No longer below par, they will continue to advance, while the national credit lifts its head unimpeached, unimpeachable.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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In presenting this series of measures, I am penetrated by the conviction, that, if adopted, they cannot fail to bring all the national obligations to a par with coin, and then specie payments will be resumed without effort.
The extension of bank-notes from three to five hundred millions, which I propose, will extend the banking system where it is now needed.
To reduce the interest arbitrarily on the existing short bonds of the banks, without offering compensation in some form, would be positively unjust, besides being an infringement of the guaranties surrounding such bonds, and therefore a…
The stability of the banks, which is so vital alike to the national currency and to the pecuniary interests involved in the business, can be assured only by an issue of bonds for a longer term.
Here it must be observed, that the whole system of national banks is founded upon the bonds of the nation; so that, at the rate of liquidation now adopted for the national debt, the system will be without support in the lapse of twelve or…
Two things must be done for the national banks: first, the bonds deposited by them with the Government must be reduced in interest; and, secondly, the system must be extended, so as to supply much-needed facilities, especially at the West…
Accustomed to the facilities this currency supplies, it is difficult to understand how business was conducted under the old system, when every bank had its separate currency, taking its color, like the chameleon, from what was about it, so…
There are other fields of glory than in war, and such a triumph will be among the most important in the annals of finance.
The stigma of Repudiation, whether breathed in doubt or hurled in taunt, will be silenced.
The time will have come, which is the condition-precedent named by the Secretary of the Treasury, when “the want of faith in the Government” will be removed, and the door will be open to cheap loans.
I know no way in which this conviction can be created so promptly and easily as by redeeming in gold some one of our six per cent. loans; and that most naturally selected is the first, which is already so noted from the discussion to which…
It is important, if not necessary, in order to counteract the suspicion which has been allowed to fall upon our national credit.
There should be no coercion of any kind upon any holder, at home or abroad, to induce the acceptance of a substitute bond.
And yet, with these tokens of national resources manifest to the world, our bonds are below par, and our currency is inconvertible paper.
The payment of the national debt and the accumulation of coin in the Treasury are the signs of unparalleled national wealth, but our financial condition is not in harmony with these signs.
While the present system continues, we are poor.
It was my duty to show why the propositions of the Secretary were not sufficient for the occasion, and this I have tried to do simply and frankly.
New York is our commercial centre, designated by Providence and confirmed by man.
A return to specie payments, thus precipitated, would be of doubtful value, if not illusive, without other and sustaining measures.
The attempt at too low a rate of interest would cause the coin to be taken rather than the bond, if we had the article at command,--and would end in a deluge of coin, sweeping away the premium on gold.
Obviously, to induce the voluntary relinquishment of bonds at a high rate of interest for other bonds at a less rate, the holders must be offered something preferable to the coin tendered as an alternative.
But besides this capital defect, apparent on the face, I find in the system proposed no assurance of success.
They hand over to the future what I wish to see accomplished at once, and what I cannot doubt with a firm will can be accomplished at an early day.
Considering these propositions with the best attention I could give to them, I have been impressed by their inadequacy as a system at the present moment.
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