UC-NRLF 
 
 55 
 



 PETER COOPER. 
 
 
THE POLITICAL 
 
 FINANCIAL OPINIONS 
 
 PETER COOPER 
 
 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF HIS EAELT LIFE. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 PROF. J. C. ZACHOS, 
 
 CURATOR AT THE COOPER UNION. 
 NEW YOEK. 
 
 N t w $ o r k : 
 
 TROWS PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 
 205-213 EAST TWELFTH STREET. 
 1877. 
 
a 
 
 J. C. ZACHOS, 
 1877. 
 
 TROW'S 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING C 
 
 PRINTHRS AND BOOKBINDERS, 
 
 205-213 Est i*t& ^., 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE " opinions," financial and political, formed by Mr. Peter Cooper and 
 given in the following pages, have been the result of much anxious thought, 
 reading, and reflection during the last five years, under the pressure laid on 
 every thoughtful mind and patriotic heart by the current events of the times. 
 These events, confessedly, both in politics and in finance, have been disastrous 
 and unhappy upon the interests and prosperity of the American people. Men 
 have been divided as to the true reasons of this unhappy state of facts, but 
 still all are agreed that such facts exist, and the causes of our political and 
 financial troubles should be dispassionately inquired into, and the remedies 
 should be applied speedily ; for we are fast drifting, as a nation, into an- 
 archy and ruin. The republic is in danger, and it behooves every man to be 
 at his post as a citizen and a voter. The questions involved are very simple, 
 and with a little reflection and true patriotism, the simple ideas involved in 
 the public policy of this government can be understood by every intelligent 
 voter. 
 
 Methods of administration are sometimes very difficult to determine, and 
 require large experience and great knowledge of affairs. But the principles 
 of public policy on which parties are formed, are generally very simple, and 
 can be understood by the average American mind, if men would but use their 
 own reason, and not pin their faith to party leaders whose interest it may be 
 to mislead the people. Mr. Cooper has a hearty faith in the good sense and 
 patriotism of the American people, when questions affecting the safety and 
 honor of the republic are fairly put before them. He, himself, has only a 
 common education, a common sense, and an earnest American patriotism to 
 bring to bear on these questions of public policy. He, therefore, appeals to 
 the American people from the common standpoint of thought and feeling 
 which belongs to all, and gives his views in a plain and hearty manner, 
 " with good will to all, and with malice toward none." 
 
 Above all, Mr. Cooper desires three principles of political and financial 
 prosperity to be made an essential part of the Constitution and laws of the 
 republic, in order to secure it permanence and happiness : 
 
 First, A tariff not simply for revenue, but made discriminating and helpful 
 
 ' 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 to all the industries of the country, where the raw material and the labor can 
 be furnished by our own people. 
 
 Second, A national paper currency, issued solely by the Government, and 
 made the only legal tender, receivable for all taxes and dues, and fundable 
 at any time for an equitable rate of interest, by being made interconvertible 
 with the bonds of the Government. 
 
 The volume of this currency must be determined by law, as per capita. 
 
 The value of this currency is determined by the rate of interest given by 
 the interconvertible bond, and by its indispensable use for paying all debts, 
 taxes, and dues that can be collected by law. 
 
 The convertibility of this paper currency is secured by bonds " as good as 
 gold," and by keeping its volume and its. value at that point where its unit 
 measure, or standard of value, requires it to represent a certain amount of 
 weight and fineness in gold or silver, " dollar for dollar.' 1 ' 1 In other words, we 
 want, as far as possible, an unfluctuating currency, both in volume and value ; 
 but Mr. Cooper thinks that such a currency cannot be obtained by making 
 coin the sole legal tender and money of the country, and paper merely its 
 representative. This paper can be made to represent all values directly, and 
 not circuitously, through coin, by being made to represent the highest and 
 most indispensable use of money namely, to pay taxes, dues, debts, and to 
 command interest, or secure an income. What can any " bullionist " desire of 
 good money more than this that it should be as "good as gold," and ac- 
 complish all that money is used for ? 
 
 This is what Mr. Cooper desires to accomplish for our " national currency." 
 
 Thirdly, Mr. Cooper earnestly desires a " civil service " divorced from 
 party politics, and organized for the public service, as are the departments of 
 the army or navy, purely on personal qualification and thorough fitness. The 
 offices to be held during good behavior, on moderate salaries, but pensions 
 provided for all disqualified by age or sickness, and a provision made for 
 the widows and orphans. 
 
 These are the simple principles of administration which Mr. Cooper offers 
 as his thorough and warm convictions. He hopes to make this little book one 
 of the most useful, as it may be the last of those contributions to the welfare 
 and progress of his beloved country, to which his best hopes and efforts have 
 l>een devoted through a long life of eighty-seven years. 
 
 J. 0. ZACHOS, EDITOB. 
 NEW YOBK, July 28, 1877. 
 
A SKETCH OF THE 
 
 EARLY DAYS AND BUSINESS LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 PETER COOPER. 
 
 An Autobiography. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE EARLY DAYS AND BUSINESS LIFE OP PETER COOPER. 
 
 PETER COOPER was born in the city of New York, February 12th, 
 1791. He comes from a family distinguished for their unwavering 
 devotion to the cause of American Independence. His maternal grand- 
 father, John Cambell, was Alderman of New York, and Deputy Quarter- 
 master during the war. He sacrificed a large fortune in the cause of 
 his country's freedom, and had nothing but a large quantity of " Conti- 
 nental money," as an acknowledgment. Mr. Cooper often laughs at 
 this "paper payment," but says, "it was precious stuff, after all, for it 
 was an essential means of our gaining our Independence." He thinks 
 it very unfair and illogical, however, to quote " Continental money," 
 and " French assignats," against his theory of a national paper legal ten- 
 der, for both the former were allowed to remain irredeemable and incon- 
 vertible (the land conversion being made impossible), whereas he de- 
 sires a currency which, is. both a legal tender and interconvertible into 
 Government bonds at the will of the holder. His father was lieuten- 
 ant in the patriot army, and at the close of the war returned to New- 
 York, where he engaged in business. 
 
 The early part of Mr. Cooper's life is best told in his own simple 
 and conversational language, obtained in many conversations with the 
 author, and characterized by that homely directness of statement of 
 facts, which like Defoe's " Robinson Crusoe," gives wonderful charm to 
 the life and character that pervade the facts. 
 
 HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 
 
 " My father, after the Revolutionary war, had done a successful busi- 
 ness in the manufacture of hats in the City of New York ; and when I 
 was about three years old, he, like many others, became enamoured 
 with a country life, and bought a place at Peekskill, built a store there, 
 carried on the business of a country store-keeper, and built a church. 
 He found plenty of custom all over the country that would buy on 
 credit, and it was not more than two or three years before he found 
 that nearly all of his property was in the hands of other people, and 
 
that it was impossible for him to collect it. He believed devoutly that 
 I should f come to something ; ' for he named me Peter, after the great 
 Apostle, and maintained that he was told to do so in a sort of * waking 
 vision.' My mother was an excellent woman, and did the best she 
 could with a large family, narrow circumstances, and a changing home. 
 
 " My father followed the business of a hatter, and the first I remember 
 was being utilized in this business by being set to pull the hair out of 
 rabbit skins, when my head was just above the table. I remained in this 
 business until I could make every part of a hat. My father finally sold 
 out his hatter's business to my eldest brother, by a former wife, and 
 commenced the brewing of ale in the town of Peekskill. It was my 
 business to deliver the kegs of ale to the different places in town and 
 country where it had been sold. Finding this a ' slow business ' my 
 father bought a place at Catskill, where he commenced again the hat- 
 ter's business, and also that of making bricks. I was made useful in 
 this business in carrying and handling the bricks for the drying process. 
 
 " My father at length finding that his business at Catskill did not 
 answer his expectations, sold out and removed to Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 " Here I worked again at the hatter's business with my father until 
 again he sold out and bought some property in Newburg, N. Y., on 
 which he erected a brewery. At this business I continued with my 
 father until I was seventeen. 
 
 " The only time I ever trusted to chance for any profit, was about this 
 time, when I got a very wholesome lesson. I had earned about ten 
 dollars beyond my immediate wants, which I invested, by the advice of 
 a relative, in lottery tickets, all which, fortunately for me, drew blanks. 
 This impressed upon me the folly of looking to games of chance for any 
 source of gain or livelihood. 
 
 HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 
 
 " In my seventeenth year I entered as apprentice to the coach-making 
 business. I remained in this four years, till I was of age, and had 
 thoroughly learned the business. During my apprenticeship I received 
 twenty-five dollars a year for my services ; to this sum I added some- 
 thing by working at night at coach carving, and such other work as I 
 could get. My grandmother gave me the use of a room, in one of her 
 rear buildings on Broadway, where I spent much of my time in nightly 
 work, instead of going with other apprentices who too often went with 
 loose companions and contracted habits that proved their ruin. One 
 such example impressed itself very strongly on my mind at that time. 
 
3 
 
 It was that of a young man who literally rotted and died of disease 
 before he was sixteen years of age. 
 
 "During my apprenticeship I made for my employer a machine for 
 mortising the hubs of carriages, which proved very profitable to him, 
 and was, perhaps, the first of its kind used in this country. 
 
 " When I was twenty-one years old, my employer offered to build me 
 a shop and set me up in business, but as I always had a horror of being 
 burdened with debt, and having no capital of my own, I declined his 
 kind offer. 
 
 THE MACHINE FOR SHEARING CLOTH. 
 
 " As soon as I was of age I went to the town of Hempstead, L. I., to 
 see my brother. Here I was persuaded to work for a man at the 
 making of machines for shearing cloth. I continued at this for three 
 years, for a dollar and fifty cents a day, which was regarded as very 
 large wages at that time. I saved enough at the end of my engagement 
 to buy the right of the State of New York for a machine for shearing 
 cloth, and T commenced the manufacture of these machines on my own 
 account. This business proved very successful. The first money I re- 
 ceived for the sale of my machines was from Mr. Vassar, of Pough- 
 keepsie, who afterwards founded that noble institution for female 
 education, called the Vassar College, at Poughkeepsie. My sales to 
 Mr. Vassar also included one of the patent rights for the county in 
 which he resided. This put in my possession so large an amount of 
 money according to my ideas at that time, about five hundred dollars, 
 that I was very much elated and rejoiced at what I considered my 
 great, good fortune. But my joy was soon turned to mourning. On 
 my return from Poughkeepsie I visited my father, who lived then at 
 Newburg. I found the family in the deepest affliction on account of 
 the pressure of debts which my father was unable to pay. The money 
 I had just received for my machines enabled me to pay the. most press- 
 ing of these debts, and left me barely the means to purchase materials 
 to commence the making of new machines. Besides this, I became 
 surety for my father for debts not yet matured, which I paid as they 
 fell due, and in consequence of this my father never had the mortifi- 
 cation of failing in business. The same is true in my own affairs, not- 
 withstanding some public statements made to the contrary by persons 
 ignorant of the facts. 
 
 " So far from ever hr.vinsj failed in business, I do not remember the 
 week or month when every man who has ever worked for me did not 
 get his pay when it was due. This is strictly true, through a business 
 
life of more than sixty years, in which I have had at times, as many as 
 twenty-five hundred people in my employment. 
 
 . " The coach-making business,! never followed after serving out my 
 apprenticeship. But soon after I commenced the manufacture of 
 machines for shearing cloth, I made an improvement that enabled me 
 to sell these machines as fast as I could make them. At this time they 
 were in great demand, in consequence of the war of 1812 with Eng- 
 land, which stopped our commerce with that country. At the close of 
 the war, however, this business lost its value, and I gave it up. 
 
 <{ It is worth while to mention here that the principle and method of 
 my machine for shearing cloth was precisely the one now used so largely 
 in mowing and reaping machines ; and this was so obvious that a gentle- 
 man seeing my machine at work suggested that a similar machine might 
 be made for mowing grass, and asked me to make for him a model for 
 this purpose. This was operated for the purpose of cutting the grass 
 in his yard, and proved entirely successful, long before any machine 
 for mowing had been invented or patented by others. 
 
 COMMENCES MERCANTILE BUSINESS. 
 
 " After some three years' continuance in this business of manufacture, 
 I bought a twenty-years' lease of two houses and six lots of ground 
 where the * Bible House ' now stands, opposite the Cooper Union. 
 On this ground I erected four wooden dwelling-houses. I was engaged 
 at this time in the grocery business, in which I continued for three 
 years. 
 
 " Soon after this, I purchased a glue factory, with all its stock and 
 buildings, on a lease of twenty-one years, for three acres of ground, on 
 what was then known as the " old middle road," between Thirty-first 
 and Thirty-fourth streets. Here I continued to manufacture glue, oil, 
 whiting, prepared chalk, and isinglass to the end of my lease. I then 
 bought ten acres of ground on Maspeth avenue, Brooklyn, where the 
 business has continued to the present time. 
 
 " What I made by building machines and in the grocery business had 
 enabled me to pay for the glue factory on the day of the purchase. 
 
