"The provision making United States notes a legal tender has doubtless been well considered by the committee, and their conclusion needs no support from any observation of mine. I think it my duty, however, to say, that in respect to this provision my reflections have conducted me to the same conclusion they have reached. It is not unknown to them that I have felt, nor do I wish to conceal that I now feel, a great aversion to making anything but coin a legal tender in payment of debts. I has been my anxious wish to avoid the necessity of such legislation. It is, however, at present impossible, in consequence of the large expenditures entailed by the war, and the suspension of the banks, to procure sufficient coin for disbursements; and it has, therefore, become indispensably necessary that we should resort to the issue of United States notes. . . . Such discrimination should, if possible, be prevented; and the provision making the notes legal tender, in a great measure at least, prevents it, by putting all citizens, in this respect, on the same level, both of rights and duties."
On the 3rd of February the secretary wrote to Mr. Spaulding as follows:
"Mr. Seward said to me on yesterday that you observed to him that my hesitation in coming up to the legal tender proposition embarrassed you, and I am very sorry to observe it, for my anxious wish is to support you in all respects.
"It is true that I came with reluctance to the conclusion that the legal tender clause is a necessity, but I came to it decidedly, and I support it earnestly. I do not hesitate when I have made up my mind, however much regret I may feel over the necessity of the conclusion to which I come."
On the 5th of February the secretary became more urgent, and wrote to Mr. Spaulding the following brief note:
"My Dear Sir:—I make the above extract from a letter received from the collector of New York this morning. It is very important the bill should go through to-day, and through the Senate this week. The public exigencies do not admit of delay.
"Yours truly,
"S. P. Chase.
"Hon. E. G. Spaulding."
It will thus be perceived that, whatever may have been the constitutional scruples of Secretary Chase in respect to the legal tender clause, he yielded to it under the pressure of necessity, and expressed no dissent from it until, as chief justice, his opinion was delivered in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
The bill, much modified from the original, passed the House of Representatives by the decided vote of yeas 93, nays 59. As it passed the House it contained authority to issue, on the credit of the United States, United States notes to the amount of $150,000,000, not bearing interest, payable to bearer at the treasury of the United States, at Washington or New York. It provided that $50,000,000 of said notes should be in lieu of the demand treasury notes authorized by the act of July 17, 1861, and that said demand notes should be taken up as rapidly as practicable. It provided that the treasury notes should be receivable in payment of all taxes, duties, imports, excise, debts and demands of all kinds due to the United States, and all debts and demands owing by the United States to individuals, corporations and associations within the United States, and should be lawful money and a legal tender, in payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States.
This bill came to the Senate on the 7th of February. It was followed on the same day by a letter from Secretary Chase to Mr. Fessenden, as follows: