Mr. CLARKE, of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, we hear much said about reducing the amount of money in circulation to a sum which shall answer the legitimate demands of trade. All assent to this. But the question arises, what is that sum; and by what process of reasoning do gentlemen arrive at their conclusions? i is assumed that it must be so much and no more, as that upon demand of the holder every dollar bill shall be convertible into coin. If that is to be the standard, then the circulation is not regulated by the wants of the people, but by the quantity of coin to be used in its redemption. If there is no coin, there must be no currency. Is that the conclusion grave statesmen and financiers propose to adopt in the present crisis of our country? How Much coin HAve we? Mr. McCulloch sets our coin down at 80 or 100 millions. Will that amount supply our people with money sufficient for all the purposes." and traffic, whereby our produce of every character is to pass into the market by buying and selling? All men of reason know it will not. 80 million dollars allow barely 2 dollars apiece to each individual. Will 2 dollars to each afford sufficient money to buy and sell $6,000,000,000 worth of property each year; pay $500,000,000 of national tax; $ 250,000,000 of State and local taxes; run 40,000 miles of railroad, that cost $1,500,000,000 in their structure; as many miles of canal, lake and river navigation; fill up the demand of trust funds, executors, administrators and guardians; supply merchants, mechanics, and tradesmen with money for their business purposes, amounting to 100s of millions, to say nothing about the wants of the people engaged in the 10,000 other pursuits of legitimate productive industry requiring money? No man is so stupid, surely, as to suppose 80 or lars will 100 million dol answer. How THEN? Why, says one, bankers think it safe to issue 3 dollars in paper for one in coin, so we can have 3 times 80 millions of paper issued upon the 80 in coin, giving us $240,000,000 for circulation. This is about Secretary McCul The tax levied in, Ohio and collected in 1866 was rising $20, 500,000 threfoeurths of it for local purposes, a lare portion of which mustnecessarilyremain under lock and key during a great part of the year; if the other States raise taxes in proportion, then it cannot bedoubted that from 50 to 100 millions of moneymust lie constantly in the State, county, and township treasuries, withdrawn from circulation. loch's view, and to this end the whole machinery of the Government under his control is drifting. So he promises to allow us 6 or 7 dollars apiece, 2/3rds of it shadow, bank shadows at that, and thus he proposes to usher in the financial millenium of specie payment specie payment as if that was the only thing for which people were born or Governments made. SUPPOSE A PANIC 7 Suppose some rash statesman, or one even so prudent and thoughtful as our SecyTreasury, (who thought it not impolitic in his annual communication to denounce his own greenback circulation as unconstitutional,) should assail the credit of the banks and denounce their money as irredeemable;arun is made upon them, and in less than ten days the $80,000,000 of coin is drawn out. What is there left of substance to promise redemption of the remaining $160,000,000 which the people have taken upon trust after the confiding assurances of the SecyTreasury that it would all be right and so much better and safer than Governor Chase's greenbacks, that being unconstitutionally issued were of course illegal and void? Brokers or w ALI, street. The brokers of NewYork are always power ful enough to start a bank panic whenever they see a chance to make a speculation out of it. They now hold the gold market in their clutches, and Mr. McCulloch, with the whole Government at his back, and with 70 or 80 millions of coin in the Treasury, cannot move them nor affect the premium upon gold a farthing, except as they choose to have him do. If these money mongers can thus besiege the Government, what may they not do with the unshielded banks of the country, that with $80,000,000 of coin undertake to supply 3 times that amount in currency that shall be redeemable in coin at all times? So much for the experiment of a circulation redeemable in specie. So much for putting away a safe, sound, reliable national currency, that has the confidence of the people, because it is the promise of their own Government, and a lien upon its resources, and adopting a theory that our country has again and again proved, by sad experience, within the memory of the present generation, as utterly visionary and ruine us. WHAT Tris ProPLE want. Gold and silver is the universal currency, and of course we desire it above all other; but we do not expect to be able, with $80,000,000 of coin, if now in active circulation, to carry on our internal commerce, involving as it does the property of every kind and description of near 40 millions of people, occupying so large and so productive a portion of the earth. We must have a currency adequate to the business wants of our people, whatever that may be. When the coin is insufficent we must have the next best, and greenbacks with so good an