It was admitted to be a doubtful if not dangerous exercise of power; but the law of necessity overrides all other laws, and asserts its right to govern.
James Blaine
The Public Record
James Gillespie Blaine was an American statesman and Republican politician who represented Maine in the United States House of Representatives from 1863 to 1876, served as Speaker of the House from 1869 to 1875, and was a United States senator from 1876 to 1881. He served twice as Secretary of State, under presidents James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur in 1881, and under Benjamin Harrison from 1889 to 1892. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1876 and 1880, and received the nomination in 1884, narrowly losing the general election to Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland. Blaine was a prominent figure in the moderate faction of the Republican Party, known as the "Half-Breeds".
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In the opinion of the majority, the one imperative duty was that the government should take control of the currency, issue its own paper as a circulating medium, and make it equal and alike to all, by declaring it to be a legal-tender in…
Few would insist upon coin, but as the power to insist upon it was a legal right, it was a continuing menace to the confidence of trade.
It was obviously impossible to conduct the business of the country and to carry on the war, in coin payments, with the small amount of coin at command.
It had been demonstrated that Treasury notes, without punctual and regular redemption, would not circulate.
That was demanded to pay the debt of honor due to the soldiers; to remove stagnation in business; to put the people in heart and hope.
The Rebels might fight without money, for they had no national credit to protect; but to the Union, bankruptcy meant final and hopeless ruin.
Never in the history of national progress through trials and crises, were wise statesmanship and financial sagacity more imperatively demanded.
The Treasury notes not being paid in coin on demand, as promised on their face, became discredited to such a degree that the banks of the leading commercial cities would receive them only as a special deposit, and not as money of account.
The banks of the country, many of them in reckless, speculative hands, were freed by the suspension of specie payment from their just responsibility, and might flood the country with worthless paper which would entail great distress upon…
We were engaged therefore in a threefold contest,--a military one with the Confederacy, and diplomatic and moral one with the governments of England and France, a financial one with the money power of Europe.
He would have been dealing constantly with a surplus instead of a deficit, and could not have put the nation to shame by forcing it to hawk its paper in the money markets at the usurious rate of one per cent. a month.
If the Morrill Tariff had been enacted four years before, it would have been impossible for Secretary Cobb to stab the national credit.
They did not lose the opportunity of demonstrating that a system of protection which would have manufactured more and imported less, and which would thus have retained many millions of our specie at home, would have enabled us to meet the…
They now believed that the same cause had produced a suspension of coin payment at a much earlier date than the war pressure alone would have brought it about.
Advocates of protection had found the drain of our specie the proximate cause of the financial panic of 1857.
The consequence was that during the decade preceding the war our exports of specie and bullion exceeded our imports of the same by the enormous aggregate of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars.
The political economists who had been in control of our finances insisted upon treating our gold as an ordinary product, to be exported in the same manner that we exported wheat and pork.
But peace on the basis of a dissevered Union, a disintegrated people, a dishonored nationality, could not be accepted and would not be endured.
If the struggle then in progress had been with a foreign power, popular opinion would have overthrown any administration that would not at once make peace.
That was a calamity so great as to be immeasurable, and it left to the loyal millions no choice.
Happily all considerate and reflecting men saw that, desperate as the struggle might be, it must be accepted with all its cost and all its woe.
Unfortunately also the attempt to levy a direct tax was received by the people with grave manifestations of disapproval.
The eloquent fact about the Loan Bill is that Congress made haste to enact it.
As the struggle proceeded, it was demonstrated that those calculated most justly who relied most completely on the popular purpose to make every sacrifice to maintain the national integrity.
Politicians like James Blaine
