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2 MORGAN ON SILVER ALABAMA’S SENATOR SPEAKS IN FAVOR OF FREE COINAGE. IT THE GRIFFITH CONVENTION. Discusses the Issue of Gold Bonds and Defines Sound Money—Says the Real Source of the Financial Power of This Country is the Strength of Its Credit—Money’s Only Power is That of Paying Debts and to .Demonetize Silver is Cruelty to the Poor Man. Z [Continued from Yesterday.] If cause and effect have any logical relation the tinkering with the Sherman law, and the refusal of our government to furnish the people with means to en able them to delay the sale of crops, at gold prices, was the real cause of the issue of 1160,000,000 of bonds. Ido not take pride in the travels of $80,000,000 of these bonds to London, in the keeping of our Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, to be signed there and delivered to the Rothschilds, and I can see no profit in selling them at 104 1-2, when they were worth 120; but I charge no evil intent npon any one for making this child's bargain. Its absurdity is a strong plea for its innoceney. But as a Democrat I protest that no law gives authority to an official to in clude in a contract, for the sale of bonds, the sale of any obligation of the govern ment to those purchasers, that they should have the exclusive option to buy any additional issue of bonds until Oc tober, 1895. It is a serious humiliation that our government resorted to a sale of such an obligation. It placed the sovereign power of the United States, to borrow money, within the control of Srsons, some of them foreigners, and ided it with a parole of honor to keep the promise, without regard to the ac tual necessities of the country, even if we should be involved in war with their oountry. The transaction Is without precedent or justification and it has an odious flavor of subserviency when it pays a foreign syndicate to prevent a run upon our Treasury for gold. A government that pays foreign mer cenaries to protect it from harm, has no relationship to that government of the United States which was gloriously inde pendent for more than a century. The plea for this departure is that Con gress refused to give the President the authority to issue gold bonds. H hy the Demand for Gold Bonds T The bonds he issued are gold bonds, according to his construction of the duty of the United States in paying them. "Why then should the President demand of Congress the authority to issue; bonds, . expressly payable in gold coin, and ac company the demand with a threat that, if the demand were not acceded to, he would sell coin under the resumption act at a higher rate of interest, which meant a lower premium? Congress was quick to detect, in this demand for gold bonds, the conversion of all our securities into gold securities, for we conld not make ‘ flesh of one and fowl of another,” and, if Congress should yield, there would re sult an express enactment that there was not an actual parity between «old uad silver money, under the law, although gold and silver were both a ull legal ten der. It was easy enough for the President to have avowed that this was not his purpose in demanding the issue of gold bonds by act of Congre-s. It was to get Congress to denounce silver as unsound money, in comparison with gold, that this unprecedeiaed threat was made. "Pais is not the sort of boldness in poli cy and candor in recommendation that we expect from a Democratic President of the United States. It does not reach the high mark claimed for Mr. Cleveland by his most ardent friends. This great subject, with its American and European involvements, would defy any effort to epitomize it, but, in the United States we have a starting point in the discussion which begins with the Constitution of our country, and it ends there, with all such as respect the guar antees of that instrument,in securing the rights reserved to the people. As our government is popular and free and was made to secure the rights of the people, mainly by abridging the powers of those in authority, the proper construction of its powers is to be liberal, in favor of the rights reserved, person ally, to the people, and strict as to the powers delegated to the servants of the people, including the Congress and the President. With these rules in mind, I will at tempt, at the expense of your patience, I fear, to present my views on the real pivotal points on which our financial system hinges. I scout all insinuations that have teen made even by the Presi dent, that any Democrat in America is, knowingly, an advocate for cheap or an sound money. That arrogant and uujust assumption is only intended to have a man’s opinion condemned, without a hearing of the facts. It is a false denunciation in terms that are general enough to defy definition wich is expected to go current because of the supposed high authority of him who utters it. In times of war, we have issued money by the authority of organized governments that could not be redeemed, such as our Oontintental money and the paper issued as money by the Confedrate States. And during our civil war we had treasury notes in circulation that were worth only 50 cents in the dollar. We may call that “unsound money.” The Strength ol Our Credit. No money but gold and silver coins can tear the strain of a domestic war, when the whole country is involved. 1, therefore, discard those instances from the argument and will not discuss what money is sound, except in the bense of beii g < qual in current value in the United Slates, where our legal tender laws un.ke equal every gold, silver and paper dollar issued by the United States. It is a paltry accusation or an unworthy fear to speak of un ound money as being issued by a country whose bonds are at 20 per cent, premium; that has paid nearly $5,000,000,000 dollars on her pub lic debt in thirty years; and whose re sources defy mismanagement and whose people prosper even under the severest taxation and in spite of laws hostile to production and the wages of labor, and triumph over every adversity. I will try to show why this broad state ment is true, and what is the real source of our financial power, and the best means of preserving it. Our annual yield of gold and silver varies but slightly from $100,000,000 a year. If we owed no debts, this annual sum, in legal tender coin, added to the accumulated money, would be ample to keep in operation and reward with profit every industry that our popula tion needs. But we are deeply in debt-not from necessity, but to sustain a rapidly progressing develop ment, and as that debt and its growth byway of interest, must be taken care of, our attention is, therefore, drawn first to this need for legal tender money, and second, the necessity of increasing its volume by associating it in banking with public credit. In this discussion, I am compelled, through respect to your comfort and patience, to omit the consideration of many points that are held to be im portant, by the advocates of a single gold coinage as the only primary money of the United States—the only money of redemption. If, in the wide range that is given to the discussion of this subject there is a pivotal point, as I am sure there is, it is found in the Constitution of the country. In its undefined form it is found among the vast array of personal rights and liberties that are “re served to the people” by that organic law. It is in that form such a right as an in dividual can have and enjoy; and the government cannot exercise, because of the expressed or implied limitation upon its power; such, for instance, as the right to name delegates to this conven tion, or to vote in this body through its postmasters, marshals or other officers, from President to tide waiters, the right to engage in the trade or pursuits of the people; to open and work mines, even on government lands, to mine for copper, nickel, gold or silver, for the supply even, of the Treasury. These rights are reserved to the people, by our Constitu tion, and are, therefore, forbidden to the government, although no mention is made of them in that instance. A Miut is a Mill. The Government of the United States cannot make money by mining for gold bullion, as any person may do by dig ging gold at Dohlonega and having it coined at the mint, as the law now is. The mining must be done by some man, and the gold is released from its prison in the rocks at the point of his pick, and when the gold is thus obtained, the miner finds a mint provided by law with a sworn Superintendent and he demands that his gold shall be coined into money and it is done; and the coin is turned over to the owner of the bullion as grist of grain made into flour, is turned over to the farmer who grew the wheat or corn. The miller does notown the flour, or the wheat, or corn. The ownership has not been affected by the process of grinding. So it is with gold at the mint. It is the duty of the government under the Constitution to coin this gold into pieces of a cent in weight and fineness and to put a certain stamp upon them. Now I hold that the government cannot coin this miner’s gold and hand it Wok to him and tnen say to him that he shall not use it in the payment of his debt, unless his creditor shall agree to aocept it. Such a provision would annul the whole value of the coin, as money, and would leave it as bullion, weighed and stamped, but still not converted into coin to be used as money. Now the pivotal point in this act of converting this bullion into money is the imparting a coin value to it, so that it be ecotaes the redeemer of promises— of all promises—to pay money. That means that there is given to the bullion, by the act of coining it, the flat or guaranty of the government that it shall be the final and c mpulsory redeemer of debts, ob ligations and promises, whether they are public or private. That is legal tender money. Now, I would as lawfully essay to burn "a bank, or the gold money in it, as a public nuisance, by enacting a law for that purpose, as I would enact a law to rob gold coins of their legal tender power, or to take from the gold miner his right to have this bullion coined into legal tender money. The Right to Coin Money. This is the essential value of that re served right, and it could only be an act of gross tyranny to abridge the right or to destroy it. These rights are due the owners of silver bullion as they are to the owners of gold bullion, as “rights reserved to the people” under the Con stitution. I wish I had time to fully discuss this point, but I can only refer to a few un disputed facts to prove it. I will state them with the greatest possible brevity and leave it to you to draw your own conclusions from them. 1. As early as 1652, the Colony of Massachusetts had a mint for the free coinage of silver money, and all the col onies had independent coinage laws. 2. A few years later, in the reign of Charles 11, the King yielded to the peo ple of the realm the prerogative of the crown, to own all mines of precious met als; and he granted to them the right to have gold and silver coined at the mints, on equal terms, and free from charges. 3. Under this great concession to the people, which no other sovereign in Christendom has made, the subjects of Great Britain, in their own right, furn ished gold and silver money to the realm, and they aud the goverment pros pered beyond all other nations. 4. This right existed in full force, in favor of the people of the colonies, when we became an independent power. 5 It was a great aud peculiar right and power which ranked among the personal liberties. 6. What did our fathers do with this inherited right ? Did they destroy it or did they preserve it ? The answer is, that owing to its importance, it was pro tected and enforced by special provisions in that instrument, as was the case, also, of the writ of habeas corpus, the right to trial by jury, and the right of free wor ship aud other rights. 7. The special provision so made was the mandatory power given to Congress, to com money and regulate the value The News and Observer, Saturday, July 20, ’^s thereof. At that time gold and silver coins were both included in the mean ing of the word money, and the power to coin money was not intended to re fuse coinage to either gold or silver, but to preserve this great right of the peo ple, as it then existed. The Constitu tion destroyed none of the rights that were comprised in the liberties of the Britons. But, as I have already pointed out the vital element of the coins eon gists in their compulsory legal tender power. This is expressly preserved in the constitution in this language, found in Article I. Section 10. No State shall make anything but gold and silver coin as a tender of payment of debts.” Here the coins of gold and silver that Con gress is empowered to make under Ar ticle 1, Section 8, are described as legal tender money. If Congress, therefore, provides for the coinage of any legal tender money, it cannot coin silver, to the exclusion of gold, or gold to the exclusion of silver without violating a plain injunction of the constitution. I do not doubt that Congress can do such a thing, but 1 do say that tt may as well refuse to provide, by law, for the issue of writs of habeas corpus, or for trial by jury and for the same reason, the refusal of free coinage to the holders of gold, while giving it to the holders of silver would be an abuse of power that cannot find any justifica tion. In providing a supply of legel tender money for the people of this free repub lic, it was the intention of the founders of the government that it should not be limited to ono metal, but should include the free coinage of both metals. This is the claim I set up as the privi leges of the constitution in favor of the people, which were embodied and en forced in our first coinage law, approved by George Washington in 1792, I am not wiliiug to surrender it on cammand of John Sherman or even ot Grover 1 Cleveland. As I believe the question] now before th#' country is whether we/ shall be for/ced back to the situation wev were placed in by the act of February,\ 1878, I desire to present to your view thel danger our rights, which rank wirtil the ma% important of our liberties if wej yield ttjie constitutional protection of the! law of tender. ] I do not tkalieve that any paper money i can be a const itut'..;\nal legal tender for a debt. The Supreme Court of United j States has decided that paper pscupisas j to pay coin, issued by the are legal tender, and we are allboinfdto* obey the decision, but I am not bound to * believe it. Nor do I believe that the tax • of ten per cent on the issues of State j Banks is a constitutional tax, nor that ( the income tax is unconstitutional, but j we are all bound to obey those decisions. But I do