indorser as the Government, greenbacks that pay debts, pay taxes, buy land, buy bread and raiment, E. better or safer could we provide our selves with a currency? Suppose that even with a panic were possible, who could e injured? There is no private bani to run down and bankrupt and leave bill holders and depositors to suffer. No, it is the great Government that stands responsible to the people for every do. al; and j.the panic has expended its fury and passed, the holder of a greenback has a reality, a certainty, a currency that panics and brokers and money gamblers cannot destroy, nor lessen the security that is pledged for its payment. A o: is good today, tomorrow, or it may be laid away with your gold until next month or next year or next generation and like your gold still good for its face, good at home or abroad, good at all times, in all places, and for all purposes. Verily this is money, the people's money; to call it irredeemable is.both our government and people. It is the promise of the people themselves to pay, and to make good that promise the collective and individual wealth of the nation stands irrevocably pledged. Higher security could not be given. our PRESENTcirculation. When men talk of reducing the circulation to $300,000,000 do they consider the depressing effect of such reduction upon the people? Prices at this time are not unreasonable; beef, corn, pork these cannot be afforded by the farmer at less than the present market value thereof, and yet at this time our currency, that which we use as such in one way or another, amounts to over $1, 600,000,000! Now, reduce this enormous sum to $300,000,000, the amount claimed by the SecyTreasury as sufficient, and where will the farmer be with his products? You propose a reduction of the currency for the express purpose of reducing prices, and if it be true that prices increase as you increase the quantity of money, then the present prices must fall to one 5th of their present rate. That I may not mislead any person by my statement as to the amount of circulation now employed as money, let me give the facts upon which it is predicated. By the report of the SecyTreasury of December 3, 1866, there was outstanding on the 31st October, 1866, of the public debt the following items: Compound interest notes Soven 30 bonds Greenbacks. Fractional curr ŽiSiji, Gold certificates Add coin in Treasury, say 70,000,000 National bank bills. Total. $1,671,207,410 Now, each of these items is used in some way or other as a substitute for money in the varied and extensive business transactions of the country. The banks are required to keep a reserve fund of 15% of their circulation and deposits, which may be set down at $120,000,000, that lies dormant in their vaults and cannot be used without a violation of law; but instead of 15%. they will be found to have retired about 25%., making in the aggregate some $150,000,000. Of this reserved fund most of it is the compound interest notes, not a dollar of which is permitted to go into general circulation. If bankers have not secured and retired it all, private individuals, having spare funds reserved for special use in the future, have appropriated it in the same way, because, unlike greenbacks or national bank bills, it is accumulating all the while, and when the holder wants to use it it is larger in quantity by the accumulation of interest than when stowed away. So also of the 7 30 bonds: they are issued in the similitude of bank bills, and almost as convenient as a circulation; they bear interest at 7 and 3 10th s%., with coupons attached payable every 6 months. What better thing could a man lay away to meet a future call than a 7 30 bond? If a man has $1,000 not needed for present use, but expects, to use it a year hence; he ehooses not to loan it, for its return when needed may not be certain; he does not lay away greenbacks or national bank bills, because at the end of the year those bills remain of the same value as when retired; he converts his $1,000 into 7 thirties, and these at the end of the year are just as good as green backs, and 73 dollars more in the bulk than when deposited by him. It requires very little argument to convince men who have an eye to thrift, what course to pursue in such cases, and therefore I shall be believed, I presume, when I assert that the 7 thir ties, serving the purpose of money are largely engrossed, if not almost totally, in the reserved funds of moneyed institutions and moneyed men. So also of the gold certificates: these pay customs duty on foreign importations; the gold is never drawn from the Treasury; it lies there, and the certificates answer for the coin; take away the certificates and the coin must move; the certificate is money just as much as one thing can be made a representative of another. Our currency, then, amounts actually at this time to $1, 671,000,000 ! indeed; but when we come to group up all the items of trade and traffic of this vast empire, the character of our people, their industry, their enterprise, the development of the resources of our country, its soil, its mines of gold, of silver, of copper, of iron, of coal, its rivers, its canals and railroads, its machinery, by which the labor of man is