Mr. KELLEY. I have recognized the ulti mate responsibility of the Government for them, but I know that traders, and traders in money especially, take advantage of all contingencies, and I have known laboring men to sell to brokers the notes of a broken national bank at considerable loss. The an nouncement that a bank has failed depreciates the notes in the market, for the people, and especially laboring people, are not as familiar as the Gentfrom Massachusetts with all the minute provisions of the law by which the ultimate redemption of these notes is secured; and when a bank fails those poor people, who cannot carry them to the Treasury for redemption, are compelled to sell them at a heavy loss. But, as I was proceeding to show, the SecyTreasury more than sustains my position on this point, for he deliberately argues that legislation is required “to make them throughout the U.S. a parcirculation.” He says: “The solvency of the notes of national banks is secured by a deposit of bonds with the Treasurer at Washington; but as the banks arescattered through out the country, and many of them are in places dif ficult of access, a redemption of their notes at respective their counters is not all that is required to make them throughout the U.S. a parcirculation. It is true that the notes of all national banks are receivable for all oimports, dues, except duties upon and must be paid by the Treasurer in case the banks which to:unable to redeem them; but it will not be claimed that the notes of banks, although perfectly solvent, but situated in interior towns, are practically as valuable as the notes of banks in the sea board cities.” These depreciatory remarks are not applicable to greenbacks. They are of equal value throughout the country, and the people cherish them for this reason more than from the fact that they are the evidence of a patriotic loan made by the people to the Government without interest. Had Mr. McCulloch suggested that the national bank notes, for holding bonds to secure which we pay the banks $18,000,000 per annum, should be supplanted by i. green and that a sum equal to the interest on the bonds should be applied to the creation of a sinking fund for the redemption of the national debt, the people would have applauded his wisdom and patriotism, and not questioned his motives as they are now constrained to. Had such been the Secretary's suggestion he might have omitted this one of his propositions, namely, to compel “the national banks to redeem their notes at the Atlantic cities, or, what would be better, at a single city,” which, in plain language, is a recommendation that we increase the power and profits of the banks of NewYork by compelling every national bank outside of that city to deposit a portion of its funds with them. The gambling tendencies of the NewYork speculators in stocks and provisions need no such stimulant as this; and recent experience has shown that leading banks of that city are managed more recklessly than any others in the country, and would therefore be an unsafe depository for so large a trust. Less than a month ago the Secretary tested their management and produced a per turbation in prices throughout the country by which fortunes were lost and won by calling upon them for a small portion of the Government deposits, which were mistakenly supposed to be represented by a reserve of greenbacks in their vaults. He has not given the facts to the country, but it is known in well informed circles that some of them were compelled to ask for a “brief extension” because they were unable to pay the checks of a depositor. Prac tical men may therefore be excused for speaking of the proposal of such remedies as char latanism. Mr. Chairman, as I have said, the Secretary has not ventured to indicate what, in his judgment, is the amount of currency “required by legitimate and healthful trade” in the present condition of the country. That condition is abnormal, though not entirely peculiar, and certainly not unprecedented. By unwise and unpatriotic legislation, which was dictated by the magnates of the South, millions of our oor people were doomed to the simplest and east remunerative forms of agricultural labor, or to enforced idleness, in which they were tending to barbarism; while our raw materials were being wrought into fabrics for our use in the workshops of transatlantic nations, and we had thus been drained of specie and had become largely a debtor nation before the war begun. Those same magnates plunged us into a war of unprecedented proportions, which we were unable to maintain with a specie or convertible currency. In the hour of our need we discerned the fact that ours is one of the 2 countries to which, in the language of Gortschakoff, the enlightened prince who is guiding the destinies of the other, “God has given such conditions of i. existence that their internal life is enough for them, ” and determined that until the war and its consequences should have passed away we would give the world an. of our ability and self reliance, and use a currency based, not on the international standard,; and silver, but on our faith in the resources of our country and the integrity of its Government. We thus furnished the Government $3,000,000,000 with which to create, arm, feed, clothe, and pay our Army and Navy. o How this prompt supply of money quickened industry. 