believe that gold and silver coins of the United States are a full legai tender, under the Constitution, what ever Congress may say. I state these propositions, not because they are neces'- sary to the argument, as to the power of gold and silver as legal tender mones, but to illustrate the power that belongs to all legal tender money whether silver, gold, or paper, even if we do not admit its rightfulness. Money’s Only Power. The only actual power money has is the power to pay a debt. A COPtra.pt ig complete when the par ties express their assent to its terms. If it is a contract to pay money, the amount of legal tender money will pay it that is stated in the agreement, and the debtor can compel the creditor to ac cept it. If he refuses, the court will as certain the amount that is due him, in dollars, and will satisfy the judgement, so that he can take the money so tend ered, or go away empty, as he may choose. No greater liberty, and none more just exists, than the right of the debtor to compel the creditor to take legal tender money in payment of any debt, demand or obligation he is bound to discharge. In all civilized, free countries, where personal liberty Is at all valued, the laws protect the debtor from the natural rapacity of the creditor. The devine law takes np this subject and makes respect for this protection a personal duty of religion. The jubilee was established by Moses to prevent Jewish creditors from oppres sing their brethren. It was a statute of limitation upon all indebtedness; it gave the right of redemption by the mortgagor of lauds, and restored bonds men, who had teen sold for debt, to their liberty. To these statutes we have add ed large exemptions of property from sale under execution, and have abolished imprisonment for debt. We pu nsury with heavy forfeitures, r : * are frequently resorting to the law* of bank ruptcy to extinguish all the indebted ness of unfort uuate men. In this way at least we aualify ourselves to repeat with sincerity the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Georgia was the first asylum for imprison ed debtors. Oglethorpe opened the pri son doors of England and brought the poor debtors to his colony at Savannah. Oglethorpe was the Moses and Georgia was the “promised land” of the credi tor’s bondsmen. I believe in maintaining the security of debts and the inviolability of con tracts, aud that they should be paid in one common legal tender money, which the debtor is bound to pay, and the cred itor is equally bound to accept. If the bond or treasury note of the United States is payable, as they are always pay able, in coin, I believe, indeed I know, that it is both honest, lawful and moral that the holder of such securities should be willing to accept that sort of coin, whether of silver or gold, that is thus named and described in the terms of the contract; and, if he wishes to violate his agreement by refusing to comply with it, he should be compelled to accept it. If no special coin is named in the con tract, it is payable in any full legal ten der coin, at the option of the debtor. I again state that the only real power that money has under the law is the power to pay a debt, aud it is ouly through the legal tender laws that this power, in its compulsory form, is availa ble. In whatever currency, whether for eign or domestic, whether gold, silver, or paper, a debt is measured, or ex pressed, it is payable, under our Consti tution, in dollars and parts of dollars. The articles of confederation and the laws enaqted under them made dollars and cents the money of account, and ar ticle 7 of the amendments to the Consti tution fixes the sum of “t wenty dollars” as the lowest limit of the right of trial by jury. No court in the United States can law fully render a judgment for a sum of money in pounds, shillings and pence or in marks or francs. All money judg ments must be rendered in dollars. They must be dollars that are a lawful ten der. Why ? To prevent the debtor from paying in depreciated currency that may be called dollars; and to prevent the creditor from demanding payment in currency that is worth a premium over legal tender dollars, or, in some coin of a foreign country that is difficult to ob tain. Debtor and Creditor Fqnal. In framing our Constitution the con vention was eareftil to protect both debtor and creditor in these vital points, and it took from the States the power to enact legal tender laws except only that they might make “gold and silver coin" legal tender. No more important provision could be made in the organic law, whether it re lates to the government, or the people, than was done by this exercise of one of the highest powers of sovereignty, in coining money into dollars and in giving to them compulsory power in making payment of debts, public aud private. it was provided for, fixed and made permanent in the Constitution, as one ot the essential guards of the liberties of the