 THE BALTIMORE RAILROAD AND THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE IN THE COUNTRY. 
 
 M In 1828 I purchased three thousand acres of land within the city 
 
limits of Baltimore for one hundred and five thousand dollars ($105,000). 
 On a part of that property, I erected the Canton Iron Works, which, 
 afterwards, 1 sold to Mr. Abott, of Baltimore. I was drawn into this 
 speculation in Baltimore, by two men who represented that they had 
 large means, and we bought together three thousand acres of land in 
 the city of Baltimore for one hundred and five thousand dollars 
 ($105,000), taking the whole shore from Fell's Point dock for three 
 miles. After paying my part of the money, T soon found that I had 
 paid all that had been paid upon the property, and that I was even 
 paying the board of the two men who had agreed to take part in the 
 purchase. Finding that to be the situation, I was compelled to say 
 to them that they must pay their part or sell out, or buy me out. 
 Neither of them having the ability to buy, I finally succeeded in get- 
 ting them to state a price ; one offered to go out for ten thousand dollars 
 ($10,000), the other for a smaller sum; which offers I accepted and 
 bought them out. 
 
 " When we first purchased the property it was in the midst of a great 
 excitement created by a promise of the rapid completion of the Baltimore 
 and Ohio Railroad, which had been commenced by a subscription of five 
 dollars per share. In the course of the first year's operations they had 
 spent more than the five dollars per share. But the road had to make so 
 many short turns in going around points of rocks that they found they 
 could not complete the road without a much larger sum than they had 
 supposed would be necessary ; while the many short turns in the road 
 seemed to render it entirely useless for locomotive purposes. The prin- 
 cipal stockholders had become so discouraged that they said, they would 
 not pay any more, and would lose all they had already paid in. After 
 conversing with them, I told them that if they would hold on a little 
 while, I would put a small locomotive on the road, which I thought 
 would demonstrate the practicability of using steam-engines on the 
 road, even with all the short turns in it. I got up a small engine for 
 that purpose, and put it on the road, and invited the stockholders to 
 witness the experiment. After a great deal of trouble and difficulty 
 in accomplishing the work, the stockholders came, and thirty-six men 
 were taken into a car, and, with six men on the locomotive, which 
 carried its own fuel and water, and having to go up hill eighteen feet 
 to a mile, and turn all the short turns around the points of rocks, we 
 succeeded in making the thirteen miles, on the first passage out, in one 
 hour and twelve minutes; and we returned from Ellicott's Mills to 
 Baltimore in fifty-seven minutes. 
 
6 
 
 " This locomotive was built to demonstrate that cars could be drawn 
 around short curves, beyond anything believed in at that time to be 
 possible. The success of this locomotive also answered the question of 
 the possibility of building railroads in a country scarce of capital, and 
 with immense stretches of very rough country to pass, in order to 
 connect commercial centres, without the deep cuts, the tunnelling, and 
 levelling which short curves might avoid. My contrivance saved this 
 road from bankruptcy. 
 
 THE IRON WORKS. 
 
 " The discouragement and stoppage of progress in improvement in the 
 city of Baltimore that had been occasioned by the state of things in the 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made it difficult to do anything with the 
 property before mentioned but to keep it ; and in order to make it pay 
 something towards meeting the cost, taxes, etc., I determined to build 
 iron works upon it. I had four or five hundred tons of iron ore raised, 
 dug, etc., at Lazaretto Point, and I determined to cut the wood off of 
 the property, which was being stolen in every direction, and to burn it 
 into charcoal, and use it up in making charcoal iron. For which purpose 
 I built a rolling-mill, which I afterwards sold to Mr. Abbot. In my 
 efforts to make iron, I had to commence to burn the wood into char- 
 coal, and in order to do that, I erected large kilns, twenty-five feet in 
 diameter, twelve feet high, circular in form, hooped around with iron 
 at the top, arched over so as to make a tight place in which to put the 
 wood, with single bricks left out in different places in order to smother 
 the fire out when the wood was sufficiently burned. 
 
 A NARROW ESCAPE. 
 
 "After having burned the coal in one of these kilns very perfectly, and 
 believing the fire entirely smothered out, we attempted to take the coal 
 out of the kiln ; but when we had got it about half-way out, the coal 
 itself took fire, and the men, after carrying water for some time to ex- 
 tinguish it, gave up in despair. I then went myself to the door of the 
 kiln to see if anything more could be done, and just as I entered the 
 door the gas itself took fire, and enveloped me in a sheet of flame. 
 
 " I had to run some ten feet to get out, and in doing so my eyebrows 
 and whiskers were burned, and my fur hat was scorched down to the 
 body of the fur. How I escaped I know not. I seemed to be literally 
 blown out by the explosion, and I narrowly escaped with my life. 
 
FIRST GREAT SUCCESSFUL OPERATION. 
 
 " After seeing the difficulties that attended the making of iron there, 
 I determined, having so large a property on my hands, to sell it for 
 what I could get, and at the first ofler made. I succeeded in getting 
 an offer of nearly what it had cost rne from two men from Boston, Amos 
 Binney and Edmund Monroe. They formed out of the property what 
 is now known as the Canton Co. I took a considerable portion of 
 my pay in stock, at forty-four dollars the share par value one hun- 
 dred dollars. I reserved the iron works sold to Mr. Abbot ; and, 
 as good luck would have it, the stock commenced rising almost at once, 
 as soon as it was put into form, and continued to go up in the market 
 until it attained the enormous figure of two hundred and thirty dollars 
 per share. This enabled me to sell out my stock to a very great ad- 
 vantage, so that I made money by the operation. 
 
 " I then returned to my old business in New York, and after one or 
 two years, built the iron factory in Thirty-third street near Third avenue. 
 I leased it to a man who had it for one or two years and failed, and I 
 had to take it off his hands. I turned it into a rolling mill for rolling 
 iron and making wire, and ran it for some years. 
 
 " I then removed it to Trenton, N. J., where T bought water power to 
 carry the works on, and enlarged the works by building a mill and a 
 wire factory. A few years later I built three large blast furnaces at 
 Phillipsburg, the largest then known, near Easton, Penn.; bought the 
 Andover mines, and built a railroad through a rough country for eight 
 miles, to bring the ore down to the furnaces, at the rate of 40,000 tons 
 a year. After running the works for several years I was induced to 
 form them into a company called the Trenton Iron Works, including 
 the rolling-mills and the blast furnaces, and 11,000 acres known as 
 the Bingwood property. I had built a second rolling-mill and wire 
 factory in Trenton, which was also included in the company. I sold 
 one half of these works in the formation of the company. This con- 
 tinued for a number of years, when a division was made, and the com- 
 pany took one part of the property, the blast furnaces, and I took the 
 rolling-mills and the Bingwood property. This property is still in the 
 family. 
 
 " During all this time I had continued the manufacture of glue, isin- 
 glass, oil, prepared chalk, Paris white, and also the grinding of white 
 lead, and fulling of buckskins, for the manufacture of buckskin leather. 
 
 " It was in one of those mills above mentioned, that the first iron 
 
8 
 
 beams were rolled, now so much used in fire-proof buildings . In plan- 
 ning the building of the Cooper Union I desired to make it fire-proof 
 as far as possible, and found no such iron beams could be obtained. I 
 determined to have them rolled at one of my mills ; but found, in 
 the end, that the necessary experiments and suitable machinery had 
 cost me seventy-five thousand dollars. It has proved, however, a 
 profitable business since." 
 
 THE LAYING OP THE OCEAN CABLE. 
 
 A very interesting episode in Mr. Cooper's life was the interest he 
 took, and the personal efforts he made in behalf of that most important 
 and difficult of modern enterprises, the laying of an ocean cable. 
 
 It is not too much to say, that to the perseverance, energy, and un- 
 conquerable faith of Mr. Cooper and two or three others, whom he men- 
 tions, we owe that great gift to modern progress and civilization. 
 
 I have often heard the narrative from his lips, and give it very much 
 in his own words : 
 
 " It is now twenty years since I became the President of the North 
 American Telegraph Company, when it controlled more than one-half 
 of all the lines then in the country ; also President of the New York, 
 Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company. 
 
 " An attempt had been made to put a line of telegraph across New- 
 foundland, on which some work had been done. Cyrus W. Field, 
 Moses Taylor, Marshal O. Roberts, Wilson. G. Hunt, and myself com- 
 pleted that work across the island of Newfoundland, and then laid a cable 
 across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, intending it as the beginning of a line 
 from Europe to America by telegraphic communication. After one form 
 of diffi ulty after another had been surmounted, we found that more than 
 ten years had passed before we got a cent in return, and we had been 
 spending money the whole time. We lost the first cable laid, which cost 
 some three or four hundred thousand dollars, at the Gulf of St. Law- 
 rence, which loss was occasioned by the seeming determination of the 
 'captain of the ship that towed our vessel across the Gulf to have his own 
 way, in opposition to the directions of Mr. Buchanan, who directed him 
 to keep a certain flag in sight as far as he could see it, in connection 
 with a certain mark on the top of a mountain, which was visible nearly 
 half way across the Gulf. 
 
 " We had hired a vessel at seven hundred and fifty dollars a day, and 
 we directed the steamer Adger to go to Cape Ray, and tow the vessel 
 across the Gulf, in order to lay the cable. We went to Port Basque, 
 and found the vessel had not arrived. We accordingly anchored in 
 
9 
 
 Port Basque until she did arrive, which was two days later. On her 
 arrival, the captain was directed to take our vessel in tow, and carry 
 her up to Cape Ray, where we had already prepared a telegraph house, 
 from which to commence laying the cable. On this telegraph house we 
 placed a flag-staff, which was to be kept in line by the steamer, as she 
 crossed the Gulf, with a certain very excellent landmark on the top of 
 a mountain some three, four, or five miles distant a landmark which 
 seemed to be made on purpose for our use. 
 
 " We had an accident at starting. We joined the ends of the cable 
 and brought one end into the telegraph house, and made everything 
 ready to take the vessel in tow. The captain was then directed to 
 bring his steamer in line, take the vessel in tow, and carry her across 
 the Gulf. In doing that he ran his steamer into the vessel, carried 
 away her shrouds and quarter-rail, and almost ruined our enterprise 
 the first thing, dragging the cable over the stern of the vessel with Such 
 force as to break the connection ; and we were obliged to cut the cable 
 and splice it again. The captain of the steamer had failed entirely in 
 trying to get hold of the vessel ; and after we had mended the cable, 
 and got everything ready for a second attempt, he was again ordered to 
 take the vessel in tow. We had provided ourselves with two large 
 cables, two hundred feet long and four inches in diameter, as tow-lines, 
 so as to be sure of having sufficient strength to tow the vessel in all 
 kinds of weather; but the captain of the steamer so managed matters, 
 in his second attempt to take the vessel in tow, as to get this cable en- 
 tangled in the steamer's wheel, and he hallooed to the captain of the 
 vessel to let his cable slip, in order to get this unentangled. At this, the 
 captain of the vessel let go his cable and lost his anchor and one of 
 our big cables, for we had to cut it, in order to disentangle it from the 
 wheel. After that was got loose there was the vessel without an anchor, 
 and she was going rapidly down upon a reef of rocks, with a strong wind 
 against her. It was only with the greatest difficulty that we could get 
 the captain of the Adger to go to her relief, and save her from being 
 dashed on the rocks, with her forty men on board. We had to expos- 
 tulate with the captain of the steamer until the vessel was within two 
 or three hundred feet of the rocks, before he would consent to attempt 
 her rescue ; and by the merest good luck, we got out a rope to her and 
 saved her from going on the rocks, when she was so close to the shore 
 that we could almost have thrown a line there. 
 
 " The captain of the steamer, however, got hold of the vessel at last, 
 and brought her back to her place in the harbor, where we had to re- 
 new the connection of our cable, and prepare again to start. 
 
10 
 
 14 The third attempt to take hold of the vessel was successful, and on a 
 beautiful morning we started to lay the cable across the Gulf. 
 
 " In a very little while I discovered that we were getting out of line 
 with the marks that the captain had been directed to steer by. A a 
 President of the line, I called the matter to the attention of the captain. 
 The answer I got was : * I know how to steer my ship ; I steer by my 
 compass.' It went on a little while longer, and finding that he was 
 still going farther out of the line, I called his attention to the fact 
 again, and so on, again and again, for some time, until he had got some 
 eight or ten miles out of the line. I then said to him, * Captain, 
 we shall have to hold you responsible for the loss of this cable ! ' We 
 got a lawyer on board to draw up a paper to present to him, stating 
 that we should hold him responsible for the loss of the cable, as he had 
 not obeyed the orders of Mr. Buchanan, as agreed on. After we had 
 served this paper upon him, he turned the course of his ship, and went 
 just as far from the line in the other direction. He had also agreed 
 not to let his vessel go more than a mile and a half an hour, as it was 
 impossible, under the circumstances, to pay out the cable faster than a 
 mile and a half an hour. It was discovered, however, that he was run- 
 ning his vessel faster and faster, while Mr. Buchanan hallooed, 
 ' Slower ! slower ! ' until finally the captain got a kink in the cable, 
 and was obliged to stop. This happened several times. 
 
 " So much delay took place that when it was late in the afternoon, we 
 had not laid over forty miles of the cable out of the eighty miles that 
 we had to go in crossing the Gulf. Then a very severe gale came up, 
 and raged with such violence that the steamer Victoria, which was a 
 small one, came near being swamped ; and in order to save that vessel, 
 and the forty men on board of her, we were compelled to cut the cable. 
 
 " Subsequently, we sent a vessel to take up that part of the cable ; 
 and it was then found that we had payed out twenty- four miles of cable, 
 and had gone only nine miles from shore ! We had spent so much 
 money, and lost so much time, that it was very vexatious to us to have 
 our enterprise defeated in the way it was, by the stupidity and obsti- 
 nacy of one man. This man was one of the rebels that fired the first 
 guns upon Fort Su niter. The poor fellow is now dead. 
 
 " Having lost this cable, we ordered another, and had it ready in a 
 year or two. This time sve had a good man to put it down, and we 
 had no trouble with it. 
 
 " The great question then came up : What could we do about an ocean 
 cable? After getting a few subscriptions here, which did not amount 
 to much, we sent Mr. Field across the ocean, to see if he could get the 
 
11 
 
 balance of the subscriptions in England; and he succeeded, to the 
 astonishment of almost everybody, because we had been set down as 
 crazy people, spending our money as if it had been water. Mr. Field 
 succeeded in getting, the amount wanted, and in contracting for a cable. 
 It was put on two ships which were to meet in mid-ocean. They did 
 meet, joined the two ends of the cable, and laid it down successfully. 
 We brought our end to Newfoundland, where we received over it some 
 four hundred messages. Very soon after it started, however, we found 
 it began to fail, and it grew weaker and weaker, until at length it could 
 not be understood any more. 
 
 t( It so happened that the few messages that we received over the cable 
 were important to the English Government, for it had arranged to trans- 
 port a large number of soldiers from Canada to China, in the war with 
 the Chinese, and just before the transports were to make sail a telegram 
 came stating that peace was declared. This inspired the people of 
 England with confidence in our final success. This occurred just before 
 the Crystal Palace burned down, and we had a meeting in the Crystal 
 Palace to celebrate the great triumph of having received and sent 
 messages across the ocean. Our triumph was short-lived, for it was 
 only a few days after that the cable had so weakened in transmitting 
 that it could no longer be understood. 
 
 " One-half the people did not now believe that we had ever had any 
 messages across the cable. It was all a humbug, they thought. In the 
 Chamber of Commerce the question came up about a telegraph line, and 
 a man got up and said : * It is all a humbug ! No message ever came 
 over ! ' At that, Mr. Cunard arose, and said that * the gentleman did 
 not know what he was talking about, and had no right to say what he 
 had, and that he himself had sent messages and got the answers.' 
 
 " Mr. Cunard was a positive witness ; he had been on the spot ; and 
 the man must have felt * slim ' at the result of his attempt to cast 
 ridicule on men whose efforts, if unsuccessful, were at least not un- 
 worthy of praise. 
 
 " We succeeded in getting another cable, but when we had got it about 
 half-way over, we lost that as well. Then the question seemed hope- 
 less. We thought for a long time that our money was all lost. The 
 matter rested, some two years before anything more was done. My 
 friend Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, used to talk to me often about it ; for we 
 had brought him into the Board some two or three years before. He 
 said he did not feel much interest in it, but he felt concerned about 
 spending so much money ; and he remarked that he was not sure, as 
 we had spent so much money already about the telegraph line, but that 
 
12 
 
 we had better spend a little more. So we sent Mr. Field out again. 
 We had spent so much money already, it was * like pulling teeth' out of 
 Roberts and Taylor to get more money from them ; but we got up the 
 sum necessary to send Mr. Field out. 
 
 " When he arrived there, Mr. Field said they laughed at him for 
 thinking of getting up another cable. They said that they thought the 
 thing was dead enough, and buried deep enough in the ocean to satisfy 
 anybody. But Mr. Field was not satisfied. Finally he got hold 
 of an old Quaker friend, who was a very rich man, and he so com- 
 pletely electrified him with the idea of the work, that he put three or 
 four hundred thousand dollars into it immediately to lay another cable, 
 and in fourteen days after Mr. Field had got that man's name, he had 
 the whole amount of subscriptions" made up, six millions of dollars. 
 
 4< The cable was made and put clown, and it worked successfully. We 
 then went out to see if we could not pick up the other one. The 
 balance of the lost cable was on board the ship. The cable was found, 
 picked up, and joined to the rest and this wonder of the world was 
 accomplished. I do not think that feat is surpassed by any other 
 human achievement. The cable was taken out of water, two and a half 
 miles deep, in mid-ocean. It was pulled up three times, before it was 
 saved. They got it up just far enough to see it, and it would go down 
 again, and they would have to do the work over again. They used up 
 all their coal, and spent ten or twelve days in ' hooking ' for the cable 
 before it was finally caught. But they succeeded ; the two ends of 
 the cable were brought in connection, and then we had two complete 
 cables across the ocean. 
 
 " In taking up the first cable the cause of the failure was discovered. 
 It originated in the manufacture of the cable. In passing the cable 
 into the vat provided for it, where it was intended to lie under water 
 all the time, until put aboard the ship, the workmen neglected to keep 
 the water at all times over the cable j and on one occasion, when the 
 sun shone very hotly down into this vat where the cable was lying un- 
 covered, its rays melted the gutta percha, so that the copper wire 
 inside, sunk down against the outer covering. I have a piece of the 
 cable which shows just how it occurred. The first cable that was laid 
 would have been a perfect success, if it had not been for that error in 
 manufacturing it. The copper wire sagged down against the outside 
 covering, and there was just a thin layer of gutta percha to prevent it 
 from coming in contact with the water. In building the first cables 
 their philosophy was not so well understood as it is now ; and so, when 
 the cable began to fail, they increased the power of the battery ; and it 
 
13 
 
 is supposed that a spark of the electricity came in contact with water, 
 and the electricity passed off into the water. 
 
 "After the two ocean cables had been laid successfully, it was found 
 necessary to have a second cable across tlje Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
 Our delays had been so trying and unfortunate in the past, that none 
 of the stockholders, with the exception of Mr. Field, Mr. Taylor, Mr. 
 Roberts, and myself, would take any interest in the matter. We had 
 to get the money by offering bonds, which we had power to do by 
 charter ; and these were offered at fifty cents on the dollar. Mr. Field, 
 Mr. Roberts, Mr. Taylor, and myself were compelled to take up the 
 principal part of the stock at that rate, in order to get the necessary 
 funds. We had to do the business through the Bank of Newfoundland, 
 and the bank would not trust the company, but drew personally on me. 
 I told them to draw on the company, but they continued to draw on 
 me, and I had to pay the drafts or let them go back protested. I was 
 often out ten or twenty thousand dollars in advance, in that way, to 
 keep the thing going. After the cable became a success, the stock rose 
 to ninety dollars per share, at which figure we sold out to an English 
 company. That proved to be the means of saving us from loss. The 
 work was finished at last, and I never have regretted it, although it was 
 a terrible time to go through. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE INVENTIVE LIFE AND ENTERPRISES OF MR, COOPER. 
 
 MR. COOPER'S mind is not one of great invention, but a mind of great 
 contrivance. He lacks the elementary training in the principles of me- 
 chanics and constructive drawing, which accurately guide the mind 
 through the labyrinths of great inventions, and lead it safely to the 
 end. In truth, most inventions, so called, are mere contrivances for 
 the improved application of old inventions. . 
 
 Mr. Cooper's sound good sense and practical knowledge have always 
 directed his invention to some immediate useful result connected with 
 his own private business, or some object of public interest. But, on 
 the whole, he has met with more than the average degree of success of 
 " those who make many inventions." 
 
 As this is a sort of (l autobiography written by another," we will 
 give a brief account of some of these inventions and contrivances of 
 Mr. Cooper, as obtained from him in conversation. They certainly 
 exhibit a thoroughly American mind, full of expedients and inventive 
 resources for making the most of what God and nature put into his 
 hands. Some of Mr. Cooper's important inventions have already been 
 mentioned as part of his business life. 
 
 Mr. Cooper says : " I very early took to making and contriving for 
 myself or friends. I remember one of the earliest things I undertook, 
 of my own accord, was to make a pair of shoes. For this purpose I 
 first obtained an old pair, and took them all apart to see the structure ; 
 and then, procuring leather, thread, needles, and some suitable tools, 
 without further instruction, I made the last and a pair of shoes, which 
 compared very well with the country shoes then in vogue." 
 
 " When I was an apprentice to the business of carriage-making, I 
 spent all my spare time in ornamental carving in an upper room which 
 rr y grandmother gave me for this purpose, on Broadway. This was 
 my occupation, instead of walking the streets or going to places of pub- 
 lic resort, as other apprentices of my age. I made for my 'employer at 
 that time, a machine for mortising the hubs of wheels, which proved 
 very profitable to him, and induced him afterwards to offer to set me 
 up in the business of carriage-making. 
 
15 
 
 THE TIDE-WATER USED AS A POWER. 
 
 u When I was an apprentice at the coach-making business I planned 
 out and made at night a model machine to show how power could 
 be obtained from the natural current of the tide, and be applied to 
 various useful purposes. My model represented a plan for causing the 
 water-wheel to rise and fall with the tide, at any desired speed, by the 
 action of its own machinery. It was so arranged that the whole power 
 could be thrown on a saw-mill or be made to force compressed air into 
 a reservoir, to be used as a motive power to propel ferry-boats across 
 the river. This was to be done by making the hull of a ferry-boat to 
 consist of two strong iron cylinders, to form the buoyancy of the boat, 
 and a reservoir of power to- drive a boat across the river. On these 
 cylinders, I placed, at a sufficient distance apart to receive the water or 
 driving-wheel, either between the cylinders or on the outside, as might 
 be thought most convenient, the deck to rest on and be fastened to 
 these cylinders or reservoirs for power. 
 
 (( The power was to be received from a reservoir of compressed air on 
 the dock, by connecting the hull of the boat with the reservoir by means 
 of a flexible tube, when in the dock, at every trip. The air to be worked 
 off by its expansion and pressure, similar to the working of a steam- 
 engine. 
 
 " The wreck of the old tide-mill is still in the garret of my house. 
 
 " I remember that Fulton did me the honor to come and see my model 
 and machinery, but he was too much occupied at that time with his own 
 plans of steamboat navigation, to pay much attention to my invention." 
 
 ROTARY MOTION OBTAINED FROM; RECTILINEAR ALTERNATING MOTION, 
 WITHOUT A CRANK. 
 
 "I had read from the books, or heard said, that there was no loss of 
 power communicated through a crank, except from friction. I doubted 
 this. There are two * dead points ' in the crank motion, which nothing 
 but the inertia of a fly-wheel or something equivalent, pan overcome. I 
 made an experiment to show that the rectilinear motion of a piston-rod 
 could produce the rotary motion of an axle with less loss of power 
 than through a crank. 
 
 " By special contrivance, I made my piston-rod a part of the circuit of 
 an endless chain, which went around the circumference of a driving- 
 wheel, and communicated power without any crank. It would *be 
 difficult to describe this machine without drawings, but the result was 
 
16 
 
 that I proved to the satisfaction of the City Engineer, against his former 
 convictions, that there was a loss of power in the use of the crank, and 
 I gained, with my application of the reciprocal and rectilinear motion of 
 the piston-rod, a power which was as five to eight over the crank. 
 
 " I made a small engine on this principle, and used it in the { first 
 locomotive,' which I have spoken of before, on the Ohio and Baltimore 
 Railroad, making a trial trip with the President alone. But before I 
 came to try it with the train of cars, it was so unskilfully handled by 
 some meddlesome person that it broke twice, and I was obliged, at last, 
 in that experiment, to put a cross-head and crank on the engine. I have 
 the remains of that first model of the engine in my garret yet." 
 
 A METHOD OF PROPULSION ON THE ERIE CANAL. 
 
 Mr. Cooper said : " Fifty-three years ago, a year before the water was 
 let into the Erie canal, it occurred to me that canal-boats might be pro- 
 pelled by the force of water drawn from a higher level, and made to 
 move a series of endless chains along the course of the canal. So I began 
 to make experiments. I built a flat-bottomed scow, took a couple of 
 men, and choosing that part of the East River that lies between what 'is 
 now the foot of Eighth street and where Bellevue Hospital now stands 
 a distance of one mile I drove posts into the mud, one hundred feet 
 apart. On these posts I fastened rollers made of block tin and zinc, on 
 which my endless chain could run. There were two rollers on each post, 
 one above the other, so that the chain could run up on one roller and 
 back on the other. Then I made two miles of chain. Here is a piece 
 of it now." 
 
 The old gentleman took from the drawer three or four links of the 
 chain, rusty with age. They were of large iron wire, each link about 
 five inches long, rudely twisted together, something like a surveyor's 
 chain. 
 
 " This chain is of four-horse power," continued Mr. Cooper. " I tested 
 it. I then arranged a water-wheel to run the chain. This preparation 
 took a deal of time, for I did most of the work myself. When it was 
 completed, I took a small skiff, fastened my tow line to the chain, started 
 my wheel, and found that the experiment was a success. I invited Gov. 
 Clinton and a few other gentlemen to make a trip. We ran the two 
 miles, up and back, in eleven minutes. The Governor was so well 
 pleased tha't he paid me eight hundred dollars for the privilege of pur- 
 chasing the patent right for the use of the canal. 
 
 " It was never used on the canal, and for this reason : Gov. Clinton 
 
17 
 
 had great difficulty in getting the farmers on the line of the canal to 
 give him the right of way, and in order to induce them to grant it had 
 held out to them the great advantages that would arise to them of sell- 
 ing their oats, corn, hay, and other produce to the canal men for the 
 use of the horses. If the endless chain was used, these promises would 
 be good for nothing, as there would be no horses to feed. So Gov. Clin- 
 ton gave up my scheme. I ran the chain on the river for ten days, 
 during which time hundreds of people made the trip. At the end of 
 that time I took the chain off the river. Well, the matter stood still 
 until a few years ago Mr. Weltch, the President of the Camden and 
 Amboy Canal Company, hit upon the endless chain plan for getting his 
 boats through the locks. He tried it, and it worked well. So he went 
 to Washington to take out a patent, and found on searching the records 
 that I had taken out a patent on the very same invention, fifty years 
 before. Of course my patent had run out, so the invention was free to 
 all." 
 
 MECHANICAL TRANSPORTATION BY THE FORCE OF GRAVITY. 
 
 Mr. Cooper has often resorted to his contrivance in saving the 
 expense of labor, when labor was both scarce and dear. Two instances 
 of his ingenuity are thus related by himself : 
 
 " It is about twelve years since I made an endless band of round iron, 
 near three-eighths of an inch in diameter, extending in the form of a 
 belt for about three miles, for the purpose of transporting coal from the 
 mines to my furnaces. This belt of iron was supported on wheels 
 fastened to posts, the wheels having grooved surfaces to support the 
 belt. On this belt I fastened buckets formed to receive iron ore. 
 These buckets, when filled with ore, were on a descending grade suffi- 
 cient to carry the ore down and return the empty buckets. 
 
 " During the time I owned the Canton property, I made a belt of cars 
 which I placed on a double track railroad. One track was held right 
 over the other in a frame for the purpose. The belt of cars was placed 
 on a double track railroad in this framework, and was intended to 
 transport by its own weight, a sand-bank into Harris Creek bottom, 
 which I desired then to fill up. The framework with its rails and belt 
 of cars, was placed on longitudinal sleepers, so as to be moved up to the 
 side of the bank, as the sand was being removed. The sand could be 
 carelessly thrown into a long hopper, over the cars, on the upper track. 
 The cars, after dumping their load at the lower end, returned on tha 
 lower tra.ck, bottom upwards, to be constantly refilled." 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE TORPEDO VESSEL FOR THE GREEKS. 
 
 The only " bloody-minded thing " that Mr. Cooper ever made was a 
 torpedo-boat, designed to blow the Turks out of water, for their 
 inhuman cruelties to the Greeks, in the struggle to regain their free- 
 dom. This was about 1824 or 1825. 
 
 Mr. Cooper relates, with some mirthfulness, how he was " perfectly 
 indignant" at the conduct of the Turks, and had his " sympathies, in 
 common with many of his fellow-citizens, greatly excited in behalf of 
 the struggling Greeks ; " so he determined to take up their cause in a 
 very destructive way. " I planned a torpedo-boat, which might be 
 sent from shore, or from a vessel towards an enemy's ship six or eight 
 miles off. The torpedo-boat was to be propelled by a screw and a 
 steam-engine, and guided and directed towards its object by a couple of 
 steel wires six or eight miles long, unwound from a suitable reel, and 
 adjusted to the steering apparatus of the boat. I tried these wires first 
 on a small steamer that I directed in the Harbor, near the Narrows, 
 and they worked very well for six miles, until another boat came across 
 my wires and broke them. When ready for service, I designed to 
 place red-hot cannon balls in the boiler of my engine, to furnish the 
 steam. The torpedo being placed on a bent piece of iron projecting far 
 from the bow of my boat, when it struck the enemy the shock would 
 explode the torpedo and bend the piece of iron, and by a proper contri- 
 vance reverse the action of the engine, and send the boat back again, 
 guided and directed by the wires. I was preparing this torpedo-boat 
 to go with the ship which our citizens were about to send, with provi- 
 sions, clothing, and medicines, to the unfortunate victims of the Turk- 
 ish war, and I designed it to be the " bitterest pill " in the whole cargo ; 
 but unfortunately, 1 did not get it ready in time, arid it was soon after 
 burned up in my factory, with all the rest of the contents." 
 
 THE MUSICAL, MECHANICAL ROCKING-CRADLE. 
 
 Mr. Cooper was always very kind and indulgent in his domestic 
 relations, and delighted in the society of his wife and children. He 
 says, " In early life, when I was first married, I found it necessary to 
 ' rock the cradle,' while my wife prepared our frugal meals. This was 
 not always convenient, in my busy life, and I conceived the idea of 
 making a cradle that would be made to rock by a mechanism. I did 
 BO, and enlarging upon niy first idea, I arranged the mechanism for 
 keeping off the flies, and playing a music-box for the amusement of the 
 
19 
 
 baby ! This cradle was bought of me afterwards, by a delighted pedlar, 
 who gave me his ' whole stock in trade ' for the exchange and the privi- 
 lege of selling the patent in the State of Connecticut." 
 
 MB. COOPER'S WIFE AND FAMILY. 
 
 Here we will say a few words with regard to Mr. Cooper's wife and 
 family relations. 
 
 Mr. Cooper married Miss Sarah Bedel, of Hempstead, Long Island, 
 in December, 1813, being then twenty-two years old, and his wife in her 
 twenty-first year. They had six children, four of whom died in 
 childhood. The two children surviving are Edward Cooper, of the firm 
 of Cooper & Hewitt, merchants in New York city ; and Mrs. Sarah 
 Amelia Hewitt, wife of the Hon. A. S. Hewitt, Member of Congress. 
 
 Mrs. Cooper died in the seventy-seventh year of her age, and on the 
 fifty-sixth anniversary of her wedding day, December, 1869. 
 
 Mr. Cooper never speaks of his wife without emotion. He attributes 
 all his highest happiness, and most of his success in life, to the sterling 
 qualities of character in his wife. He says, she was the " day star, the 
 solace and the inspiration of his life," words that express a deep feel- 
 ing, and also a substantial fact ; for there is no doubt, from the char- 
 acter given her by others, that she was a woman of superior moral 
 qualities, and had precisely that fitness and training that made a worthy 
 and most efficient " help-mate " of Mr. Cooper. Certain it is, that her 
 position was one of no secondary importance in Mr. Cooper's life and 
 the development of his character. We give, therefore, a few extracts 
 from Dr. Bellows' sermon at her funeral services, which, though in 
 stately language, gives a fine and truthful analysis of the character of 
 Mrs. Cooper. 
 
 " Born in respectable circumstances, of honest blood, reared to in- 
 dustry and self-denial, her providential lot united her at an early period 
 to the husband whose blessed companion she has been for more than 
 half a century* His toils and anxieties she shared during the long, 
 patient, persistent struggle with the difficulties that always beset self- 
 made fortune and self-made men and women ; his home she ordered and 
 brightened, and enriched with her native industry, fidelity, and cheer- 
 fulness ; his judgment she steadied by her weighty good sense; his 
 prosperity she helped to keep modest and unpretending ; his beneficence 
 proceeded in no small part from the results of her prudence and economy, 
 and from the fixed habit of serviceableness to others, which had its 
 
20 
 
 root in her essential goodness of heart, but was confirmed by practice, 
 enlightened by experience, and perfected by religious principles. 
 
 (f God alone can sum up and estimate the value of a life characteristic- 
 ally unselfish from beginning to end, in which, to human observation, 
 every throb of the heart has been in the interest of virtue and goodness. 
 Who but He can measure the worth of nearly eighty years of spotless 
 fidelity to truth and ceaseless devotion to duty each year, each month, 
 each day, each hour, recording its noiseless act of self-control, forbear- 
 ance with others, training and counsel for children, sympathy and sup- 
 port for husband and friend ; action, solicitude for sorrowing, sick, and 
 tempted neighbors; steady provision for the pleasure and profit of 
 humble dependents ; a hand open to its fullest extent, and a heart 
 tender and full of sincere charity and peace with all the world. 
 
 <{ Strife and discontent, disorder and murmurs, could not live long in 
 her gentle presence. Like sunshine in a shady place, she banished the 
 damps of worldly care and the poisonous dews of envy and jealousy. 
 Her household gathered around her as we gather from the winter's 
 cold about the genial fireside. Her generous, outgrowing heart and 
 ready love melted the frosts of custom and the snows of formality and 
 all the icicles of glittering pride away. It was impossible to be arti- 
 ficial, false, pretentious in her sincere and simple presence. And how 
 full and steady and strong the love she gave and drew towards her ! 
 To-day, the fifty-sixth anniversary of her wedding, her honored husband 
 could testify that age had done nothing, to the last, to weaken the 
 fervor nay, hardly to diminish the romance of the union which had 
 been blessed with unbroken peace, with uninterrupted confidence, with 
 steady delight in each other's companionship; and what -an inheritance 
 do not her surviving children possess in the memory of such a devoted, 
 faithful, and exemplary mother ! 
 
 " Nor was this sweetness and goodness the fruit of constitutional 
 amiability merely. Without that, indeed, her character could not have 
 been what it was ; but without something besides, it would certainly 
 have lacked the wisdom and judgment, the prudence and self-restraint 
 that marked her beneficence. She was no careless and sentimental 
 almoner, hushing the sensitiveness of her own aching pity by ministering 
 indiscriminately to the cries of idleness, imposture, and vice. She had 
 known too well herself the discipline of honest toil, the uses of a self- 
 denying economy, not to feel a strong disapprobation for sloth and 
 self-indulgence. NOT was poverty in her experience such an unmiti- 
 gated misfortune as to be treated with hasty and demoralizing lar- 
 
21 
 
 gesses. She set no such valuation upon superfluity and luxury as to pity 
 excessively those who taxed them. Her charities, constant and numer- 
 ous, were painstaking, thoughtful, considerate. She gave as much 
 counsel as money and as much time as means to this responsible office 
 one of the most serious and difficult of all Christian duties the pru- 
 dent, wise exercise of charity. If all the hearts here present could tell 
 their own experience of her patient, wise, and prudent beneficence, it 
 would fill these courts with the frankincense of honest gratitude and 
 merited praise ! 
 
 11 You behold here no feeble relic of dainty idleness and unstrung 
 fibres and soft and tended weakness. Here is what is left of a frame 
 that has used every nerve and tissue in human service, household cares, 
 diligent and painstaking duty to husband, children, .and dependants. 
 Here are the ashes of a woman of the Puritan and Huguenot spirit 
 one who knew nothing about the modern discontent with woman's 
 sphere ; nothing about the weariness of leisure and the lack of adequate 
 occupation; nothing about the inequality of her woman's lot, or the 
 monotony and oppression of a wife's and mother's duties. She found 
 the place Providence gave her large enough for all her gifts, tasking and 
 rewarding to all her efforts, and she did her full part in making, keep- 
 ing, and spending her husband's fortune." 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Mr. Cooper's strong points of character are an impregnable sense of 
 justice; an all-embracing philanthropy, and a keen instinct and wise 
 discernment for the truth ; especially in absolute and simple forms, such 
 as it appears in the sayings of Christ, and in the maxims of the wise 
 and good of all ages. He believes in these great truths with a simple 
 heartiness and childlike fervor that makes it hard for him to realize 
 at times that all men do not recognize them, or, if they do, they will 
 not yield implicit obedience. They are no " glittering generalities " to 
 him. He has faith in these simple maxims of wisdom and goodness, 
 and he brings all institutions and methods of government to the test of 
 their universal application. He is the most tolerant of men towards 
 the frailties and shortcomings of individuals, but turns a stern face 
 towards classes intrenched in privilege, and monopolies of all kinds. 
 Without the discipline of the schools, without a systematic education, 
 or special training of any kind derived from others, he has trained him- 
 self in the school of life to a large measure of practical and general 
 knowledge, and acquired a specific skill,' in a certain number of occupa- 
 
22 
 
 tions during his long life, which could only be the result of great in- 
 dustry and devotion to his business occupations, sagacity in discerning 
 their best conditions, and a marvellous facility in achieving success 
 under difficulties, or of turning his course when success was not to be 
 obtained any longer. His simple truthfulness makes him credulous, at 
 times, in the honesty of some men who wish to deceive him ; but he is 
 never deceived long; and they rarely come off with any great advantage 
 gained at his expense.^ With great energy, industry, economy, and a 
 certain strictness in bargaining, which belongs to all acquisitive and ac- 
 cumulative natures, he has acquired a large fortune ; but, outside of 
 business, Mr. Cooper is as approachable, simple, and gentle as a child. 
 He is open-handed to the poor and the destitute, melted by every tale of 
 sorrow that is preferred to his ear ; and lets thousands slip from his boun- 
 tiful hand without a thought but of the good he designs. His character 
 is based on sturdy honesty, impregnable justice, and common sense, 
 with a something besides a wonderful and rare nature that lies behind 
 all his ordinary practical life among men, made up of ideal thoughts, 
 inexpressible sympathies, and a great yearning for the morally good and 
 the beautiful, that leads him sometimes into high regions of specula- 
 tion, where practical men think that they cannot follow. But whoever 
 studies these speculations of Mr. Cooper for the welfare of the race, or 
 of his country, will see a germ of practical principles in them, a solid 
 ground of wisdom on which they rest ; so that if he had opportunities 
 and adequate means to realize them, such as fall into the hands of the 
 rulers of nations, he would turn his speculations into facts in the life 
 of the nation. His ingenuity and his practical invention have been 
 proved time and again ; but he has also a certain speculative idealism 
 in invention that has sometimes outrun his means and his practical 
 ability to realize ; but never without a sound principle at the bottom 
 of his invention, which needed only more fortunate and favorable con- 
 ditions than he could command. 
 
