"Your obedient servant,
"Peter Cooper."
I made the following reply:
"Dear Sir:—Your letter of the 18th inst. is received. The questions you ask me have been, in the main, answered to the committees of the two Houses, and I might, perhaps, best reply to your letter by sending these documents, printed by the order of the respective Houses; but my sincere respect for you, and desire to allay any doubts you may entertain of the success of the present plan of resumption, induce me to answer your letter as fully as my time will allow.
"As to your first question:
'Can you resume in the presence of $645,000,000 of legal tender and bank notes, with what gold and silver you may have at your command, without an actual shrinkage of this currency, either on the part of the government or of the banks?'
"You must bear in mind that the aggregate amount of legal tender notes and bank notes stated by you, may be gradually diminished, so far as the legal tenders are concerned, to $300,000,000, and by the banks to such sum as they find can be maintained at par with United States notes. But, assuming that the aggregate should be about the present amount, and remembering always that the bank notes can be redeemed in legal tender notes, and are not required to be redeemed in coin, I do express the opinion that resumption in a country like ours can be maintained in the presence of the existing volume of circulation; but if this should prove to be too great, the reduction will be gradually of the bank notes, or, if Congress so direct, of the legal tender notes.
"As to your second question:
'Can resumption be maintained after the law has placed a premium on coin and virtually demonetized the paper, by rendering its convertibility compulsory? In other words, can the par value of paper and coin be taken as an index that after the law has thrown its whole weight in favor of coin, by making paper convertible, the present equilibrium between the two can still be maintained?'
"I respectfully deny that the law places a premium on coin. One- half of this circulation is not redeemable in coin at all, but in legal tenders; nor does the law fix a premium on coin as against legal tenders, but simply requires an equality. Its convertibility is not compulsory. It is upon the demand of the holder. The holder is as likely to deposit the coin, if he has it, as to deposit the notes for coin. The currency would rest upon the presumption that all paper money rests upon, that its use and convenience and convertibility will always keep it at par with coin.
"To your third question: