely adding to the salaries of various employés of the Government. Of the nearly three thousand millions of acknowledged public debt, about one-half of it is the fruit of Mr. Chase's financial measures in filling the country with depreciated paper. The soldier, when paid in gold, could. buy two barrels of flour with a month's pay, but, under this mischievous system, it would seldom buy more than one. The effect was the same upon all purchases made by the Government. Loans payable in gold could have been taken throughout the war at par. But if not, it would have been far better to negotiate them at a discount than to resort to depreciated paper, and pay double prices for every thing, and thus double our public debt. This policy has given us a currency that cannot be used by our navy on any foreign station, or by our foreign ministers, or consuls, or for making purchases abroad, or paying the expenses of foreign travel, and is one which the Government will not take for almost a half of our revenue. Our ministers abroad, receiving the same salaries as other officers at home, in effect receive from thirty to fifty per cent. more. It will buy that much more anywhere. The eighteen thousand paid to our minister at London will procure more of the comforts of life than the President's twenty-five thousand paid here in greenbacks. The expenses of all branches of the national Government since the war have been largely increased by the use of this depreciated paper. To the extent of this depreciation, the country is taxed

by means of this currency. The legal-tender part of Mr. Chase's plans has not a shadow of authority in the Constitution, so far as it requires individuals to take it. It deprives the people of their legal rights under contracts, whether entered into before or after the law was passed. Mr. Chase's financial plans have been the means of not only needlessly increasing our public debt, but also of unnecessarily doubling our taxes. If a man dies, his children cannot inherit and possess his property without paying a heavy tax. The country will not outgrow Mr. Chase's financial bungling in a hundred years. His national bank schemes, the second chapter of blunders, we shall notice elsewhere.

Another consequence of an alarming kind, flowing from this depreciated currency, is manifesting itself, creating distrust and largely disturbing the public mind. The Legal Tender Act of February 25, 1862, provided that greenbacks "shall be received the same as coin, at their par value, in payment for any loans that may be hereafter sold or negotiated," and that they should be convertible into a six per cent. stock at the option of the holder, which has been done to an immense amount. These stocks are held in various European countries and through all parts of the United States. There has been unnecessarily precipitated upon the country the question whether the Government shall pay the principal of these stocks in gold or greenbacks, the bonds generally not stating how they should be paid. The agitators say that the Government only received greenbacks, and it is inequitable for the holders to ask for repayment in a better currency than they paid.

To this it is answered:

1. That the bonds issued are in the same form, so far as principal is concerned, as in all past loans which have been paid principal and interest in coin.

2. The currency of the world is gold and silver coin, and, up to the time of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, such coin was demand able in this and all civilized countries, although nothing was said about payment being in coin.

3. That the Government, under the Legal Tender Act, expressly declared that the greenbacks should be received the

same as coin, and were, of course, considered as good when received.

4. That the Secretary of the Treasury, who represented the Government in construing these loan laws, informed the public that the Government was bound to pay the principal of these loans in coin.

5. That the public, in loaning, acted under this construction as they had a right to do.

6. In construing these loan obligations, all the surrounding circumstances are to be considered-such as the past acts and practices of the Government in paying off bonds, the forms and terms used in the transaction, the construction by the Government at the time, and the conclusions that the lender would naturally draw from what passed, and the subsequent acts of the Government to show its understanding of the contract.

7. The act making greenbacks a legal tender contained a provision under which the holder had a legal right to fund them in a six per cent. stock, having not less than five nor more than twenty years to run, with interest semi-annually in gold. If greenbacks were a legal tender for the principal of these bonds, they must be of this exact kind. But the Government has repealed this right of funding, and thereby very essentially diminished the value of the greenbacks issued since the repeal. There is now no compulsory way of obtaining pay, or any thing for greenbacks, the act of March 3, 1865, leaving every thing at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.

8. Congress, in issuing legal-tender greenbacks sufficient to pay off the bonds not expressly required by statute to be paid in coin, would further depreciate them, and would, therefore, by its own act, diminish the value of what it paid, which would be highly unjust. The extent of the injury would depend upon the extent of the issue and depreciation.

9. It is untrue that all the stocks issued were paid for in greenbacks. Some were paid for in certificates of indebtedness, and others in other obligations of the Government, and there are no means now of distinguishing them from those paid for in greenbacks. If it were legal and just to pay greenbacks where