 Mr. Cooper is so broad, sincere, and catholic in his religious prin- 
 ciples, that, I believe, he would be recognized by any minister of the 
 Christian religion as a truly religious man ; but his ecclesiasticism ends 
 with a simple respect for all churches. 
 
 Mr. Cooper has all his life been devoted to business, but from an 
 early period he has taken a personal interest and an active part in all 
 the educational, social, and industrial progress of his native city, and 
 often contributed in money and personal effort, very valuable services. 
 He is by nature and temperament a radical reformer, but abhors destruc- 
 tiveness ; so that he always lo'oks to building up, before he thinks of 
 
23 
 
 pulling down. He respects vested rights and legal forms, even when he 
 thinks they are opposed to the general welfare ; and he will not consent 
 to have them abolished without compensation to the losers. 
 
 The " crowning glory " of Mr. Cooper's life, and that on which he 
 has expended the most money, time, and thought, is the " Cooper 
 Union," commonly called the " Cooper Institute." 
 
 The corner-stone of this institution was laid twenty- one years ago, 
 at the junction of Third and Fourth avenues, and their crossing with 
 Eighth street. The original cost of the building was $634,000. It is 
 in the centre of the industrial and trading population of New York, 
 who are thus placed within easy reach of facilities chiefly designed for 
 them. The institution consists of a series of free schools of instruction 
 in practical art and science, a free reading-room, and free courses of 
 popular lectures on subjects of science, art, and social reform. About 
 twenty professors and instructors are employed and over fifty thousand 
 dollars a year expended. 
 
 He is especially strenuous for a civil reform, and a " civil service " 
 that shall secure to the country a qualified, honest, and permanent set 
 of civil officers, educated to their special duties as are our military and 
 naval officers. They should be examined and appointed by competent 
 and permanent commissioners in every State, elected, or appointed irre- 
 spective of their politics. Politics should be confined to the electoral 
 offices of the General Government, as they shape what is called the 
 " policy of the Government." These civil officers, when they have worn 
 out their powers in the service of the Government, he thinks should be 
 pensioned, as are the military and naval officers. 
 
 These are the principles which Mr. Cooper sincerely entertains and 
 has striven to realize all his life. Whether they are worthy the suffrages 
 of the American people, let the people themselves judge. Mr. Cooper 
 has never sought office, the office has sought him. Mr. Cooper is now 
 in his eighty-seventh year, but hale and hearty beyond his years. He is 
 especially young in that " youth of the heart " which gives the " verdure 
 ever fresh " to life. Simple and pure in all his living, regular in his 
 habits, active all the day, a sound sleeper at night, a man that lives 
 much in " gentle mirth," he bids fair to live much beyond the term of 
 ordinary life. He loves " the world," but hates the " flesh and the 
 Devil." With a plain exterior, and witliout what is called " culture," 
 he is every way a true gentleman affable to his friends, kind to his 
 dependants, full of respect and regard for woman, tender towards chil- 
 dren, generous and sympathetic for the poor and the suffering, denying 
 himself, and princely in his gifts to the world. 
 
24 
 
 Mr. Cooper has written, or caused to be written under his super* 
 vision, a number of letters and pamphlets, the design of which has 
 been to throw light upon the political questions of the day. They 
 breathe his spirit and thought throughout, though not always in his 
 own form of expression. Mr. Cooper has never been educated to 
 composition as an art, nor is he familiar with those rhetorical forms of 
 expression that grapple with difficult and abstract subjects, and give 
 them thorough development and statement. His style is conversational 
 and simple, and deals only with the simplest but grandest form of 
 thought, where logic is at no account, and rhetoric of little avail. 
 Hence, he has often intrusted to others the expression of his thought, 
 for purposes of discussing a subject, and presenting it in proper form. 
 But he always reads, carefully and conscientiously, whatever he causes 
 to be written, and allows nothing to go forth to the public that is not 
 properly and substantially the product of his own mind and the dictate 
 of his best judgment. 
 
 In the following letters and public addresses of Mr. Cooper, we have 
 his most carefully considered opinions and his o.wn real sentiments, 
 carefully written under his constant supervision and revision. 
 
 EDITOB. 
 New York, Sept 1\ 1877, 
 
THE 
 
 NOMINATION TO THE PKESIDENCY 
 
 OP 
 
 PETER COOPER. 
 
 AND HIS 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE INDIANAPOLIS CONVENTION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NATIONAL INDEPENDENT PARTY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 MR. COOPER'S political ideas are very simple, and consist of twc 
 fundamental principles and their application to national life and hap- 
 piness. (. 
 
 First, the independence of a nation must be secured from all foreign 
 dictation, interference, or even undue influence, in its political and civil 
 life, and in its industrial business and financial interests. 
 
 Secondly, in domestic administration, " equal rights to all " should 
 prevail -political^ social } and industrial as necessary to the "preserva- 
 tion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 These two fundamental principles, he thinks, are far from having 
 been achieved in the history of nations. 
 
 The struggle for national'life and happiness, now going on, consists 
 in the vindication and practical application of the two principles of 
 foreign independence and domestic rights. " Peace on earth and good- 
 will towards men" can only be obtained when nations cease to war on 
 each other, in any way, and communities recognize and enforce equal 
 rights for individuals. But Mr. Cooper recognizes the fact that, 
 although nations may not be actually at war with each other, at some 
 times, there is a quasi war, a state of hostility of " interests, but ill un- 
 derstood," a commercial and financial war going on, all the time, between 
 nations. 
 
 The same is the fact in the domestic history of nations. Actual 
 rebellions and revolutions result from a policy of hostility between the 
 different classes that may divide the nation; but if these are not in 
 progress, there is still going on, all the time, a quasi war of " interests 
 but ill understood," between individuals and classes, that results in 
 monopolies and unequal rights of all kinds. 
 
 To protect the people from this silent and selfish aggression of foreign 
 influence, Mr. Cooper believes in a protective tariff, and a domestic 
 currency incapable of exportation. 
 
 He believes that a tariff is really a tax on the foreign manufacturer 
 
and importer, and not on the domestic buyer, as it is usually represented 
 by the sophistical argument of free trade. So far from making goods 
 dearer than they could otherwise be, the competitions of foreign trade 
 and the necessities of selling somewhere, make the foreign importer and 
 manufacturer submit to the tariff, as a tax on their goods, while the 
 practical result is an enhanced price, relatively, of all domestic manufac- 
 tures and native products that are exchanged for the foreign goods. 
 Any one may convince himself, by inquiring from domestic dealers in 
 foreign goods, that the prices they have to give to the foreigner are 
 rarely increased by a tariff on the importation ; hence, the price is not 
 increased to the consumer. All the complaints on the subject of tariff 
 come from the foreign manufacturer and the large importing merchants, 
 and from those who do not understand the true working of a tariff. 
 The tariff is a premium to the domestic manufacturer, but no additional 
 tax on the consumer, who from the very start buys his goods just as 
 cheap from the foreigner, and in the long run a great deal cheaper from 
 the domestic manufacturer. Mr. Cooper believes that the nearer the 
 consumer is to the producer, the better for both; that the greatest 
 diversity of production is the indispensable condition of the highest 
 prosperity, independence, and the intellectual and moral advancement 
 of any people. For this purpose, a " judicious tariff for revenue and 
 protection " is absolutely necessary. It taxes the foreigner only ; it en- 
 courages and diversifies our own domestic labor, and puts a premium on 
 it, and frees the whole nation from the dependence upon and consequent 
 tyranny of foreign nations. 
 
 For the same object of commercial protection, Mr. Cooper desires a 
 purely domestic currency, unexportable as merchandise, like gold and 
 silver, and incapable of interference by the demands and exactions 
 of foreign trade. Every nation ought to have such a domestic cur- 
 rency, and keep it " on a par " with the currency of all other nations, 
 by the reciprocities and " equal balances " of their mutual exchanges in 
 each other's products and manufactures. It is axiomatic that the money 
 of a creditor nation will always be " above par " with that of a debtor na- 
 tion. If, therefore, the money of a debtor nation can be exported, as 
 gold and silver, it will flow out to the creditor nation, and leave the 
 debtor in distress and business embarrassment, till its money can be 
 drawn back by sacrifices of domestic goods and products. This export 
 able currency gives a " fatal facility " of getting in debt with foreign 
 nations. Instead of paying with goods and products, our only proper 
 resource, we pay with our money, which we cannot spare from our own 
 domestic trade and the payment of labor. The periodical "panics" 
 
have always resulted from a " drain of specie," when that was our only 
 legal tender. No device or enactment of Government can prevent 
 this ; because it cannot control the price of money, when money is also 
 merchandise all over the world, as is also gold and silver. Hence the 
 Government cannot protect the people from periodic disaster and dis- 
 tress to the domestic trade, and the stoppage of the bread of the poor ; 
 from the extravagance of the rich of our own nation, in foreign goods, 
 and the insidious temptations to trade in the cheap labor of other na- 
 tions. To make our domestic currency on a par with gold or silver, or 
 any foreign currency, Mr. Cooper thinks, our Government should make 
 it of the most indispensable use as legal tender for all debts and Gov- 
 ernment dues ; fix its price, equitably, by the interest paid 011 it, 
 when converted into bonds, prevent over- issues by strict and just regu- 
 lations as to the issue of bonds or currency, and let the people them- 
 selves always regulate the relative amount of each, by the " intercon- 
 vertible bond." 
 
 The tariff and the " domestic currency," are the two great means of 
 defence which Mr. Cooper sets up against the <( war of commerce," 
 which all nations are now urging against each other, amidst the reci- 
 procities, the fair exchanges, and the civilizing intercourse which a true 
 commerce and trade engender among nations. 
 
 He has no objection to gold and silver coin being also a "legal 
 tender," as well as paper. It is So in France. The objection that "it 
 will set up three standards for the payment of debts," and the injustice- 
 to the creditor by the fluctuations in value of either standard, is more 
 than met by the fact that gold and silver, as the present money of the 
 world, do not fluctuate much, except as the currents of the world's com- 
 merce ebb and flow ; and this cannot be controlled by Government, but 
 must be guarded against by a domestic paper currency, from leaving us 
 with too little money at any time to do business with ; while the paper can 
 be made of stable value by proper Government regulation and the tf in- 
 terconvertible bond." Making gold and silver coin a legal tender will 
 tend to enhance their value among us, encourage the production of gold 
 and silver, in which the country is very rich, and equalize our ex- 
 changes with foreign nations more, by furnishing them what they now 
 desire the most, in exchange for their commodities.* 
 
 So far from giving occasion and instruments to the selfishness, or 
 greed, or love of power of individuals and classes, Government is espe- 
 
 * Mr. Cooper thinks now that the Government paper should be the exclusive 
 legal tender ; and by keeping its volume at a certain fixed ratio, per capita, 
 receivable for all taxes and duties, and made interconvertible with Government 
 bonds, the paper could be kept on a par with the standard dollar of gold or silver. 
 