3.the productive power. of the country I need not pause to say. I will, however, remind the committee that though it was “irredeemable legal tender currency, ” it restored the credit of the nation, which had been unable to borrow $5,000,000 at 12%., and lifted the people from the bankruptcy of 1857 to a degree of prosperity unequaled in our history. From 1857 to 1861 the rate of interest was high and that of wages low, and neither capital nor labor could find profitable and permanent employment. But with a safe, though perhaps somewhat redun dant, currency, by the use of which our people were compelled to look to our own workshops for supplies, prosperity, in the midst of war, succeeded the adversity of contracted and stag nant peace with magic speed. And if we now adopt a tariff law that will protect our industry as faithfully as did the difference between our aper and gold, in . which we required the on foreign imports to be paid during the war, we will soon discover that there is ample and profitable employment for all the currency authorized by law; and that if we resolutely refuse to increase its volume it will approxi mate the standard of convertibility more rapidly by the development of the productive power of the country and the diversification of employment for the people than it can by the process of contraction at any rate. Protection and development willinsure a prosperous future; but rapid contraction will reproduce the stagnation, bankruptcy, and suffering of 1837 and 1857. The question presented to the mind of prac. tical statesmen is not what would be the best currency if we were founding a new community, or how far we might with advantage add paper to a purely metallic currency, but is, what under existing conditions do the true interest of the country require. And on this question I again take issue with the SecyTreasury and deny that the country will find in a rapid or material contraction of its currency, or in extraordinary taxation, a remedy for any of the evils that afflict it. If, as some of his friends have done, the Secretary should point me to the high prices which many articles command, or t.o immense deposits which, unproductive to their owners, are enhancing the present profits and future liabilities of the banks, I will reply to him, as I have to them, that these are not proofs of the redundancy of the currency, but of his mistaken policy and inveterate mismanagement. a Though the use of those immense deposits is lost to their cautious proprietors, the money does not lie idle in the vaults of banks; it is lent on call in large sums to adventurers, who by its use enhance the price of such commod ities as they can monopolize or control. Those who could make their own capital productive are afraid to use it, and reckless gamblers riot in its use. Yes, sir, the Secretary's policy is calculated to diminish production and stimu late speculation, which symptoms have been the twin precursors of all our commercial crises and eras of bankruptcy. Under his fatal policy “The native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.” The sagacious, but prudent owners of those deposits grieve that the money with which they would gladly open coal mines and ore banks and build o, and furnaces and factories and import skilled laborers from Europe to increase and diversify ourFoenlarge our home market, and swell the revenues of the Government, lies dead and profitless to them. They justly charge their loss and that of the coun: W. to Mr. McCulloch, who, from his Fort ayne speech forward, has lost no opportunity, official or unofficial, to warn the energetic men of the country against embarking in any new enterprises or accumulating any consid: erable stock of goods, or otherwise enlarging their arrangements for the future; and who, in his last utterance the report which I am considering notifies them of the near approach of the fatal collapse by assuring them that though the banks are without specie, the balance of trade is vastly against us and the Treasury has nearly one billion dollars of temporary loan to provide for, he is “confident that specie payments may be resumed by the time our interest bearing notes are retired, which must be done in less than 2 years, and probably will be in a much shorter period.” What the effect of an effort at early resumption under such circumstances would be every experienced business man in the country knows. They know that it can by any possi bility be but a spasmodic movement, which will literally vomit forth from the country the little gold and silver left in it. They know that it will bankrupt individuals, corporations, States, and, alas, it may be, the national government itself. The avowed object of the Secretary in contracting the currency is to increase the purchasing power of money; and they know that the rapid decline in prices pending this mad experiment will sweep away the gar nered capital of those manufacturers whose stock largely exceeds their working capital, exclusive of buildings and machinery, that mechanical and manufacturing production must be wholly suspended till the blighting tornado shall have spent its and that while it rages the receipts of the internalrev. enue Bureau must fall to But, zero. sir, if by thus returning to the wretchedness of 1857 and 1837 we could resume specie Roo. how long could we maintain them? he Secretary tells us that $350,000,000 of our bonds are held abroad. The average rate at which they were bought, when gold for long periods was above 200 i. cent., was ess than, 50 cents on the dollar, nor was that small amount paid in specie; for he also tells us that “The opinion that the country has been benefited by the exportation of its securities is founded upon the supposition that we have received real capital in exchange for them. This supposition is to a large extent unfounded., Our bonds, have gone abroad to {.for goods which without them might not have suerepnlupsuprrcohdauscetds. Not only have we exported the of our mines and our fields, with no small amount of our manufactures, but a large amount of securities also, to pay for the articles which we have purchased from other countries. That these purfcahcailsietys have been stimulated and increased by the of Boo. for them in bonds can hardly be qoubted., Our