increased 100 fold in productive efficiency, we can begin to realize that a country, stretching from ocean to ocean, with an active, enterprising population of near 40 millions, busily employed everywhere upon its surface, develop.ing its resources and piling up wealth almost beyond the conception of man such a people, with such a country, to accomplish the work before them must necessarily require a currency of large capacity. It is quite probable $1, 600,000,000 is too much: that is a question for the people to determine who use it. But suddenly to reduce this vast sum to one 5th its present amount would inevitably disturb the settled condition of our internal commercial traffic, and need lessly and wantonly bankrupt 1000s of our active and enterprising people, who, rather than remain idle while politicians are arguing the currency question, have embarked in business, trusting to the good sense of those controlling the public affairs, for wise and prudent measures that whatever change may be resolved upon shall be brought about, not rashly, but by easy stages, that will give timely warning to all of coming events, and thus prepare all for the change. Extent of our Business. To arrive at any safe conclusion as to the amount of money required for the business of the country we must know something of the extent of the country and the amount of the trade it affords. In 1850 the value of the real and personal property of the U.S. was $7,000,000,000. In 1860 it was $16,000,000,000. Taking the increase from 1850 to 1860 as a criterion to judge of the increase from that to the present time, say 6 years, during which time our people have been more than usually active in all industrial pursuits, and accumulated more rapidly than at any former period, and we may set down the wealth of the country (leaving out the valuation of slaves) at $25,000,000,000. Mr. McCulloch in his report says that the annual products of agriculture, manufactures, mining, mechanic arts, commerce, fisheries, and forests amount to one 4th of the entire wealth of the country. If he is correct then we have a yearly production in 1866 of over $6,000,000,000 of property; all of this during the year is in some way or other measured by money; money to buy, money to sell, money to pay labor, money to buy food and clothing, money to carry to market, money for every thing in the progress of production, in transportation, in selling in market money at every step. Can $3,000,000 of currency fill up the 10,000 reservoirs of retired money that is withdrawn entirely from circulation to await the convenience of the owners, and yet be ade quate to supply the wants of near 40 million people, whose labor adds to the wealth of the country annually, over $6,000,000,000 worth of property? OURNATIONALTAX. The revenue collected into our national Treasury in 1866 amounted to the enormous sum of $462,000,000. Now, with a currency of $300,000,000 only, how does any financier Nimagine this vast Government tax is to be paid yes, paid promptly and yet leave a surplus sufficient to answer the demands of 40 million people, with their $6,000,000,000 of fresh productions, thrown annually upon the public market, to be bought and sold with money? This is very large, It cannot be done and it is folly, it is mad bess to attempt it; nay, it would be a crime, involving in its consequences the general stag nation of business and universal bankruptcy. Who can contemplate such meditated folly without blushing for the manifest want of financial skill and foresight of the statesmen who advise such measures, at a time, too, when every interest in the land is prospering and the people never better onot only with the prices of labor and productions, but with the quantity and kind of money they are using? Shall we blindly yield to such teaching that, with the syren song of specie payment, we shall give away the unrivaled prosperity of the present for a future of idleness, of poverty, of suffering! for without the incentive to industry and nothing is more necessary for this than money there will be no activity in the industrial pursuits of the country. Who call for this restrictive system? who ask the currency to be dwarfed to $300,000,000? Do the people clamor at the Halls of Congress by their petitions begging us to diminish the currency to $300,000,000? Do the people ask the withdrawal of “greenbacks” and invoke specie in its stead, that prices may thereby be crushed down to the standard of hard money, when that hard money they are told by our Minister of Finance is less than $100,000,000, and that he has to keep locked up as a safety fund for the Government? Low Prices desired. Mr. McCulloch says prices are too high, and by reducing the currency he hopes to bring down prices. The farmer of Ohio sells his pork at 6 dollars 100, his corn at 50 cents a bushel, and all other marketable commodities at like prices. Is he too well paid? Reduce the currency to a 3rd or a 4th of its present volume, and where will the farmer be? No, Mr. Speaker, the farmer asks for no such pol icy; the people make no such request; they are all anxious for specie payment, but they are wise enough and patient enough to bide their time and be content with “well