“Your views on Currency Question much approved here. Authorize new bank circulation to extent named, retiring greenbacks pari passu.”
This is the very rule which I seek to establish.
At the same time I received a communication from Circleville, Ohio, dated January 25th, the first sentences of which I will read:—
“Please pardon me for this intrusion. I desire to ask, if you are willing to indicate, what will likely be the result of your financial bill. I think I only utter the sentiment of three fourths of all the commercial men through our great and growing West, when I say it should become a law, and thereby secure to us our equal share of the national banking capital, which we now need so much.”
This, again, is what I seek to accomplish.
At this stage, I hope I may have the indulgence of the Senate, if I ask one moment’s attention to the bill of the Committee. On a former occasion I ventured to say that it was inadequate.[219] The more I reflect upon it, the longer this debate is continued, the more I am impressed with its inadequacy. It does not do what should be done by the first measure of legislation on our finances adopted by the present Congress. It is incomplete. I wish I could stop there; but I am obliged to go further, and say that it is not only incomplete, but it is, in certainly one of its features, to which I shall call attention, mischievous. I take advantage of this moment to present this point, because it has not been mentioned before, and because at a later stage I may not have the opportunity of doing so. It is this provision at the end of the first section:—
“But a new apportionment shall be made as soon as practicable, based upon the census of 1870.”
At the proper time I shall move to strike out these words, and I will now very briefly assign my reasons.
The proposition is objectionable, first, because it is mischievous,—and, secondly, because it is difficult, if not impracticable, in its operation; and if I can have the attention of the Senate, unless figures deceive me, and unless facts are at fault, I think that the Senate must agree in my conclusion.