During the war the Government issued many kinds of paper money, such as greenbacks, seven-thirty notes, one-year notes, compound-interest notes, and one, two, and three year notes, all amounting to nearly $2,000,000,000. This money was put in circulation by paying it out at its full face value to the soldiers, sailors, and creditors of the United States, but the Government would not receive it back in payment of duties upon imports, but would receive it from any one who wished to purchase five-twenty Government bonds, taking it at its face value.
The interest on these bonds was 6 per cent, payable in coin. This continued until February, 1863, when the laws were enacted that provided that after July 1, 1863, the paper money should not be received in exchange for bonds having interest payable in coin. The result of this was that shortly after the law went into effect the paper issued by the Government rapidly depreciated, and very soon it was worth only about 40 cents on the dollar, but our soldiers were still compelled to take it at its full face value, that is, 100 cents on the dollar.
At the close of the war, in 1865, our Government issued many hundreds of millions of their depreciated paper and paid it out to the soldiers, sailors, and other creditors of the Government at its full face value, 100 cents on the dollar.
After the soldiers had been paid off in the depreciated currency of the Government, and it had gone into general circulation, one of the most gigantic schemes ever concocted by the money-power was then devised.
The object was to destroy the money of the country, and issue in its place many hundreds of millions of dollars of Government bonds drawing 6 per cent interest in coin, payable semi-annually.
During the winter of 1865-66, an agent of the Rothschilds went to Washington and secured the enactment of a law providing that any person might take any of the depreciated paper that had been issued by the Government for the purpose of paying off the soldiers and the other expenses of the war, and exchange it at its full face value for bonds of the United States drawing 6 per cent interest in coin, payable semi-annually, and that the money paid for such bonds should be destroyed within three years after the close of the war. By this means nearly $1,000,000,000 of the currency of the country was withdrawn from circulation and destroyed, and an equal amount of 6 per cent coin bonds were issued in place of the currency that was so destroyed.
No laws that were ever enacted, and no decrees that were ever promulgated by any tyrant that ever sat upon a throne, ever enabled a few to amass wealth as rapidly as they were enabled to do under the provisions of these laws.
Under the provisions of the laws of 1863 the currency was depreciated to less than 50 cents on the dollar, and under the law of 1866 hundreds of millions of dollars were bought up by the Rothschilds and other English and European bankers, at from 40 to 60 cents on the dollar, and were converted into five-twenty United States bonds drawing 6 per cent interest in coin, the interest to be paid semi-annually. This was equivalent to 12 per cent upon the actual cash paid for the depreciated paper with which they bought the bonds.
But this was only a part of the profit they were enabled to make. The interest was paid every six months in gold. The interest on $1,500,000,000 every six months was $45,000,000, and as the law that required the duties on imports to be paid in coin had never been repealed, gold was for many years at a high premium. The bondholders could take their $45,000,000 every six months to the gold-room in Wall Street and sell it for 50 per cent premium. This was equivalent to 9 per cent on the face value of the bonds and 18 per cent on the coin they had paid for the currency with which they had bought the bonds.
But this was not all the profit they were enabled to make, for still other laws had been framed in the interests of capital and speculators.