importations of goods, have been increased by nearly the amount of the bonds which have been exported. Not one dollar in 5 of the amount of the five twenties now held in England and upon the Continent has been returned to the U.S. in the form of real capital. But if this were Hot a true statement of the case, the fact exists, as has been already stated, that some 350 millions of Government bonds not to mention State and railroad bonds and other securities are in the hands of the citizens of other countries, which may be returned at any time for sale in the U.S., and which being so held may seriously embarrassour efforts to return to specie payments.” Thus '. ". McCulloch's own statement it appears that our bonds were bought at half their nominal value and paid for in commercial products which should. been created by our own industry from our own raw material by setting “our unemployed and poor people at work on the growth of our own lands;” and, if we may believe the Secretary's statement to which I have referred, a large portion of which commodities were brought into the country in fraud of our revenue laws by “undervaluations and smuggling.” For what purpose, let me ask, were those bonds bought by their foreign holders? How long will they be held? When and under what contingencies are they likely to be returned to this country? And a more pregnant question still: what effect would be produced by the early return to specie payments threatened by the SecyTreasury? That I may do Mr. McCulloch no injustice, I answer these momentous questions in the language of his report: “A large portion of thesebonds have been bought on speculation, and will be likely to be returned whenever financial troubles in the countries in which they are held shall make it necessaryfor the holders to realize upon them, or whenever satisfactory pr of its can be made by returning them, which will be when they nearly approach their parvalue in coin.” Here at least he is right. Those bonds, having been bought at half the value expressed on their face, will be returned “when they nearly approach their parvalue in coin, ” and that will be when we resume specie payments. But as Mr. McCulloch has failed to pursue this operation to its inevitable result, the committee will pardon me for attempting the duty, though in doing Iso may deepen the shades in the mel ancholy pours of our future which I have presented. When those foreigners who bought our bonds on speculation perceive that by returning them they can convert them into gold and double their investment they will assuredly avail themselves of the literally golden opportunity. Questions as to how they can reinvest the proceeds advantageously need not deter them. They know how limited our stock of specie is, how heavy the balance of trade is against us, and consequently that by selling their bonds in our markets they would compel us to suspend specie payments again or are they strangers to the fact that during that suspension they would be able to repurchase their bonds for half the gold received for them. Thus the experiment of the Secretary would inevitably terminate in the impoverishment of the citizen and the disgrace of the country by a renewed and more protracted suspension of specie payments. Mr. Chairman, neither the SecyTreasury nor Congress know whether our currency is in excess of the amount required by legitimate and healthful trade, or if it be, how long it will remain so if undisturbed by legislation. Nor can we settle these points by an appeal to experience, for many of our conditions are novel. That would be a curious and instructive calculation which would show the country, the precise demand for currency created by the operation of the Bureau of internalrevenue, or by the enlargement of the Army and Navy and clerical force of the Government. Under the discipline of Providence the southern people will, before many years glide away, consent to permit their fields to be tilled, their mines to be worked, and their cities to be rebuilt and expanded; and who can tell the amount of currency that will then be required by the 4 million enfranchised slaves and the 2 million poor whites, who did not in the past, but are henceforth to earn wages and buy and sell commodities, or for handling the crops and mineral productions of the south? Since we last adjourned the iron horse has crossed Nebraska on one of the routes to the Pacific, and his snort has been heard in the neighbor hood of Fort Riley on another; and during the last year 300,000 industrious ".who had been fed and clothed through unproductive childhood at the cost of other nations, came and cast their lot among us to till our fields, smelt our ores, work our metals, and manage our spindles and looms; and I cannot guess what amount of currency these energeticpool and the westward marching column of our civilization will require. But, sir, of one thing I am certain, and it is that had the SecyTreasury not destroyed all sense of security in the future, the demand for currency to purchase, especially in the South, mineral and other lands and develop their productive power would have prevented the accumulation of the immense deosits which now lie paralyzed in bank or are oaned on call to speculators in the necessaries of life. We unsettled values and made or scattered fortunes by the rapid expansion of the currency; and the people implore us to avoid another violent change fraught with like consequences, and to stay the work of contraction till we shall have ascertained, at least proximately, the amount of currency required by healthy and legitimate trade. Mr. Chairman, the SecyTreasury is not a philosopher “A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose is to him;” And the thing that has been is, in his belief, the thing that shall be forever. Neither