Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

Mr. John Hickman of Pennsylvania, having no doubt as to the power of Congress to pass the bill, supported it as a governmental necessity.

MR. FESSENDEN OPPOSES LEGAL-TENDER.

The debate in the House was able and spirited throughout. Judging by the tone and number of the Republicans who spoke against the bill, a serious party division seemed to be impending. The measure came to a vote on the 6th of February, the interest in the discussion continuing to the last. Mr. Owen Lovejoy sought occasion to give the measure a parting malediction, declared that "there is no precipice, no chasm, no yawning bottomless gulf before this nation, so terrible, so appalling, so ruinous, as the bill before the House," and Mr. Roscoe Conkling sought the floor to say that he concurred "in every word" Mr. Lovejoy had spoken. Mr. Conkling said the debate had been allowed to close "without pretext of solid argument by any member in favor of the constitutionality of the one feature of the bill."

The essential difference between the plan of the minority and that of the committee had reference to the legal-tender clause. In fact the other details of the Loan Bill could have been agreed upon in a single day's discussion, and the delay was occasioned solely by the one feature of legal-tender. On substituting the measure of the minority the vote was 55 yeas to 95 nays. The bill was then passed by a vote of 93 to 59. The yeas were all Republican. Among the nays—principally Democrats—were found some of the ablest and most influential members of the Republican party. Valentine B. Horton of Ohio, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, Roscoe Conkling, F. A. Conkling, and Theodore M. Pomeroy of New York, Albert G. Porter of Indiana, Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, William H. Wadsworth of Kentucky, Benjamin F. Thomas of Massachusetts, and Edward H. Rollins of New Hampshire, were conspicuous for their hostility to the legal- tender clause.

The Senate received the bill on the next day, and on the 10th it was reported from the Finance Committee for immediate action. Mr. Fessenden explained the amendments which the committee had embodied in the House Bill. In the first section they provided that the interest on the national debt should be paid in coin. Upon this point Mr. Fessenden considered that the public credit, in large degree, depended. As to the legal-tender feature of the notes, he could not make up his mind to support it. "Will your legal-tender clause," he inquired, "make your notes any better? Do you imagine that because you force people to take these notes they are to be worth the money, and that no injury is to follow? What is the consequence? Does not property rise? You say you are injuring the soldier if you compel him to take a note without its being a legal-tender; but will not the sutler put as much more on his goods? And if the soldier sends the notes to his wife to be passed at a country store for necessaries for his family, what will be the result? The goods that are sold are purchased in New York; the price is put on in New York; a profit is added in the country; and thus the soldier loses just as much. You are not saving any thing for any body."

Mr. Fessenden then inquired, "What do we offer without the legal- tender clause? We are offering notes, with the interest secured beyond a question if the amendments proposed by the Committee on Finance of the Senate are adopted, based on the national faith, and with the power to deposit and receive five per cent. interest in any sub-treasury, and the power of the government to sell the stock at any price, to meet whatever it may be necessary to meet. Will notes of this kind stand better when going out, if you put the confession upon their face, that they are discarded by you, and that you know they ought not to be received, and would not be, unless their reception is compelled by legal enactment?"

The argument against this view, according to Mr. Fessenden, "is simply that the banks will not take the notes unless they are made a legal-tender, and therefore they will be discredited. It was thus reduced to a contest between the government and the banks; and the question is whether the banks have the will and the power to discredit the notes of the United-States Treasury." With all his objections to the legal-tender feature,—and they were very grave,—Mr. Fessenden intimated his willingness to vote for it if it were demonstrated to be a necessity. On the constitutional question involved he did not touch. He preferred, he said, "to have his own mind uninstructed" upon that aspect of the case.

In illustration of the doubt and diversity of opinion prevailing, Mr. Fessenden stated that on a certain day he was advised very strongly by a leading financial man that he must at all events oppose the legal-tender clause, which he described as utterly destructive. On the same day he received a note from another friend, assuring him that the legal-tender bill was an absolute necessity to the government and the people. The next day the first gentleman telegraphed that he had changed his mind, and now thought the legal-tender bill peremptorily demanded by public exigency. On the ensuing day the second gentleman wrote that he had changed his mind, and now saw clearly that the legal-tender bill would ruin the country. There can be no harm in stating that the authors of these grotesque contradictions were Mr. James Gallatin and Mr. Morris Ketchum of New York.

MR. COLLAMER AND MR. SHERMAN.

Mr. Collamer of Vermont followed Mr. Fessenden in an exhaustive argument against the bill as a violation of the Constitution. He believed "in the power of the government to sustain itself in the strife physically and pecuniarily." He was not willing to say to a man," Here is my note: if I do not pay it, you must steal the amount from the first man you come to, and give him this note in payment." He would not be governed in this matter, as Mr. Fessenden intimated he might be, "by necessity." He had taken an oath to support the Constitution, and he believed this bill violated it. He "would not overthrow the Constitution in the Senate Chamber while the rebels are endeavoring to overthrow it by war."