people and as an indispensable exer cise of sovereign power, without which the United States government would have teen utterly imbecile. The legal tender power, that is, the compulsory power of money in the pay- debts, is that, alone, which dis between money, as it is iJiwkk' ' commerce and commercial ► ’aw. Money that a creditor is not com- Selled to receive in payment ot a debt, i ' not money within the meaning of the f fc institution. It is not money, such as a L xiff or marshal can receive in satis m ,ion 'J a judgment, for the collection '•Men he holds an execution, in his coins and gold coins that are tender for debt are simply C Their value is created by con i j, not by the command of the ‘ silver dollars and British j^^^Kvercigni are just rhai kind of their full face value in the ißf debts. CONTINUED TO MORBOW.) '*»o Lives Saved. 6be Thomas, of Junction It told by her doctors she lion, and that there was no *r, but two bottles of Dr. Discovery completely cored i says it saved her life. Mr. \ ,ers, 139 Florida street, Ban Fi , suffered from a dreadful cold, approaching consumption; tried without result everything else, then bought one bottle of Dr. King’s New Discovery, and in two weeks was cured. He is naturally thankful. It is such results, of which these are samples, that prove the won derful efficacy of this medicine in coughs and colds. Free trial bottles at John Y. Macßae’s drug store. Regular size 50c and sl. Neuralgia Is the Prayer of the Serves For Pure Blood Fains Relieved Elco i Purified 3tul Nerve.* Sri-clc Strong by Hood’s Sc* saparilla “It gives me great pleasure to state what Hood’s Sarsaparilla has done for me and my wile. She has bovu a.dieted with neuialgia pains ru her head for six years and i* ' led in her eye's. At times rhe would he totally blind and have to stay in a dark room ~*'n v for m oaths. / S.-V A short time / .. " ris'-- \ r.yo ts began / n \ u"sri.:tf Hood’s / t 'rjl \ Sarsaporillaand I today, thank i t d v f Cod, sire is able e) // \ ( L* 1 t! / i / / f , *?*-. . j i M Wm. 11. - * vH Joilsnuia. Ark. V to attend to her 4 I hoc*e‘ old da‘ i e .. _ >. j which she had not' \ previously done for 11 "“ mmi "' %x ~ years. My owr wise was sorrow hat simi lar. and since r-akinjc Hi od’s Sar.taparnla the inflammation has left my eyes and my nerves have become quieted. My henUb today is better then it has been for sev- Hood’s*# 5 " Cures oral years. lam gaining in strength and I feed like a new man.” WILLIAM iL N SAMAKBR. Judaonia, Arkansas. Hood’s Pills are hand made, and perfeol In iTroporlion and appearance. 25e per box. CHARDON & CO., BANKERS, BROKERS & FINANCIAL AGENTS -2 Exchange Court, and 52 Broadway New York. Orders executed for Stocks, Cotton, Grain. On regular Exchange. Investments a specialty. Six percent interest allowed on deposits subject to check at sight. Private elephone and telegrapic service. Notre dame of Maryland.—college for Young ladies and Preparatory School for Girls. Regular and elective bourses. Music and Art specialties. Conducted by School Sisters of Ifotre Dame.' Rolasdl’ark, near Baltimore, Md. Uses Mexican Mustang Liniment On his horses, on his drivers. H. 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Two well equipped laboratories, test library and reading room in any Southern Female College. Every department is in charge of a competent specialist. Health record unsurpassed. Charges moderate. Illustrated catalogue, giving full information, sent on request. Address, DRED PEACOCK, Pre*. Greensboro, fj. O. At wholesale and retail by Raleigh Ice Refrigerating Company. For tickets and prices apply at office of T. L. EBERHARDT, Present. 126 Fayettevilh Street. Raleigh, N. C., Feb. 8, 1896. Lyon Mf<j. Co., Brooklyn, X. Y. Gentlemen Having seen Mexican Hustang Lini ment extensively advertised hero Induces me to tell you how useful It Is to persons in the livery business. I have used it for the past 18 years on my horses for almost every thing that horses are subject to. For sprains and stiff Joints I do not think it has an equal, and for such things as harness galls and rubs it is wonderful. I once had a very fine driver who was thrown from his car riage In a runaway and so severely bruised atKmt his shoul ders and breast that I did not think he would ever be able to get on a carriage again. I remembered, however, what Mexican Mustang Liniment did for my horses in cose «>f bruises and had him use It constantly, and In about two weeks he was as good a driver as ever, and not an ache or pain remained. 1 know you must get tired of receiving such letters, but I thought I would add one more testimonial to tie useful ness of Mustang Liniment. Yours truly, j* ' W. H. LANCASTER. For IS years In Livery and Transfer business.
The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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July 20, 1895, edition 1
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