In presenting this series of measures, I am penetrated by the conviction, that, if adopted, they cannot fail to bring all the national obligations to a par with coin, and then specie payments will be resumed without effort. Our bonds will be among the most popular in the market. No longer below par, they will continue to advance, while the national credit lifts its head unimpeached, unimpeachable. Under this influence the remainder of our outstanding debt may be refunded in Fifteen-Fifties at four and a half per cent., if not in Twenty-Sixties at four per cent. There will then be sixteen hundred and twenty-five millions refunded at an average of less than four and a half per cent., and the whole debt, including the irredeemable sixes of 1881, at an average of less than five per cent., while all will be within our control five years earlier than in the maximum period proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury.
One immediate consequence of these measures would be the relief of the people from eighty to one hundred millions of taxation, while there would remain a surplus revenue of two millions a month applicable to the reduction of the debt, being more than enough to liquidate the whole prior to the maturity of the new obligations, if it were thought advisable to complete the liquidation at so early a day. The country will breathe freer, business will be more elastic, life will be easier, as the assurance goes forth that no heavy taxation shall be continued in order to pay the debt in eleven years, as is now proposed, nor in fifteen years, nor in twenty years. By the present measures, while retaining the privilege of paying the debt within twenty years, we shall secure the alternative of sixty years, and at a largely reduced interest,—leaving the opportunity of paying it at any intermediate time, according to the best advantage of the country. With diminished taxation and resources increasing immeasurably, the national debt will cease to be a burden,—becoming “fine by degrees and beautifully less” until it gradually ceases to exist.
In making this statement, I offer my contribution to the settlement of a great question. If I am wrong, what I have said will soon be forgotten. Meanwhile I ask for it your candid attention, adding one further remark, with which I shall close. I never have doubted, I cannot doubt, the ease with which the transition to specie payments may be accomplished, especially as compared with the ominous fears which this simple proposition seems to excite in certain quarters. We are gravely warned against it as a period of crisis. I do not believe there will be anything to which this term can be reasonably applied. Like every measure of essential justice, it will at once harmonize with the life of the community, and people will be astonished at the long postponement of an act so truly beneficent in all its influences, so important to the national character, and so congenial with the business interests of the country.
The bill was ordered to be printed, and referred to the Committee on Finance.
January 25th, a bill from the Committee on Finance, “to provide a national currency of coin notes and to equalize the distribution of circulating notes,” being under consideration, Mr. Sumner moved an amendment embracing the provisions of his bill, with the exception of the first, second, and seventh sections, as a substitute,—in support of which he the next day spoke as follows:—
Mr. President,—Some things seem to be admitted in this debate as starting-points,—at least if I may judge from the remarks of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Sherman]. One of these is the unequal distribution of the bank-note currency, and another is that to take from the Northern and Eastern banks circulation already awarded to them would disturb trade. I venture to add, that the remedy would be worse than the disease.
The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. Howe] and the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Davis] justly claim for the West and South a fair proportion of bank circulation. The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Morton] demands more. While neither asks for expansion, neither is ready for contraction. The last-named Senator argues, that at this time the currency is not too much for the area of country and the amount of business, which, from the new spaces opened to settlement and the increase of commerce, require facilities beyond those that are adequate in thickly settled and wealthy communities. His premises may be in the main sound; but he might have made a further application of them. If, in the absence of local banks and banking facilities, a larger amount of circulation is needed,—and I do not mean to question this assertion,—would it not follow that the establishment of such local banks and banking facilities, with new bank credits, checks of depositors, and other agencies of exchange, and with the increase of circulation, would more than counterbalance any slight contraction from the withdrawal of greenbacks, and that thus we should be tending toward specie payments?