enough” until better can be had without incurring great risks or taking violent and dangerous medicine. “Increased production and lower prices, ” says Secretary McCulloch, “will bring about specie payment.” That means that the farmer who now sells one hog for 20 dollars must hereafter raise 2 or 3 hogs in order to get the sum of 20 dollars; that is increasing production and reducing price. But for whose benefit? Certainly not d. farmer's. It will enable the Secretary, perhaps, to realize his favorite theory of specie payment; but it is an achievement that will cost the people a sacrifice that no man should exact, that he may glory in the success of a dogma that never promised anything but a curse to his country. Low PRICEs.And High TAxes. While we are persuaded by the Secretary that low prices are essential to specie payment, We are oinformed by him that large taxes will still be required. The people were not ignorant of this, and, in view of that fact, they have wisely concluded that liberal prices would be some compensation for high taxes. While a load of corn will pay a tax bill of 40 dollars the farmer does not murmur at contributing liberally to relieve the Government; and hence the revenue runs up to a million.a without effort, without a murmur. But brea down the prosperity of the producing interests of the country; bring pork and beef and corn down to a specie standard, and then a wail of woe will go up from every farmer in the land, and your collectors will be compelled to make beggarly returns of delinquents, and bankruptcy will become an epidemic extending from the people to the national Treasury. BANKERS WANT MONEY SCAR.C.E. Mr. McCulloch says: “The conservative bankers of the country are quito unanimously in favor of a curtailment of the cur with a view to an early return to speciepayment, That may be the feeling of the conservative bankers. like other people, consult their own interests. The more contracted the currency the greater the demand for it, and of course the higher the rate of interest. That is not all. Men who have nothing but money, and who operate with money, are well pleased when that money will command the }. price. A 2dollar bill, with which a banker can now buy a fat hog of a farmer, will, in a few months, mder a stringent currency, buy 2 or even 3 such fat hogs. Conservative bankers know that when money is tight they have their harvest; when money is abundant the money monger has but half the bargain; let it become scarce and he is “master of the situation.” All men of fixed salaries, all holders of public or private bonds, office holders, bankers, brokers, men of large means and large leisure, all these will be advantaged by restricted circulation and specie payment; but the producing laboring classes readily perceive that their interests do not lie in that direction. They prefer a flush currency, reliable and trustworthy, that gives facility to trade in all its various forms, and which can be conveniently and cheaply obtained for use. Let it be a fixed stable currency, and if it cannot have a good word of indorsement from the Secretary who sends it out as money, let him at least forbear to brand it as unconstitutional, and let it grow into public favor and confidence by its own inherent virtues. Let the people use and trust it as the people's money; their own pledges of faith, to be redeemed by themselves in their own time and their own way. If the people are content with the currency as it is, why should the Government distress itself to change it? The currency and the Government are both made for the people; and when the people are satisfied who has a right to complain” who has a right to crowd upon them new schemes, full of peril if not calamitous beyond measure? The instincts of the people are safer to be trusted than the dogmas of a Secretary who has fallen in love with his own theory and can therefore see no fault in it. Public officers are but the servants of the people; they should follow, not dictate, public opinion. It will be time enough to employ the energies of the Government in the direction of specie payment when the voice of the people shall.their will on that subject. Until then all the disturbing efforts of influential men on that subject only increase the agitation in the circulation, and expose those whose property is thrown upon the mar ket to all the evil consequences of that foolish and dangerous intermeddling. How SPECIE PAYMENT WILL CoME. If gentlemen wish to know when we shall have specie payment I can tell them whenever the people are ready to pay their taxes in specie, then the Government will be able to pay in specie, and then the long desired blessing will have descended upon us. It cannot come at the other end of the line, as Mr. Mc Culloch proposes; it must begin with the people, and as they have to take the initiative, propose that they shall be the judges of the time and the manner. When they are tired of too. they will not be slow to say so. When they find they have too much money, they will speak out; when their produce is too high or their taxes too low, you will hear from them; when they shall desire to pay their taxes in coin, rather than currency, they will give notice thereof, and then