6 
 
 cially constituted to keep an even balance among the rights of tl 
 people, and not only protect their lives and property from the violent 
 that springs from such passions, but from the cunning devices of la-, 
 and vested privileges by which the few, often take away the rights c 
 the many, or even the banding together, under cunning forms and pr( 
 tences, of some one class, politicians, bondholders, importers, bank 
 ers, or " syndicates and rings " of all kinds, to defraud and deceive th 
 people. This is indeed a difficult task. This is the silent war goin 
 on at all times in a nation, which brings on, sooner or later, revolu 
 tions and rebellions, unless the differences can be allayed by reason 
 justice, and humanity, embodied in law, and faithfully administered b 
 Government. This ought to be the proper object of all " parties " anc 
 administrations. But late events have shown that, while our form o 
 Government is the best in the world, it is, in some respects, the wors 
 administered. The rapid growth in wealth and the wonderful materia 
 resources that tempt the cupidity of this people, have got in advance o 
 their moral and intellectual development, and engendered a venality 
 and greed for wealth that has crept into the halls of legislation am 
 into the courts of justice. Politics have become a trade for office, am 
 the wealthy are turning their attention to politics, as means of mon 
 opoly and lucrative gain, greater than mere legitimate business alon 
 can offer. This is indeed a sad sign of political decay and venal cor 
 ruption in public affairs, of which official peculations, such as th 
 Tweeds and the Belknaps engage 'in, are the mere outcrops of wha 
 can be found deeper and more general under the surface. It is such 
 convictions as these that are bringing honest men to the front^ 
 who else, like Mr. Cooper, would shrink from observation, and pre- 
 fer private life to all the honors of public office. There is a sense of 
 real danger pervading the honorable and good minds of this country, 
 that our republic cannot last much longer if "this order of things" 
 is allowed to go on ; that " something must be done to change the 
 men and measures that now control public affairs, or we shall end 
 in revolution and despotism." What complicates the difficulty is, that 
 under this very cry of reform, bad men are trying to get control of 
 public affairs, from the free suffrages of the people. If the people can- 
 not discriminate, or allow themselves to be deceived in this crisis of tho 
 nation's history, we must follow the precedent of other nations, under 
 similar circumstances, and lose our liberties from similar causes. 
 
 Mr. Cooper's mind has been so strongly impressed with this state of 
 things, that at an advanced age, when he would gladly seek repose, but 
 with a life of honorable toil and honest record behind him, never having 
 
sought office or political preferment in his life, he consented, at the earn- 
 est solicitation of friends, to accept the nomination as chief magistrate of 
 this nation in the spring of 1876. This is itself one of the signs of reaction 
 in the people's mind against the ruling class. The people are suffering, 
 and they have no hopes of amelioration from those who ask to administer 
 the Government, but a continuance of the policy of administration to 
 which they owe their sufferings. Mr. Cooper thinks this is " cruel and 
 unjust." He demands an entire change in two particulars : First, in 
 the financial policy of the government ; Secondly, in an organized " civil 
 reform," both in the appointment and election to office, that shall secure 
 the best and most competent men to rule and to serve this people. 
 
 He thinks that " politicians " may have a place, and have a very 
 useful function in the " body politic ; " but they must not be allowed 
 to control the appointment of all the civil offices in the gift of the 
 Government, and make them the " chess-men " in their game of public 
 life, and the means of keeping themselves in power. 
 
 Mr. Cooper also thoroughly believes in the paternal character and 
 functions of every Republican Government. The general Government, 
 in its sphere, and the local Governments, in their several spheres, in the 
 States and municipalities, should have a paternal spirit and oversight 
 towards the mass of the people. The poor and the maimed, the pau- 
 per and the criminal, the unfortunate and the suffering who have no 
 private relief or help, should be looked after and cared for by the local 
 and municipal Governments. He believes that public improvements and 
 works of a national character are proper objects of the general Govern- 
 ment ; and the encouragement of immigration and the settlement of the 
 public lands are the proper objects of care and special provision by the 
 Government. On a large scale, the honest and industrious poor of our 
 own people and those of other nations, can be provided for, the country 
 enriched, and made the true home and paradise of freedom for the 
 laboring man. All these ideas and opinions Mr. Cooper has enlarged 
 and dwelt upon in the following writings and publications, which 
 he has given to the country for the last twenty years, and especially 
 since the war of the rebellion ; and the changes and difficulties of that 
 war, which have called to the front the best councillors of the nation. 
 
 THE NOMINATION OF MR. COOPER. 
 
 ON the 17th of May, 1876, a large and enthusiastic convention of 
 the friends of a specific national currency, commonly called the 
 " Greenback," met, and organized the "National Independent Party." 
 
8 
 
 The convention adopted a platform, and nominated unanimously Mr 
 Peter Cooper as their candidate for the Presidency of the United 
 States. 
 
 Mr. Cooper was telegraphed the result, but peremptorily declined, at 
 first, for personal reasons. Afterwards, on the earnest representations 
 of friends, he made a conditional acceptance, based upon the hope that 
 one of the subsequent conventions to be held by both the Republican 
 and Democratic parties might assume a favorable aspect towards the 
 financial doctrines of the Independent party. In this hope he was 
 entirely disappointed, as well as in the two letters of acceptance of the 
 two candidates nominated by their respective parties. Mr. Cooper then 
 addressed an " open letter " to those candidates and to the country, 
 accepting, finally, and unconditionally, his nomination, and giving his 
 reasons for the same. 
 
 We give here, first, his address to the convention of the Independent 
 party. 
 
 Secondly, the platform adopted by the convention. 
 
 Thirdly, Mr. Cooper's letter of conditional acceptance. 
 
 Fourthly, the " open letter " of final acceptance. 
 
 " To the Convention, held at -Indianapolis, of the National Independent 
 Party, May 17 th, 1876. 
 
 " GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : 
 
 " We have met, my friends, to unite in a course of efforts to find out, 
 and, if possible, to remove a cause of evil that has shrunk the value of the 
 real estate of the nation to a condition where it cannot be sold, or mort- 
 gages obtained on it for much more than one-half the amount that the 
 same property would have brought three years ago. This dire calamity 
 has been brought on our country by the acts of our Government. The 
 first act took from the national money its power to pay interest on 
 bonds and duties on imports. The second act has contracted the currency 
 of the country until it has shrunk the value of property to its present 
 condition by destroying public confidence ; and that without shrinking 
 any of the debts contracted in its use. 
 
 " I do most humbly hope that I shall be able to show the fatal causes 
 that have been allowed to operate and bring this wretchedness and ruin 
 to the homes of untold thousands of the men and the women throughout 
 our. country. 
 
9 
 
 " Facts will show that it was the unwise acts of our own Governmenf 
 that have allowed a policy to prevail, more in the interest of foreign 
 governments than our own. 
 
 " It was these unwise acts of legislation that brought discredit on our 
 national money, as I have said, by introducing into the law that created 
 it that terrible word except, which took from our legal money its power 
 to pay interest on bonds, and duties on imports. 
 
 " The introduction of that little word except into the original law drew 
 tears from the eyes of Thaddeus Stephens when he looked down the cur- 
 rent of events and saw our bonds in the hands of foreigners, who would 
 be receiving a gold interest on every hundred dollars of bonds that cost 
 them but fifty or sixty dollars in gold. 
 
 " ~But for the introduction of that word except into that original law, 
 our bonds would have been taken at par by our own people, and the 
 interest would have been paid at home in currency, instead of being paid 
 to foreigners in gold. 
 
 " An additional calamity has been brought on our country by a national 
 policy that has taken from the people their currency, the tools of their 
 trades, the very life-blood of the traffic and commerce of our country. 
 
 " Facts show that in 1865 there was in the hands of the people, as a 
 currency, $58 per head, and that at a time of our greatest national 
 prosperity. 
 
 " We have now arrived at a time of unequalled adversity, with a cur- 
 rency in 1875 of $17 1 3 ^ r per capita, with failures amounting to two 
 hundred millions of dollars in a year. 
 
 " Among the causes that now afflict the country, it may be well to look 
 at the enormous increase in our foreign importations, which amounted 
 to 359 millions in the year 1868, and increased to 684 millions of dollars 
 in 1873, and was 574 millions of dollars in 1875. 
 
 " I think you will agree with me, when I say that prosperity can never 
 >e restored to our beloved country by a national policy that enforces 
 dleness and financial distress on so vast a number of the laborers and 
 Business men of this country. Our nation's wealth must forever de- 
 pend on the application of knowledge, economy, and well-directed labor 
 ;o all the useful and necessary purposes of life, but also a proper legis- 
 ation for the people. 
 
 " The American people can never buy anything cheap from foreign 
 xmntries that must be bought at the cost of leaving our own good raw 
 materials unused, and our own labor unemployed. 
 
 " I find myself compelled to believe that much of the fast legislation 
 | if our country, in reference tc tariff and currency, has been adopted 
 
10 
 
 n rider the advice and influence of men in the interest of foreign nations 
 that have a direct motive to mislead and deceive us. Our prosperity 
 as a nation will commence to return when the Congress of our country 
 shall assume its own inherent sovereign right to furnish all the inhabi- 
 tants of the United States a redeemable, uniform, unfluctuating 
 national currency. 
 
 " I do heartily agree with Senator Jones, when he says that ' the 
 present is the acceptable time to undo the unwitting and blundering 
 work of 1873 ; and to render our legislation on the subject of money, 
 consistent with the physical facts, concerning the stock and supply of 
 the precious metals throughout the world, and conformable to the con- 
 stitution of our country.' 
 
 " I sincerely hope that the concluding advice of Senator Jones will 
 make a living and lasting impression, when he says, speaking to the 
 present Senate, f We cannot, we dare not, avoid speedy action on the 
 subject. Not only does reason, justice, and authority unite in urging 
 us to retrace our steps, but the organic law commands us to do so ; and 
 the presence of peril enjoins what the law commands.' 
 
 " The Senator states a most important fact, and one that all know to 
 be true, ' that by interfering with the standards of the country, Con- : 
 gress has led the country away from the realms of prosperity, and 
 thrust it beyond the bounds of safety.' He says, truly, 'to refuse to 
 replace it upon its former vantage ground would be to incur a respon- 
 sibility and a deserved reproach, greater than that which men have 
 ever before felt themselves able to bear.' 
 
 " It will require all the wisdom that can be gathered from the history 
 and experience of the past to enable us to work out our salvation from 
 the evils that an unwise legislation has brought on our country. 
 
 " It will be found that nothing short of a full, fair, and frank perform- 
 ance of the first duty enjoined on Congress by the Constitution will] 
 ever restore permanent prosperity to us as a nation. 
 
 " It is a remarkable fact that the most essential element of our colonial 
 and national prosperity was obtained by the use of the legal-tende 
 paper money the very thing that our present rulers seem now deter 
 mined to hold up to ridicule and contempt. We are apt to forget tha 
 the * continental money ' secured for us a country, and the ' green 
 back J currency has saved us as a nation. 
 
 " Sir A. Alison, the able and indefatigable English historian, has born 
 testimony to the superior power and value of paper money. He says 
 ' When sixteen hundred thousand men, on both sides, were in the con 
 
11 
 
 tinental wars with France in Germany and Spain alone, where nothing 
 could be purchased except by specie, it is not surprising that guineas 
 went where they were so much needed, and bore so high a price.' . . . 
 1 In truth such was the need of precious metals, owing to this cause, 
 that one-tenth of the currency of the world was attracted to Germany 
 as a common centre, and the demand could not be supplied ; and by a 
 decree in September, 1813, from Peterwalsden, in Germany, the allied 
 sovereigns issued paper notes, guaranteed by Russia, Prussia, and Eng- 
 land. These notes passed as cash from Karnskatkha to the Rhine, and 
 gave the currency which brought the war to a successful close.' 
 
 " In a recent edition of the l History of Europe,' Sir A. Alison gives 
 an additional evidence of the important advantages which experience 
 has demonstrated to result from the use of paper currency. 
 
 " He says, * To the suspension of cash payments by the act of 1797, 
 and the power in consequence vested in the Bank of England, of 
 expanding its paper circulation in proportion to the abstraction of a 
 metallic currency, the wants of the country and the resting of the 
 national industry on a basis not liable to be taken away by the muta- 
 tions of commerce or the necessities of war it is to these facts that 
 the salvation of the empire must be ascribed.' ... * It is remarkable 
 that this admirable system, which may be truly called the working 
 power of nations during war, became at the close of the war the object 
 of the most determined hostility on the part of the great capitalists 
 and chief writers of Political Economy in the country.' . . . ' Here, 
 however,' says Alison, ' as ever^here else, experience, the great test 
 of the truth> has determined the question. The adoption of the oppo- 
 site system of contracting the paper currency in proportion to the 
 abstraction of the metallic currency by the acts of 1819 and 1844, fol- 
 lowed as they were by the monetary crises of 1825, 1839, and 1847, 
 have demonstrated beyond a doubt that it was in the system of an 
 expansive currency that Great Britain, during the war, found the sole 
 means of her salvation. From 1797 to 1815 commerce, manufactures, 
 and agriculture advanced in England, in spite of all the evils of war, 
 with a rapidity greater than they had previously done in centuries before. 
 This proves beyond a doubt the power of paper money to increase 
 the wealth of a nation.' 
 