his experience as an “Injeany” banker nor his official connection with the Government has disclosed to him the real relation of currency in detail or in volume to the business of a community. Throughout his report he assumes that the currency is redundant, and ascribes to its alleged redundancy consequences which are directly attributable to anqther cause but remotely connected with the question of the amount of currency. I refer to the prevailing and traditional vice in our banking system, that of building credits upon credit, of banking on deposits, or lending money by a bank to one man because it owes a like amount to another who has intrusted his funds to it for safe keeping and convenience. To this vice in our banking system, which Mr. McCulloch has done much to aggravate by leaving stupendous balances of the public funds in favored banks, is to be ascribed nearly all the evils he mistakenly attributes to a “redundant legal tender currency.”. If the corporations and private bankers of the country were prohibited from lending on call the deposits intrusted to them or using them in discounting paper, the doubling of the volume of currency would not produce a material advance in the price of commodities in general. This vice in our banking system, this banking on deposits or lending that which the banks owe, and to calls for the payment of which they are constantly liable, aggravates from 400 to 1,000 fold every modification of our currency, whether it be by contraction or expansion. Neither the price of gold nor of other commodities is regulated nor materially influenced by the amount of currency; nor is the difference between gold and our currency evidence that the latter is inflated. If the Secretary controverts these propositions, I will remind him that gold commanded a premium of 185 in 1864, and ask him to let us know how much he had contracted the currency before it went down to 25, as it did in June, 1865; and again, how much he expanded the currency to put the premium on gold up again to 50, at about which figure it stood so long before dropping to 29 and ascending again to its present price. During all these fluctuations the volume of currency was not essentially modified. What a commentary these facts are upon the theories of the Secretary and his costly but vaunted attempts “to keep the business of the country as steady as possible.” On this point he says: “He has regarded a steady market as of more importance to the people of the country than the saying of a few million dollars in the way of interest.” And elsewhere, that “The Secretary has also deemed it to be his duty to use such means within his control as were, in judgment, his best calculated to keep the business of country the as steady as possible, while conducted on the uncertain basis of an irredeemable currency. To accomplish this he has thought it necessary to hold a handsome reserveof coin in the Treasury.” But, sir, assuming that the volume of currency does not regulate prices, and that apart from. the often fatal vice in our banking system to which f have alluded it has but little influence cm them, I appeal from the judgment of Mr. McCulloch to that of the people, and ask whether, if the volume of currency regulated prices, it would not affect every species of propo equally or nearly so? f prices are regulated by the volume of currency, how is it that American wool is as cheap in the Philadelphia market now as it was before the war? How is it that corn is unusually low and wheat is commanding a higher price than ever before in the history of our country? How is it that during last month one variety of cot ton goods, those known as brown or unbleached goods, advanced 20%., or 2 cents. yard, and another variety, bleached goods, eclined 20%., or from 5 to 7 cents per yard?, How is it that mess pork commands but about half last year's prices, while the decline in beef has been little more than nominal? And how is it that in 1865, with gold at 25, Lehigh coal commanded at the shipping point from 5 to 6 dollars per ton, and in 1866, with gold ranging from 32 to 40, the same qualities of coal at the same;will not bring 3 dollars to 3 dol ars and a quarter per ton? But I jnot weary the committee with further illustrations of the absurdity of the Secretary’s postulate. It is, however, proper that before leaving this point for the present I should admit that a violent and sudden contraction of the currency at a time when the loans of our banks are extended by lending their deposits does work an inevitable and often ruine us reduction of prices. It is thus: under the influence of contraction depositors draw upon their reserve, and the banks to meet the demand call upon their debtors, and they to protect their credit must sell, no matter at what sacrifice, at such prices as they can get. I need not follow the movement to its consequences. A tight money market, causing a few failures, hias.moroe than once begotten panic and wide and would now extinguish the revenues of the Government. Had the SecyTreasury ascribed the fluctuations in business and the ine rdinate prices at which many of the necessaries of life are held to their real cause, our habit of banking on accumulated credits, and not pressed the purpose of contracting the currency, the country would not be depressed as it is. Threatened contraction has hung like the sword of Damocles over the heads of our producing classes. Let me ask, what is currency and what is its function? Currency is that which a people have agreed to accept and use as money. It is the medium by which the small transactions of daily life are settled. Its sphere is that of personal use and retail trade. Except in the nal settlements between banks and their cus tomers, it is not commonly used in large transactions. We carry currency upon our persons to meet