They have said to us, in the most solemn form, that this measure was indispensably necessary to maintain the credit of the government, and to keep these notes anywhere near par.

As soon as the banks suspended, gold and silver ceased to circulate as money.

You cannot sell your bonds for gold and silver, which is the only money that can now be received under the sub-treasury law.

This currency made a legal tender was necessary to aid in making further loans.

The government ought to give, and has the power to give, to that money, all the sanction, authority, value, necessary and proper, to enable it to borrow money.

The power to fix the standard of money, to regulate the medium of exchanges, must necessarily go with, and be incident to, the power to regulate commerce, to borrow money, to coin money, to maintain armies and navies.

But Congress is expressly invested with all these high powers, and, to remove all doubt, is expressly authorized to use all necessary and proper means to carry these powers into effect.

Justice to our creditors demands that it should be a legal tender; it will then circulate all over the country, and it will be the lifeblood of the whole business of the country, and it will enable capitalists to buy your bonds.

When I feel so strongly the necessity of this measure, I am constrained to assume the power, and refer our authority to exercise it to the courts.

I rest my vote upon the proposition that this is a necessary and proper measure to furnish a currency--a medium of exchange--to enable the government to borrow money, to maintain an army and support a navy.

We have been taught by recent fearful experience that delay and doubt in this time of revolutionary activity are stagnation and death.

I have sworn to raise and support your armies; to provide for and maintain your navy; to borrow money; to uphold your government against all enemies, at home and abroad.

As a Member of this body, I am armed with high powers for a holy purpose, and I am authorized --nay, required--to vote for all laws necessary and proper for executing these high powers, and to accomplish that purpose.

This is not the time when I would limit these powers.

Rather than yield to revolutionary force, I would use revolutionary force.

Regarding this great measure as a necessary and proper one, and within our power to enact, I see plain before me the path of duty, and one that is easy to tread.

The public credit was greatly strengthened by the provision for the payment of interest in coin furnished by duties on imported goods.

The legal tender clause was acquiesced in by all classes, and we had, for the first time, in circulation national paper money as the actual standard of value.

The passage of the legal tender act was the turning point of our physical and financial history.

Less than a year before the government was bankrupt; our bonds bearing six per cent. interest were sold at a discount; our national expenditures exceeded our receipts; loans could only be made upon the basis of coin, and this coin was…

We had to appeal to the patriotism of bankers to accept the demand notes of the United States as money, with no prospect of being able to pay them.

The great State of Kentucky, important as well from its central position as from the known prowess and courage of its people, hung suspended in doubt between loyalty and secession.

But from the passage of the legal tender act, by which means were provided for utilizing the wealth of the country in the suppression of the rebellion, the tide of war turned in our favor.

Maryland had, by clear and repeated votes and acts, arrayed herself on the side of the Union.

Where does the history of nations present an example of greater physical weakness followed so soon by greater physical strength?