 " It is worth while to observe that this same Sir A. Alison, who speaks 
 so wisely on this subject in reference to the history of his own country, 
 while scanning a few years ago the prosperity of our country during 
 the war of the Rebellion and immediately after, has a foreboding of 
 what might happen, and remarks : 'The American Government may 
 
12 
 
 make financial and legislative mistakes which may check the progress 
 bf the nation and counteract the advantages which paper money haa 
 already bestowed upon them; they may adopt the unwise and unjust 
 system which England, adopted at the close of the French war ; they 
 may resolve to pay in gold, and with low prices, the debt contracted 
 with paper, and with high prices. But whatever they may do,' he adds, 
 ' nothing can shake the evidence which the experience of that nation 
 during the last six years affords of the power of paper money to pro- 
 mote a nation's welfare.' 
 
 " Sir Walter Scott, in his ' Malachi Margrowther's Letters,' showa 
 how the wealth of a nation is increased by paper money. * I assume,' 
 he says, ' without hazard of contradiction, that banks have existed in 
 Scotland for near one hundred and twenty years ; that they have flour- 
 ished, and the country has nourished with them ; and that during the 
 last twenty years particularly the notes, and especially the small notes 
 which the banks distribute, supply all the demand for a medium of 
 currency. This system has so completely expelled gold from Scotland 
 that you never by any chance espy a guinea there, except in the purse 
 of an accidental stranger, or in the coffers of the banks themselves. But 
 the facilities which this paper has afforded to the industrious and enter- 
 prising agriculturists and manufacturers, as well as to the trustees of 
 the public, in executing national works, have converted Scotland from 
 a poor, miserable, barren country into one where, if nature has done 
 less, art and industry have done more than, perhaps, in any other 
 country in Europe, England not excited.' 
 
 " President Grant, in his message of 1873, said, f The experience of 
 the present panic has proven that the currency of the country, based, 
 as it is, upon its credit, is the best that has ever been devised.' . . . 
 ' In view of the great actual contraction that has taken place in the 
 currency, and the comparative contraction continuously going on, due 
 to the increase of the population, the increase of manufactories and of 
 all industries, I do not believe there is too much of it now for the dull- 
 est period of the year.' 
 
 . " Notwithstanding these recommendations of the President, Congresa 
 has continued to tax the people and contract the national currency in a 
 vain effort to arrive at specie payments. 
 
 " Our Government should have left that amount of currency in the 
 hands of the people, which the necessities of war had compelled it to 
 put in circulation as the only means of the national salvation. 
 
 " Every dollar of currency paid out, whether gold, silver, or paper, was 
 given out for ' value received,' and thus became, 'oy the act of the Gov 
 
13 
 
 ernment, a valid claim for a dollar's worth of the whole property of the 
 country. Hence, not a dollar of it should ever have been withdrawn. 
 
 " It is now almost universally believed that had the Treasury notes 
 continued, as at first issued, to be received for all forms of taxes, du- 
 ties, and debts, they would have circulated to this day, as they did then, 
 as so much gold, precisely as the Government paper did circulate in 
 France when put upon the same footing. 
 
 u This would have saved our country more than one-half of the amount 
 of the whole expenses of the war in the present shrinkage of values and 
 the interruption to honest industry. It would have saved us, also, from 
 the perpetual drainage of gold to pay interest on our foreign indebted- 
 ness. 
 
 " Gentlemen of the Convention, I have heretofore enlarged upon what 
 seemed to me the true financial policy of this country in pamphlets and 
 writings that I have had the honor to lay before the country, so that 
 it would be a vain repetition to go much into that subject now. 
 
 " The paper currency, commonly called * legal tenders ' or * green- 
 backs,' was actually paid out for value received as so much gold, when 
 gold could not be obtained. 
 
 " This being an incontrovertible fact, it follows that every Treasury 
 note, demand note, or legal tender, given out as money, in payment for 
 any form of labor and property received by the Government, became, 
 in the possession of its owners, real dollars that could not be taken 
 constitutionally from the people, except by uniform taxes, as on other 
 property. 
 
 " But whether our currency will be always on a par with gold or not, 
 I have shown from history, and incontrovertible facts prove it, that the 
 commercial and industrial prosperity of a country do not depend upon 
 the amount of gold and silver there is in circulation. Our prosperity 
 must continually depend upon the industry, the enterprise, and the 
 busy internal trade and a true independence of foreign nations, which a 
 paper circulation, well based on sound credit, has always been found to 
 promote. 
 
 " But I believe prosperity can never again bless our glorious country 
 until justice is established, by giving back to the people the exact 
 amount of currency found in circulation at the close of the war. That 
 was the price of the nation's life. It ought to be restored and made 
 the pennanent and unfluctuating measure of all values, through all 
 coming time never to be increased or diminished, only, as per capita, 
 nth the increase of the inhabitants of our country. 
 
 " This currency must be made receivable for all forms of taxes, duties, 
 
14 
 
 ana debts, and convertible into interest-bearing bonds, at some equit- 
 able rate of interest, and reconvertible into currency at the will of the 
 holder. This, we believe, will secure uniformity of value to a degree 
 that gold has never attained. President Steele, of Lawrence Univer- 
 sity, has well said on this subject : 
 
 " * In fixing a standard, it is essential to select something that is as 
 nearly as possible invariable. The conventional unit of lineal measure 
 must not be a line which averages a foot, though it may be fourteen 
 inches to-day and nine inches to-morrow. The bushel measure should 
 not contain two or three quarts more or less at one time than at 
 another. For the same reason it is desirable that the unit of value 
 should have the same purchasing power next week that it has now.' 
 
 " In conclusion, Gentlemen, I think we have reason to congratulate 
 ourselves on the great awakening of the public mind in regard to this 
 question of finance. The people are beginning to recognize their rights 
 and their duties in this matter. I think the time has come to exhort 
 every one to go to the ballot-box and select good and true men, who 
 will legislate in accordance with justice, the Constitution, and the true 
 interests of the people; and give us what will always stand as a monu- 
 ment of political wisdom, a true national currency. 
 
 * With devout wishes for the success of all measures tending to this 
 object, I remain yours, in the common interests of our beloved country." 
 
 THE PLATFORM OF THE INDEPENDENT PARTY. 
 
 The following is the Platform of the Independent Party, as adopted 
 by its National Convention at Indianapolis : 
 
 " The Independent Party is called into existence by the necessities of 
 the people whose industries are prostrated, whose labor is deprived of 
 its just reward as the result of the serious mismanagement of the national 
 finances, which errors both the Republican and Democratic parties 
 neglect to correct. In view of the failure of these parties to furnish 
 relief to the depressed industries of the country, thereby disappointing 
 the just hopes and expectations of a suffering people, we declare our 
 principles and invite all independent and patriotic men to join our ranks 
 in this movement for financial reform and industrial emancipation. 
 
 " First We demand the immediate and unconditional repeal of the 
 Specie-resumption Act of January 14, 1875, and the rescue of our in- 
 dustries from the disaster and ruin resulting from its enforcement, and 
 we call upon all patriotic men to organize in every Congressional district 
 of the country, with the view of electing representatives in Congress 
 who will legis'ate for, and a Chief Magistrate who will carry out the 
 
15 
 
 wishes of, the people in this regard, and thus stop the present suicidal 
 and destructive policy of contraction. 
 
 " Second We believe that United States notes, issued directly by 
 the Government and convertible on demand into United States obliga- 
 tions, bearing an equitable rate of interest (not exceeding one cent a 
 day on each one hundred dollars), and interchangeable with United 
 States notes at par, will afford the best circulating medium ever devised ; 
 such United States notes should be a full legal tender for all purposes, 
 except for the payment of such obligations as are by existing contracts 
 expressly made payable in coin. And *we hold that it is the duty of 
 the Government to provide such a circulating medium, and we insist, 
 in the language of Thoman Jefferson, * that bank paper must be sup- 
 pressed and the circulation restored to the nation, to whom it belongs.' 
 
 " Third It is the paramount duty of the Government in all its legis- 
 lation to keep in view the full development of all legitimate business, 
 agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and commercial. 
 
 " Fourth We most earnestly protest against any further issue of 
 gold bonds, for sale in foreign markets, by means of which we would be 
 made, for a longer period, hewers of wood and drawers of water for 
 foreign nations, especially as the American people would gladly and 
 promptly take at par all the bonds the Government may need to sell, 
 provided they are made payable at the option of the holder, although 
 bearing interest at three and sixty-five one-hundredths per cent, per 
 annum, or even a lower rate. 
 
 " Fifth We further protest against the sale of Government bonds 
 for the purpose of buying silver to be used as a substitute for our more 
 convenient and less fluctuating fractional currency, which, although well 
 calculated to enrich the owners of silver mines, yet in operation will 
 still further oppress through taxation an already overburdened people." 
 
 MR. COOPER'S ACCEPTANCE. 
 
 "NEW YORK, May 31, 1876. 
 
 " Hon. MOSES W. FIELD, Chairman, and Hon. THOMAS J. DURANT, 
 Secretary of the National Executive Council of the Independent 
 Party : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN Your formal, official notification of the unanimous 
 nomination, tendered by the National Convention of the. Independent 
 Party at Indianapolis, on the 1 7th instant, to me for the high office of 
 President of the United States is before me ; . together with 
 
 an authenticated copy of the admirable platform which the Convention 
 adopted. 
 
 5 
 
16 
 
 "While I most heartily thank the Com entLm through you for the 
 great honor they have thus conferred upon me, kindly permit me to saj 
 that there is a bare possibility, if wise counsels prevail, that the sorely- 
 needed relief from the blighting effects of past unwise legislation relative 
 to finance, which the people so earnestly seek, may yet be had through 
 either the Republican or Democratic party ; both of them meeting in 
 national convention at an early date. 
 
 " It is unnecessary for me to assure you that while I have no aspira- 
 tion for the position of Chief Magistrate of this great Republic, I will 
 most cheerfully do what I ca'n to forward the best interests of my 
 country. 
 
 " I, therefore, accept your nomination, conditionally, expressing the 
 earnest hope that the Independent Party may yet attain its exalted 
 aims, while permitting me to step aside and remain in that quiet which 
 is most congenial to my nature and time of life. 
 
 " Most respectfully yours, 
 
 " PETER COOPER." 
 
 AN OPEN LETTER BY PETER COOPER TO THE CANDIDATES FOR THE 
 PRESIDENCY, NOMINATED BY THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PAR- 
 .TIES, IN CONVENTION ASSEMBLED. 
 
 " NEW YORK, July 25th, 1876. 
 
 " Hon. JR. B. Hayes and Hon. Samuel *T. Tilden. 
 " GENTLEMEN : 
 
 "I find myself impelled by an irresistible anxiety for my country ; 
 .by the palpable facts of distress and suffering that surround me, and 
 which I am compelled to know pervade the families of the great mass 
 of our people ; by the earnest calls that have bean made to me from all 
 parts of this great country ; and especially by the solemn and deliberate 
 <*ot of an earnest and intelligent body of my fellow-citizens, in conven- 
 tion assembled, who, setting forth clearly their convictions as to the 
 real cause of this wide-spread distress among the masses of our country- 
 men, have called upon me to represent those convictions, and nominated 
 me as their chief executive to carry them out ; by all these consider- 
 ations I feel called upon to address a few words to you, who now hold 
 the nominations of the two great organized political parties in this 
 country for the highest positions of responsibility as to the future 
 happiness and prosperity of this great people. 
 
 " Far be it from me to attribute any want of patriotism or any un- 
 worthy motive to your honorable selves, or to the leaders of those 
 
17 
 
 conventions which have nominated you both, respectively, to the high 
 office of the President of the United States. But the imminent ques- 
 tion of the day, that which touches the cause of the present financial 
 ruin and suffering of so many, is one of such palpable facts and simple 
 deductions therefrom, that I must think there is some mistake in the 
 radical principle by which these facts are viewed by you and the great 
 parties which you represent. I find in the platforms of the convention? 
 of the two great parties no adequate expression either of the facts, the 
 causes, or the principles that underlie the present great distress of our 
 nation, when thousands of honest, industrious people are filled with 
 anxiety for the bread of their families, or are suffering already from an 
 inadequate supply. This seems to me the great and paramount ques- 
 tion of the day, to which our chief thought and most efficient action 
 should be directed, and before which all other questions should sink 
 into insignificance. 
 
 " What is the cause of this wide-spread ruin and present distress, and 
 what is the immediate remedy ? 
 
 " A few facts of history and of public record will show this. Ac- 
 cording to Spaulding's Financial History of the War (p. 201) the public 
 debt of the United States stood on the books of the Treasury, October 
 1st, 1865, at a total of $2,803,549,437. According to the same author, 
 who is a strong advocate for specie payments (page 10, Introduction), 
 out of this debt, in 1864, * the inflating paper issues, outstanding, were 
 over $1,100,000,000,' and gold reached its highest quotation, 2.85. 
 
 " Now, be it remembered, that although a few money-changers, specu- 
 lators, and importers were willing to give $2.85 of paper for one dollar 
 in gold, yet the people were using this paper to buy flour and exchange 
 their commodities at prices that were far less than this inflated price of 
 gold. 
 