the Secretary may well F.". for the new order of things, and his ase of operations will be reliable and fully justify any vigorous measures to that end. But until the people speak let their public servants keep silence. By constant agitation they give the money market a feverish uneasiness that unsettles values and exposes the owners of property of all kinds, but especially such as enter the market for sale, to injurious and depreciating fluctuations, merely to gratify the whims of a public officer, more ambitious than wise, more intent upon propagating a financial dogma than to advance the great substantial interests of the people. OUR NAtIONAL BANKS. I do not propose to make war upon our national banks. In many respects they are as well devised as could be desired to secure to the people who receive their circulation the ultimate redemption of every dollar, and being under the entire control of Congress to revise, modify, or in any manner and to any extent to change the law by which they are created, there is every possible security against abuses which have heretofore grown up in such institutions. Yet I can very readily discern that if we were now called upon to inaugurate such a system how we could improve upon the experience of the past. We pay these banks $18,000,000 ofor the privilege of using their currency, whereas our Government has as good paper currency of its own that might just as well be used for the same purpose and cost us nothing. Banks we shall always have; no one is bold enough to claim that this extensive country can carry on its business with the spirit of enterprise and industry that characterize our people without the aid of banks. But it o would been well if our Government had furnished the circulation and thus saved the interest upon $300,000,000 of its public debt, which interest now goes to the banks as a compensation for the use of their paper money which is certainly no better, if so good, as the Government money, of which we have an abundance and the means of making more when it shall be needed. SPECIE PAYMENT How 7 But here we are met by our Secretary, who, anxious for specie payment, insists upon withdrawing from circulation all greenbacks, and then make a run upon the national banks and force them to specie payment or to bankruptcy. Let us look at this a moment. Imagine the greenbacks all retired and the national banks called on to redeem their notes in specie; can they do it? No, sir; they have no specie; how then? They must call upon their debtors to pay their bills in specie. There are $400,000,000 due them from the people, who have borrowed of them an ample sum to redeem every dollar of their issue. Can the people raise the specie? No, sir; it is not in the country. Mr. McCulloch says there is scarce $100,000,000 in the U.S., and he keeps from 50 to 70 millions of that locked up for fear it will leave us. Now impossibilities are required of no one here is a thing insisted upon which every reasonable man must see is a bare absurdity and cannot be accomplished. Very well; the borrower cannot pay specie to the banks, and the banks cannot pay specie for their notes; what then? Why, the Secretary proceeds to wind them up; he puts their $300,000,000 of registered bonds, which are deposited as surety for the redemption of their circulation, upon a forced market, to raise the gold to redeem the national currency. He may be successful, but if so it is a success full of calamities to the country; a financial crisis ensues, which bankrupts 100s of 1000s of enterprising, industrious citizens, paralyzes trade, deranges the finances of the Government, breaks down its revenues, and little less than universal ruin of Government and people is the result of this master stroke of finance to bring forward premature specie payment. It requires small foresight to see the tend ency of this theory of Mr. McCulloch, and the only marvel is that of all men he alone refuses to be instructed. STOP This WAR UPon THE CURRENCY. With a continuation of this war upon our currency by high public functionaries no banking institution issuing paper for circulation could ever resume specie payment without providing itself with coin equal to dollar for dollar of circulation. The result would be an exclusive hard money currency; and as we are assured that we have less than $100,000,000 of coin, more than half of which is in the U.S. Treasury under lock and key, it. a gloomy picture for our people to ook upon and extract hopes for a prosperous future. It may suit bondholders and office holders, but it will be ruin to the men of labor, who have a right to look to the Government they support for a currency the best possible, and in quantity sufficient for all the purposes of legitimate trade. If coin can be. adequate to the demand, that we ask 1st; failing that, then the next best; and whether the one or the other, give us enough. how to secure porteign MARKET. The Secretary says the currency must be reduced so that prices shall go down so low that we shall be compelled to send our produce to foreign markets. The best market for our people is the home market; and it will be a joyful day to us when, by the course of trade, our corn, pork, beef, and flour are not only bought at home, but consumed at home; when the iron and cloths and manufactured fabrics of all kinds, now imported, are produced at home. This may be done by encouraging labor, not by oppressing it. But how does our foreign trade stand? Mr. McCulloch says it is largely against us. Let us see. By his own record we find the following: Value of Imports. $338, 765 Value of rts. 865. 34, 434, 167 “For the 5 years prior to and including 1861the average annual value of imports was in excess of $350,000,000 and for the 3 years next succeeding June 30, 1861, the annual average has been about $262,000,000.” How is it that the advantages of foreign trade are only to be secured by a limited currency and low prices in this country? Before the war, and before prices were high here, when corn was 40 cents a bushel, wheat one dollar, and pork $3.50 per 100, our imports of foreign goods were $90,000,000 a year more than they were when prices arose to their high est point during the war. It is true, also, that our exports were larger before the war than since; but that alone depends upon the foreign demand. We can only sell abroad when there is a call for our products. Contracting the currency and cheapening the price will not always succeed, and if they it would be poor economy to bankrupt our farmers for the privilege of selling their products in a foreign market. Moxey of other CouxTRIES. The money of England is about 25 dollars to each individual. England is compact, covering but a small surface, and the trade capable of being carried on with much greater facility and less money than ours. Give us 25 dollars of currency per head and we will have $1,000,000,000 of circulation. France has about 36 dollars per head of money. Even France requires much less currency for the business of trade than our country. Give us the same as France employs and we shall have over $1, 400,000,000 of circulation. England and France have not discovered that they had too much money. The ministers of finance in those countries have not discovered that prices were too high, or that labor was too well paid. By referring to those old and experienced countries we can realize how we have been able to employ as money with such splendid success the $1, 600,000,000 already noticed; and it may serve to caution us against that certain ruin that awaits as if we shall disregard the plainest dictates of reason and the experience of the most pros perous and stable Governments of the world upon this very subject. The public Drist. The Secretary reports our present debt at $2, 681, 636, 906. He has a surplus in the Treasury of $130, 326, 960, which he expects to in o crease at the end of this year. These 2 sums being applied to the payment of the debt will leave June 30, 1867, a balance of; of which the following items bear no interest: Greenbacks. Fractional currency. Guld certificates Total. $428, 680, 970 which sum being subtracted leaves of the public debt bearing interest. The receipts for the next fiscal year, ending June 30, 1868, are estimated as follows: From customs. S145,000,00000 From internalrevenue.. From lands. From miscellancous sources. Total. $436,000,00000 The expenditures are estimated as follows: For the civil service. For pensions and In ians. 25, 388, 48909 Fomrentth, einWcluadri.nDgepart, for bounties. 110, 861, 96819 For the Navy Dept. 30, 251, 60526 For interest on the pub1c(i.ebt. 133, 678, 24030 350, 247, 64312 Leaving a surplus of over estimated expeesntidmitautreeds of receipts. By the foregoing it will be seen that the interest item is over $133, 500,000, and that out of a revenue of $436,000,000 to be collected only $85, 500,000 are left to be paid upon the principal of the debt. A NEW Policy 5%.BoxDs. Now, sir, suppose we change the programme, and while we lessen the burden of taxation we at the same time accommodate our people with a currency, not only adequate to the demands of the country, but one that, all things considered, will be the most stable and uniform, and which has secured and will retain the confidence of the people. I propose to fix the circulation at $1,000,000,000, exclusive of fractional currency and gold certificates; this to be done 1st July, 1867, the beginning of the next fiscal year. I propose, further, that 5%. bonds be prepared, and that all the outstanding debts (except the ten forties, which are 5% s.,) be paid off at maturity, and that whatever indebtedness shall remain be in bonds, drawing 5% and no more. By this method we shall save over 30 millions annually in interest. Our ten 40 bonds are now at parand no good reason can be assigned why we may not be able to make our entire debt a 5%. The English debt bears but 3%.; it is 1/2 larger than ours, and not half so well secured nor the payment so certain or so soon; indeed it is. if the debt of England will ever be paid, while our debt is in process of rapid payment, with the prospect of its total extinction, if desirable, even by the generation that created it. The larger portion of the public debt of the leading nations of Europe bears but 3%. The debt of France, about 2,000 millions, and not a dollar of its principal has been paid for years, and which is constantly increasing, 2/3rds of it is at 3%. We may not be able to sell our bonds in a foreign market; it is not desirable if we could. It is part of our good fortune that in the time of our greatest necessities for money we were able to obtain it from our own people. The present ten 40 bonds are in the hands of our own people, and it will be an important achievement if by any plan to be adopted we can call back our bonds from foreign holders and place them permanently in the hands of our own citizens. To secure a home market for our bonds it is worth while to present some inducements, which I think may be done with advan tage to Government and people. Let us consider that question a moment. Our national banks have now about 400 millions of our bonds; these are fixed and will not soon float upon the market. The whole South and oof the western States are unsupplied with anks, and it will become necessary in a short time to extend bank facilities to them, perhaps to the extent of $200,000,000. Now, while I do not condemn the present banking system, and while I would advise the preserva.tion of the utmost good faith to those institutions that have been created, I would not extend it. My objection to enlarging it arises chiefly from the fact that we are required to pay 15 to 18 millions of dollars a year in gold to them for the privilege of using $300,000,000 of their paper money. Why not use that amount of greenbacks for the same purpose, and thereby save to the Government these 15 to 18 millions which are now paid out of the national Treasury to the banks? GREENBAcks ox LY For circul Artox. I would have banks; we cannot get along without them; but I would not allow them to issue a dollar for circulation. All the circulation required by the wants of the country should be furnished by the Government, and to be continued so long as the Government, debt exists. If the people are willing to use green backs as a currency, and by so i.the government saves some 50 or 60 millions in interest annually, who is so simple, so profli gate, so criminally negligent of his duties to the Government as to counsel against the economy, more especially at a time when our debt is heaviest and the taxes are required to be most onerous? Suppose, when our 5%. bonds shall have been substituted for those bearing higher rates of interest, and the banks shall accede to the proposition, we . remodel the whole system the capital at say $500,000,000, and istribute them equally over the entire.; as far asjthe banks to deposit with the authorities at Washington 5%. bonds to the amount of their capital and receive upon such pledge, an equal amount in green backs for circulation, with the privilege of charging interest upon loans not exceeding 1%. a month, and to be free from all other taxes or charges whatever by the General government, while their bonds in pledge are to remain without interest. The privilege of charging the increased rate of interest will be a full compensation for the loss of interest on their deposited bonds and leave the trade for the use of money to an open market, where the lender and borrower are acting conformably to law, which will have a healthy influence upon the rate of interest and tend to bring it down. As it is, large interest is constantly exacted and paid because the trade is contraband, and is always carried on by an indirect routine to avoid open exposure, or upon such terms of peril to the banker that he charges for the risk he incurs by violating the law. BANK Profits. By this new order of things bank profits will be sufficiently remunerative in a country where money men ought to be satisfied with reason able gains. Time was when bankers were satisfied with 5%. semi annual dividends. This will give more; and what is worthy of consideration with bankers and people, it will be banking with a currency on which no panics can make a run for redemption or specie payments. Banks can loan to the utmost dol ar of their capital with as much of their deposits as is now done with safety, and the bills they circulate are their own, pledges for redemption they belong to the Government, and have the stamps of the nation for their value, as emphatic as when put upon coin, and are in form and in fact money, money at all times, in all places, and for all purposes. The PUBLIC DEBT BY This PLAN. Let us now see how our finances will stand, June 30, 1867, if this plan could be adopted. Our total debt is supposed then to be $2, 471, 979, 150. Take from it the following items not bearing interest: Greenbacks now issued, $Greenbacks to be issue. 609, 804,020 Fractional currency. 27, 588,010 Gold certificates This sum substracted from the total debt leaves $1, 433, 494, 160, which at 5%. the interest will amount annually to $71, 674, 708. The Secretary estimates the interest in his plan at $133, 678, 243, showing a saving in interest annually by my plan of over $62,000,000; so that at the close of that year, instead of having a surplus of $86, 500,000 to apply to the payment of the principal of the debt, as by the Secretary's estimate, we should have a surplus of over $148, 500,000. This would leave it, in the power of Congress to liquidate the debt rapidly, if that should be deemed expedient, without increasing the taxes upon the people, and at the same time give them a currency sufficient for all the demands of trade, a currency not greater in quantity than England furnishes her people; a currency 11 dollars a head less than France provides for the wants of its people;a currency as reliable as our Government, and which, after years of trial, has secured and will retain the confidence of the country. If the authorities that issue it will cease to denounce it, but rather yield it the just commendation it deserves, it will soon approach the specie standard so closely that they will not materially differ in value. DEBT PAid rapidly AND TAx reduced. It will substantially reduce our public debt so rapidly that it will no longer appear insur mountable, but inspire fresh hope in the people and increased confidence at home and abroad of our ability to pay every dollar, without ruining our citizens by taxation or pressing for loans in foreign countries. I venture to assert that by the adoption of the plan proposed the customs alone will meet the accruing interest and leave a surplus of 5 or 6 millions monthly, to be applied in the redemption of the principal.". more rapid process of extinguishing it than the Secretary proposes, while he adds to the burden of taxation some 74 millions a year leaving the ordinary expenses of the Government to be met by internalrevenue, requiring, as by the Secretary's estimate, about 217 millions a year. The receipts into the Treasury for the past year exclusive of customs Were: Receipts from lands Receipts from direct tax. RReecceeiippttss from internalrevenue. from miscellaneous sources. Total. 7 w8.985, 967 Here we have a sum larger by $160,000,000 than is needed for the expenses of Government, leaving that amount to be taken from the present burden of taxation, the effect of which would be that by a proper adjustment of the taxes all the hardships now imposed upon the producing classes could be removed, and only such objects taxed as would afford the greatest amount of revenue and not seriously burden the productive interest of. the country. estimated expenses of the Government for 1868 are set down $216, 500,000. In this is. included $64,000,000 for extra bounty, which ought not to be counted as current expense of civil Government. Deduct it and we have $152, 500,000 to provide for by internalreve nue in some form or other. That revenue can be raised by the present tax on whisky and cotton and have a surplus left of over $7,000,000. The whisky manufactured annually is estimated at 40 million gallons; the tax of 2 dollars er i.gallon makes $80,000,000. 4 million of cotton at the present tax would raise 300 million dollars of this to be issued in the place of that amount of national bank circulation to be withdrawn. $80,000,000, making $160,000,000 raised from those 2 articles alone. But suppose it impossible to reach these fig ures by reason of frauds in the collection of the whisky tax and short cotton crops; making all reasonable deductions for these contingencies, I submit the following: Revenue from whisky.. $60,000,0 Revenue from cotton. 40,000,000 Revenue from tobacco. 18,000,000 Revenue from fleicremnesen.t Revenue from stamps. 15,000,000 20,000,000 Revenue from salaries. 2,000,000 Total. 160,000,000 Expense. 52, 500,000 Balance over expenses. si, 500,000. Thus we have an excess of revenue of $7, 500,000 over all the ordinary expenses of Government, and no internal tax whatever upon the industry of the country to annoy or oppress the people. I do not say that other items may not be properly added to the sources of revenue, my object being to demonstrate, by this exhibit, that there is a way to relieve the people from the burden of taxation and not disturb the credit of the Government or deprive it of the means of usefulness to the full est extent possible. Public debt interest And Prix cipan, The money derived from customs being in coin, after meeting the interest punctually as it falls due, the residue should be applied by the SecyTreasury, by some well devised plan, to the purchase in open market monthly of 5 or 6 millions of the public debt, or so much thereof as the receipts of customs may justify. By this process, the interest being punctually paid in coin, and a !. continued for bonds occurring every month, it cannot be doubted that our 5% would become popular stocks in the country; so much so that it might even be practicable, in due time, to supersede them with others bearing a less interest. All depends upon public confidence. It could scarcely be attainable if 1/2 of our people make war upon the bonds and insist upon taxing them out of credit, and the chief officers of the Government denounce our currency as unconstitutional and irredeem able, and the Congress that authorized them as an illegal body, hanging upon the verge of the Government, without competent authority to make any law to protect the people or bind the nation. We must have fidelity to the country in high places if we expect to prosper by the wisest measures that may be devised; men who can rise above the mere partisan, and whose devotion to their country is not over come by their lust of power. FINANCIAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.