current demands. You find it in the till of the retail dealer and the hands of workmen, who, when currency is abundant, are paid in it, and not in orders on stores at which they are compelled to select articles from a small stock of inferior goods and pay high prices, as they did when currency was scarce. It is possible that Mr. McCulloch does not know that the abun dance of currency has redeemed our laborin people from the burdensome taxation inflicte upon them by the order system and payment in the depreciated paper of distant and unknown banks. Currency in its legitimate use as no wider sphere than I have indicated. Like all other blessings, it may be perverted, as it is when it accumulates as deposits in banks and is used as the basis of large loans to adventure us operators or speculators. In the heavy operations of business currency finds no place. These are settled by checks, drafts, and bills of exchange. Before the war cur. rency was scarce, and the deficiency was supplied by the promissory notes of individuals who, by indorsing the notes of those who bought fromthem or those of the ir factors or commission merchants, became debtors to the amount due them from others. It is said that when the war began the amount represented by the promissory notes of individuals was more than $200,000,000; but now that the supply of currency is adequate, few men take such notes, and none propose to give them but the people of the South, who have no currency. The contraction of the currency insisted upon by Mr. McCulloch would revive the credit system, with its orders, for work people, and its periodical returns of wide spread bankruptcy to the community at large. I do not think the Secretary is entirely igno rant of the simple truths I have been enun ciating. It would be pleasant to know that he is, for it is not agreeable to be constrained to doubt the motives of one to whom we have given our confidence. But in view of the communication made by Mr. Nasby and the fact that the Secretary's theories, if carried into execution, will promote speculation, I cannot help thinking that he regards banking and stock operations as the interests to which all others should be subordinated. He recommends the withdrawal of the greenbacks that the national banks may supply the circulatin medium of the country, and he wishes each national bank to be compelled to deposit in one of the Atlantic cities a sufficient amount of its capital to justify the redemption of its notes at that point. The Atlantic city to which he points is the great center of banking and speculation, and compliance with these suggestions would aggravate the speculative power of NewYork by the proportion such deposits would bear to its general fund. His theories are in perfect accord with his practice, for I find that he is in the habit of furnishing the banks, and through them speculators, an aver age loan of about 25 million dollars. Thus by an official statement which lies before me it appears that the balances in the hands of the national banks was– June 1, July 1866. 1, August 1866. 1, September18. 1, 1 October 1, 1866. I am, however, informed officially that there was during those months a liability to draft on these balances distributed through not less than 3 months amounting in all to $14,000,000 by coupons in transitu or in the hands of the holders; so that the banks could with safety lend on call during the whole period $25,000,000 to those engaged in speculating in food and increasing its price. Had $20,000,000 of the sum been applied to the absorption of 7 thirties or compound interest notes speculation would have been less rife, our interest account would have been materially dimin ished, and a slight approximation have been made toward specie payments and the ultimate redemption of the public debt. Doubtless Mr. McCulloch's desire “to keep the business of the country as steady as possible” alone prevenStier, d this happy consummation. it is within our memory that the establishment of the sub Treasury the divorcement of the public Treasury from the banks and banking system of the country overthrew the administration and party that inaugurated it; but it is also remembered that so beneficent were its operations that no succeeding administration of any party dared assail it. It had not been in operation a year till it had vindicated its wisdom in the estimation of every judicious business man. Nor would it probably ever have been interfered with in time of peace. The great convulsion which threatened to divide our country interrupted its action which should forthwith be restored. It acted as a regulator, a natural regulator, of the trade of the country. When enterprise ran into excesses and unduly increased the public revenues, it with drew from circulation and locked up a portion of the currency, and by the stringency it thus created admonished banks and business men to pause; and when, having given an early check to rash operations and i.i.d the current revenues of the country, it gently, as by a process of nature, restored vigor to the circulation by the fact that its payments were in excess of its receipts, as its receipts had just been in excess of its payments. As a safeguard for the public funds, if for no other reason, the Secretary should have recommended its full restoration, for during the entire period of its existence, as far as I know, the Government did not lose by any of its officers as much as it did by the failure of the Merchants' National Bank of Washington alone. It was a i. safe defor the public money, as well as a healthful influence in the business operations of the country. Had the Secretary suggested that it would answer as well for a mixed currency as it did for the era of specie payments, and recommended its immediate reestablishment he would have done much to give