Charles Sumner

Surely it is the dictate of wisdom, instead of creating a third paper currency, to disembarrass the country of one of those now existing and make the other convertible into coin, so that we may hereafter enjoy one uniform currency.

But the measure is not only impracticable,--it is inexpedient, as multiplying, instead of simplifying, the forms of currency.

It is easy to see that until specie payments this idea is impracticable.

Here I put the practical question, Can any national bank issue and maintain a circulation of coin notes with a reserve of only twenty-five per cent., so long as gold commands a premium?

The machine will not work; but if it does work, its first and most obvious operation will be to create a new currency, adding a third to the greenbacks and bank-notes already existing, besides creating a new class of banks.

This is plausible, but to my mind illusory and impracticable.

I think I do not err, if I conclude that the first part of the pending measure is inadequate, while the cancellation of the three per cent. certificates in the manner proposed is inexpedient.

They constitute a part of the national debt, and should be considered in the refunding and consolidation of this debt, and not on a bill to provide banking facilities.

Obviously these three per cent. certificates ought to be withdrawn; but I do not like to see their withdrawal conditioned on the extension of banking facilities.

Besides its partiality, this provision operates like a gratuity to the banks having these notes.

Why not at once provide another source from which to draw the new supplies under the new apportionment?

I would ask also, Why unnecessarily disturb existing and well-settled channels of trade?--for such must be the effect of a new apportionment, as proposed, under the census of this year.

When a just remedy is in our power, why propose an unjust remedy?

When a complete remedy is in our power, why propose a partial remedy?

Therefore in one part of the country it will be inadequate, while in another it is unjust.

But, plainly and obviously, the measure of relief proposed is not sufficient to meet the just demands of the South and West; nor is it sufficient to prevent taking from the North and East a portion of the currency now enjoyed by them.

This is right, and it removes to a certain extent objections successfully urged at the last session of Congress against a measure for the redistribution of currency.

Nor is it easy to see how any redistribution can be made, which, however just to-day, may not be unjust to-morrow.

A simple redistribution of the existing currency cannot be made without serious consequences to the business of the country, while it will do nothing to correct the evils of our present financial condition.

If the Senator from Indiana is right in saying that prices have already settled down in the expectation of an early resumption, then to my mind the battle is half won and we have only to proceed always in the right direction.

The Senator from Kentucky said aptly, that, if we wait until all are ready, we shall never resume.

I venture to add, that the remedy would be worse than the disease.

Like every measure of essential justice, it will at once harmonize with the life of the community, and people will be astonished at the long postponement of an act so truly beneficent in all its influences, so important to the national…

I never have doubted, I cannot doubt, the ease with which the transition to specie payments may be accomplished, especially as compared with the ominous fears which this simple proposition seems to excite in certain quarters.

With diminished taxation and resources increasing immeasurably, the national debt will cease to be a burden,--becoming “fine by degrees and beautifully less” until it gradually ceases to exist.