Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Hamilton, indorsed this view, saying:
I return you the report on the mint. I concur with you that the unit must stand on both metals. (Letter to Hamilton, February, 1792.)
In his "Recherches sur l'or et sur l'argent," 1843, Léon Fanchet said:
If all the nations of Europe adopted the system of Great Britain, the price of gold would be raised beyond measure, and we should see produced in Europe a most lamentable result. The Government can not decree that legal tender shall be only gold, in place of silver, for that would be to decree a revolution, and the most dangerous of all, because it would be a revolution leading to unknown results (qui marcherait vers l'inconnu).
In a memoir read before the French Institute in 1868, M. Wolowski said:
The suppression of silver would bring on a veritable revolution. Gold would augment in value with a rapid and constant progress, which would break the faith of contracts and aggravate the situation of all debtors, including the nation. It would add at one stroke of the pen at least three milliards to the twelve milliards of the public debt.
In a debate in the French Senate on January 28, 1870, Senator Dumas eloquently pleaded for caution in dealing with a subject of such farreaching importance as the demonetization of one of the money metals. He said:
Those who approach these questions for the first time decide them at once. Those who study them with care hesitate. Those who are obliged practically to decide doubt and stop, overwhelmed with the weight of the enormous responsibility.
The quantities of the precious metals which are now sufficient may become insufficient, and we should proceed with great prudence before we diminish that which constitutes a part of the riches of the human race. Sometimes gold takes the place of silver. Sometimes silver takes the place of gold. This keeps up the general equilibrium. Nobody can guaranty that the present vast production of gold will continue. The placers are found on the surface of the earth, and may be exhausted by the very facility of working them. Silver presents itself in the form of subterranean veins. Science may contribute to accelerate its extraction. In presence of the unknown, which dominates the future, we should practice a prudent reserve.
Before a French monetary convention in 1869 testimony was given by M. Wolowski, by Baron Rothschild, and by M. Rouland, governor of the Bank of France.