steadiness to the business of the country, diminish speculative prices, quicken production, and increase the revenue of the country. And I trust that Congress before it rises will pass a law prohibiting the deposit of any portion of the government funds in any bank, or, in other words, divorce the Treasury from the banks by reor ganizing the sub Treasury. It was perhaps too much to hope for such a recommendation from the Secretary. He enjoys the control he now exercises over the business of the country, and would not willingly surrender i.t. But for the maintenance of an average deposit of more than $30,000,000 could the National Union Johnson party have extorted from the banks perhaps not directly as corporations, but from their stockholders and officers, to be accounted for in the item of incidental expenses the large contributions which the newspapers toldus certain banks were forced to make in aid of the recent effort of the President and the SecyTreasury to subvert the popular will. But this was but an occasional incident, probably never to occur again; for I believe that the future can produce to our country no 2nd AndrewJohnson, or that should it contain within its womb another like unto him he will be unable to find creatures to sacrifice their own convictions and the interests of the country for the poor privilege of unworthily filling high places in a great Government. That of which I speak is the influence these deposits, coupled with his exclusive control of the gold in the Treasury, averaging about 100 million dollars, which he complacently calls a “handsome reserve of coin in the Treasury, ” give the Secretary over the business of the country. Under the action of the sub Treasury, as I have shown, a payment of money by the Government relieved a stringent money market; but how is it now? When the SecyTreasury is sacrificing such immense amounts of interest in order to give steadiness to business the Government deposits are loaned by the banks on notes of short date or on call; and if the current revenues of the Government be in excess of its current expenses, as they have been throughout his administration, its deposits accumulate and swell the volume of such loans. The receipts of the Government thus aggravate the tendency to undue expansion; and what is the effect when it is required to use any considerable amount of its deposits? It is this: the Secretary notifies the banks that he is about to call for ten or 20 million dollars; and the banks, not knowing which of their debtors will be ready and who may be utterly unable to pay, notify not alone borrowers of the precise amount demanded by the Secretary, but holders of 5, 6, or ten times the amount. Thus that which should give relief to the market becomes an exaggerated cause of contraction, and the payment of $10,000,000 by the Government is made to interfere with business operations to the amount of $100,000,000. We have all observed this and know that instead of being a natural operation, the effects of which should be felt beneficially, each payment of any considerable sum of money by the Government, after a long line of deposits has accumulated, produces a perturbation through all commercial circles. The payment of but $15,000,000 in the early part of last month came near producing a national panic and damaged, the credit of leading banks. This system gives the Secretary despotic control over the markets of the country, and his favorites may have ascertained practically, as did Voltaire, who was given to stock speculations, that, “it is a good thing to have a friend at court” through whom they may learn when it is well to sell, because things have reached their highest, price, as Government is about doing that which should establish confidence, but which, owing to the Secretary's efforts to insure steadiness to business, will produce consternation if not panic and a general decline in prices; and when it is well to buy, because it suits the convenience of the Government to make another large and long loan to the banks. such a power over the business of the country should be vested in no man; and I challenge the world to point to any fact in the official career of the present Finance Minister of the country which would induce any judicious man to vest it in him. There certainly is nothing in the suggestions of the report which I am considering to indicate that he is a safe depositary for so useless, so wide spread, and so dangerous a power. But, No. Chairman, I am admonished that I should hasten to a conclusion. I must, however beg the committee to bear with me while i examine briefly another of Mr. McCulloch's suggestions. It is offered as a specific remedy, because it is said it will diminish the rate of interest on our loans and protect us against the direful contingency of the bonds bought on speculation at depreciated rates coming home to exhaust our specie within a month of the day on which we are, by the magical agencies suggested by Mr. McCulloch, to resume specie payments within 2 years. It is characterized by the candor and wisdom which pervade his other suggestions. To a shrewd man of mere practical business habits, one not skilled in the mysteries of “Ingeany bankin’, ” it might seem to be somewhat impracticable; and the country regards it with humiliation and disgust. It is this: that after having carried on the war without an appeal to foreign nations or capitalists and without their sympathy; after having by our patriotic sacrifices put our credit so high that the people of Europe have voluntarily come and carried away, with great profit to themselves, $350,000,000 of our bonds; that now, when peace is restored, when we again possess the customhouses, postoffices, forts, and arsenals of the country, and when our taxes are not divided between our Treasury and that of a hostile confederacy, but all flow to our own, we shall issue “bonds ayable in not over 20 years and bearing interest at the rate of not over 5%., payable in England or Germany, to an amount sufficient to absorb the 6%. bonds now held in Europe and to meet the demand there for actual and permanent investment.” If this scheme were practicable, I for one would spurn it. With their pirate ships on every sea, their ship yards and factories busy in fab ricating implements of war for our enemies, and in the face of their hatred, with self reliance of which posterity will be proud, we marched steadily on to conquest and final victory. And now, in the hour of our triumph, or in the calm season which should succeed so grand and successful an exhibition of power, with a continent beneath our feet abounding in raw material for the profitable employment of every art, trade, and mystery known to in enious man; with India decimated by fam ine, Europe disturbed by wars and rumors of war, Ireland in incipient rebellion; and when we offer to the P. of Europe established political equality, public schools, a free church, and briefer hours of labor with better wages than those known to the artisans of any other country, this suggestion is as o as it is ine pportune. Sir, nothing but some such folly as this official proclamation, as it would be regarded by the people of Europe, that our struggle exhausted%., while the balance of trade is us, and that with victory came premature deagainst crepitude, can prevent us from compelling the nations of the world, by the tide of skilled workmen that will flow from their shores to ours, to follow our example and give those who produce their wealth culture, leisure, and the consciousness of free manhood. In such an hour and in view of such a prospect I am sure that Congress will not degrade the country by asking the money changers of Europe to lighten its burdens or help us bear them. But the scheme is hopelessly impracticable. Mr. McCulloch may see advantages in it which others fail to detect. It would serve, I doubt not, by what he calls “the trifling commissions to the agents through whom the exchanges might be made, ” to found a great American banking house in London with continental branches, and might bless the country with the hope of large gratuities from some future George Peabody whom the Secretary would designate as the agent for making transfers and paying interest; but it would not accomplish the purpose its author suggests. With such knowledge of human nature as we possess let us consider the proposition. Those who hold our bonds bought them either as an investment or on speculation, and the interest upon them ranges from 6 to 7 and 3 10th s%. Is it probable that those who bought them as an investment will change them before maturity for bonds bearing but 5 or 4 and a half%. ” Or will those who bought them as matter of speculation, in view of the Secretary's assurance that in less than 2 years we will resume specie payments and enable them to convert them into gold at par, hasten to make such a conversion? When the leopard shall change his spots, the vulture protect the dove, and hungry mice abstain from eating unguarded crackers and cheese, I will be prepared to regard the Secretary's proposition as practicable., Nor need we grieve that it is not practicable. Our destiny is written. Unwise legislation or such reckless maladministration as now revails may retard it, but it will be achieved. this written in the sublime doctrine of human equality, which gives vitality and stability to our institutions, and more perceptibly though not more enduringly in the geographical position, the continental proportions, and the unequaled resources of our country. Bounded by both oceans, with a larger area than all the nations of Europe, including GreatBritain, which lie between the same distant parallels of latitude that mark our limits, and embracing mineral, agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial resources 'f. than they combined possess, the U.S. must be the fore most, richest, and most powerful nation of the world. However blind our Finance Minister may be to this fact, others perceive it, and our affairs will yet be administered in accordance with the sublime assertion of Gortschakoff, who, in an utterance to which I have already referred, when speaking of Russia and our country, said: “God has given to the 2 countries such conditions of existence that their grand internal life is enough for them.” Yes, the capitalist of Europe will yet be eager to lend us money as cheaply as they now loan it to England; but it will be when, the conversion of our now profitless raw material into fabrics, by the skill and industry of our now unemployed citizens and the millions of industrious people who are coming to us from abroad we manufacture more than we consume, an by rivaling England, France, and other continental nations in tropical markets, and those of other non-manufacturing regions, shall have turned the balance of trade in our favor. Then Americans will be able to compete with foreigners in bidding for our loans; and in exchange for cotton, tobacco, and other staples, our bonds will be returned to us instead of woolen goods and various other textile and metallic fabrics, which we now receive but ought to manufacture for ourselves. But foreign capitalists will not take bonds from us at 4 and a half or 5%. in exchange for those which pay 6 us to the amount of $100,000,000 per annum, and with compound interest and 7 30 notes afloat to the amount of nearly $1,000,000,000, with more than Gasconvanity we promise the almost immediate return to specie payments. During the above speech, Mr. KELLEY's hour having expired, on motion of Mr. AsHLEY, of Ohio, by unanimous consent, his time was extended till he had concluded.