 " Gold was no longer the standard of exchange except in foreign com- 
 modities where ' balances 1 had to be paid in gold. The internal 
 trade, commerce, and industries of the country were steadily increasing, 
 and never before so flourishing as during the time of this famine for 
 gold. In an evil hour, it became the policy of this Government to re- 
 duce all our paper currency. to the standard and par value of gold. 
 This was atbempted by the withdrawal of the paper currency as fast as 
 practicable, and by absorbing the same by an arbitrary law, into a debt 
 for so much gold as the face of the paper, in the shape of gold bonds, 
 bearing the yearly interest of six per cent, in gold ! In the course of 
 less than eight years this change was effected, and the people's money 
 and currency of all kinds were reduced subsequently from $2,192,395,527, 
 
18 
 
 as represented on the Treasurer's books on September 1, 1865, to the 
 sum of $031,488,676 on the 1st of November, 1873, making a reduc- 
 tion of the currency in eight years of $1,561,906,851 ! (See Congres- 
 sional Record, March 31, 1874, speech of John M. Bright, of Ten- 
 nessee.) This brought on the panic of 1873 and all our present finan- 
 cial troubles. Although a part of this vast sum was a kind of currency 
 that drew interest, and, therefore, partook also of the nature of an 
 investment, yet, as Mr. Maynard, Chairman of the Committee on 
 Banking and Currency, said, from his seat in Congress, on occasion 
 of Mr. Bright's speech, f those issues were engraved and prepared in a 
 form to circulate as money, and, as a matter of fact, did so circulate,' 
 until either they were funded or l the interest accumulated so as to 
 make them superior to the ordinary class of currency.' But this 
 stupendous decrease in the people's money the very tools of their 
 trades and enterprises of every description, the use of which they had 
 fairly earned by the blood and sacrifices of a great war, and the beneficial 
 effects of which were proved by the great activity in business and trade 
 which it engendered as long as it lasted this great reduction in the 
 money of the people was made by methods equally unjust, as they were 
 disastrous to the prosperity of the country. 
 
 " This paper currency was absorbed by interest-bearing gold bonds, 
 which were bought by the paper, which in its turn had been purchased 
 by gold at 40, 50, and 60 per cent, discount; thus turning the 
 debt of the country to one of twice its value in paper, and paying 
 for the gold bonds at half their value in paper. This was done at a 
 time when this paper- currency was doing the nation all the good that 
 so much gold could do for our domestic prosperity and trade. The 
 people were building up the country with a rapidity unexampled before, 
 with this paper, which, if it had been fully honored by the Government 
 that issued it, and received for all imports, duties, and debts, and al- 
 lowed to be exchanged at par for bonds at an equitable rate of interest, 
 would not have permitted any premium on gold. 
 
 " These are the facts. The panic of '73 and all the consequent dis- 
 tress of the industrial classes of our country, and its baffled enterprise, 
 is distinctly due to the contraction of the currency to this enormous 
 extent during the eight years preceding 1873. It stopped credit, pro- 
 duction, and consumption, and made much of what currency was left 
 rush, in a panic, to the head money-centres as the blood in an apo- 
 plectic fit rushes to the head where this money is now vainly seeking 
 investment, ' in first-class security,' at two per cent. ; while the countrj 
 at large is palsied in its enterprises and industries fc r want pf this verj 
 
19 
 
 currency. And what was all this lone for ? To change the debt of 
 the country without reducing its real amount, from a shape beneficial to 
 the people, and incorporated as an integral part of the very life-blood 
 of all their rising industries and their growing trade this paper cur- 
 rency was turned, almost with the suddenness of a conjuration, and by 
 the forms of ah arbitrary construction of law, into another shape, 
 twice in amount as measured by the same paper, and taxing the people 
 interest on it, in gold, to the amount of $94,684,269 per year. (See 
 statament of the public debt, June, 1876.) 
 
 " Most of this interest is now paid to foreign bondholders, alien to 
 our institutions and uninterested in our prosperity, except to keep up 
 our ability and willingness to bear taxation. 
 
 "And what is the specious reason for this change? ( To return to 
 specie payments ! ' 
 
 u What can this policy result in but a further distress and impoverish- 
 ment of this people and the building up of the interests of a class whose 
 business it is to invest or to lend money, and whose policy will be to get 
 the highest rate of interest ? Such are apt to forget that the immediate 
 gain of such a policy is far less than that which arises from the pros- 
 perity of the whole people, arid the multiplication of wealth that comes 
 from enterprise unimpeded and industry constantly employed. We may 
 concede all that is claimed of the necessity of * specie payments,' and 
 our currency being made on a par with gold. But this disastrous and 
 ill-judged method of reaching specie payments, by the past and present 
 contraction of our currency, is very unjust and cruel to our people ; for 
 it shrunk the value of all property, so. that it could not be sold, or mort- 
 gages obtained on it, for more than one-half the amount that the same 
 property would have brought three years previous, and reduced the 
 wages of labor to the same degree. This return to 'specie payments' 
 may be made without such injury, by honoring the currency in every 
 way ; by making it exclusively the money as well as the legal tender of 
 the country ; by receiving it for all forms of taxes, duties, debts to 
 Government, as well as the payment of all private debts ; by establish- 
 ing its value on a firm basis, at a fixed and equitable rate of interest, 
 which it may always find in an interconvertible bond ; and by determin- 
 ing the volume of the currency, where the unobstructed laws of the in- 
 ternal trade and industry of this country may require it to be, under 
 the free use of the interconvertible bond. This great national debt 
 ought to be held as a great trust by the Government of this people, and 
 made the receptacle of all the trust funds, and the savings of all the poor 
 among our own people. It should be an investment put within the 
 
20 
 
 reach of our own people, instead of being sent abroad fco swell the coffers 
 of the rich in other countries. 
 
 " If the Government, after the war of rebellion, had been as anxious 
 to heal the wounds which that unhappy war created, to alleviate the 
 poverty which it brought on a large section of our country, to reinstate 
 the broken industries and enterprises of our whole people, as it had been 
 to carry that war vigorously, at any cost, on to victory, the Government 
 would have seen that peace had its demands as well as war. If a Gov- 
 ernment is bound to protect the people from the aggressions of war, it 
 is also bound to save it from commercial distress, and the sorrows of a 
 laboring population without work. The Government might now free 
 hundreds of thousands from imminent want, and set the wheels of trade 
 again in motion by building the two great railroads across the Conti- 
 nent at the Southwest and Northwest of the country that private enter- 
 prise has already commenced, but cannot complete, for want of capital. 
 The legal tender of a solvent country like this, cannot be called a debt 
 in any proper sense of the word. It is money, and measures the ex- 
 changeable value of all property, gold included. All must see that the 
 currency paid out by the Government for value received became the 
 people's money, over which the Government lost all control, except to 
 tax it, as all other property, to meet the wants of Government. This 
 amount of money, even now, may be given back to the people in works 
 of great national importance, like that of a Northern & Southern Pacific 
 Railroad, that would, to-day, be worth thir cost in aiding to put down 
 the Indian wars that now threaten the frontier of our country. What 
 is a Government good for, if in- such a country as this, with all its 
 material resources, and vast extent, it cannot prevent a large part of its 
 people from the distress of want of work and of bread ? This seems to 
 me the first duty of Government. 
 
 " Sorry am I to see, and I say it without any reproach cast upon the 
 integrity of those concerned, that in neither of the platforms of the poli- 
 tical parties that represent the governing intelligence and wealth of this 
 country is this great question of finance either discussed or recognized 
 in its principles, or bearings upon the happiness and prosperity of this 
 people except in a way that seems to me adverse to both. 
 
 " I have, therefore, consented, with great reluctance, to go before the 
 people not for the strife of office, not for the petty triumphs of a suc- 
 cessful candidate, but for the vindication of a great principle that under- 
 lies all true Republican or Democratic Institutions namely, that the 
 interest and happiness of the whole people are superior to the demands 
 or interests of any one clasp ; that in the neglect or defiance of this prin 
 
21 
 
 siple, the great debt of this people, incurred by a war to save the life 
 of this nation, has been administered too much by the advice and in the 
 interest of a small class that care for their income, but cannot look ou1 
 for, or attend to active investments ; hence, they prefer the bond to the 
 currency ; and for another class who desire the highest interest for the 
 smallest investment ; hence they prefer gold to a paper legal tender ; 
 and for still another class who, alien to our institutions and country, 
 care only to tax its energies and wealth for the highest interest they can 
 draw for an immediate investment of their money. But these are not 
 the interests of the people of this country. Neither honor nor justice 
 requires such administration of the public debt of this country. 
 
 " I feel, therefore, constrained by every principle of honor and love 
 for my country to come forward at an advanced age, and with a mind 
 that would gladly seek repose, after the toils of a long and laborious life, 
 to answer the call of a portion of my countrymen, to try these issues 
 before the people of the whole country; to test these truths which we 
 hold to be self-evident, as soon as they are honestly examined, as are 
 the truths of the Declaration of Independence. One of the chief of 
 these truths is that as all rightful Governments are made for the people 
 and by the people; they must be administered with a parental care in 
 the interests of the whole people, and not for "a class. No single interest 
 touches the domestic comfort and prosperity of the people as this one 
 of the currency ; and in the present condition of the country, none is 
 of so much immediate importance or calls for more immediate solution. 
 To put off this question, therefore, with vague expressions of reform, 
 and the desirableness of c specie payments, 1 is to ignore the mling interest 
 of the hour. It is to surrender the people to their sufferings without 
 any promise of remedy. 
 
 " I appeal, therefore, from those who seem insensible to the.cry of the 
 people to the people themselves. I appeal from the political parties, 
 organized to control the Government, and distribute the offices and 
 emoluments of office, to the great industrial classes who are organized 
 to. protect their interests and obtain some recognition of their rights 
 from the Government of the country. Let them substitute co-operation 
 for ' strikes,' and unite to save themselves and the country from tho 
 present disaster and distress to all the industrial classes. Let no man 
 think of the bullet while he has the ballot in his hand. It needs but the 
 use of that simple instrument of political power to rectify all our dis- 
 contents and social evils. 
 
 " Let us have our national currency duly honored ; let us take the 
 testimony of the nation's experience, and that of other countries, as to 
 
22 
 
 what such currency can do for our prosperity ; let the gold par be readied 
 by rendering our currency of higher and indispensable uses, as now ex- 
 emplified in France, and not by contracting its amount; and let its 
 volume and its value be determined by the interconvertible bond, placed 
 at the disposal of the wants of the people and governed by all the forms 
 and sanctities of law ; and not surrender the currency to the ever- 
 changing basis of a commodity like gold and we shall have peace on 
 this question. * Justice will be established and the general welfare pro- 
 moted;' prosperity again will revisit us, and we shall vindicate the 
 wisdom and superiority of our free institutions before the world. 
 
 " France, with her 600,000,000 of legal paper, has kept her industries 
 profitably employed by keeping her paper receivable for all forms of 
 taxes, duties, and debts. 
 
 " My views upon the currency I have heretofore briefly expressed as 
 follows : 
 
 " ' The worth or exchangeable value of gold is as uncertain as other 
 products of human labor, such as wheat or cotton. The exchangeable 
 value of anything depends on its convertibility into something else that 
 has value at the option of the individual. This rule applies to paper 
 money as to anything else. But how shall Government give an exchange- 
 able value to a paper currency ? Can it be done by a standard which 
 is beyond its control and which naturally fluctuates, while the sign of 
 exchange indicated by the paper remains the same ? 
 
 " ( This is the unsound theory which possesses the minds of our people 
 and of our politicians. 
 
 <; ( We must cut loose from this unreasonable theory, or we shall be 
 subject, for all time, to these periodic disturbances of our currency 
 which bring such wide-spread ruin and distress to our commercial in- 
 dustries, and work, on the part of the Government, positive and cruel 
 injustice. The remedy seems to me to be very plain. 
 
 " ' FIRST We must put this whole power of coining money or issuing 
 currency, as Thomas Jefferson says, " where, by .the Constitution, it 
 properly belongs'' entirely into the hands of our Government. That 
 Government is a Republic, hence it is under the control of the people. 
 Corporations and States have hitherto, in some form or other, divided 
 this power with the Government. Hence come the embarrassments and 
 the fluctuations, as may be easily shown. 
 
 " ' But now we must trust our Government with this whole function 
 of providing the standards and measures of exchange, as we trust it 
 with the weights and measures of trade. So far from putting the people 
 in the power of our Government and at the caprice of parties in power, 
 
23 
 
 I contend it will bring the Government more under control of the people 
 and give a check to mere party rule. For the more stake the people 
 have in the wisdom and honesty of the Government, the more watchful 
 and firm they will be in its control. 
 
 " * SECOND LY-T- We must require the Government to make this cur- 
 rency, at all times, and, at the option of the individual, convertible. But 
 the currency must be convertible into something over which the Govern- 
 ment has entire control, and to which it can give a definite as well 
 as a permanent value. This is its own interest-bearing bonds. These 
 are, in fact, a mortgage upon the embodied wealth of the whole country. 
 The reality of their value is as sound and as permanent as the Govern- 
 ment itself, and the degree of their value can be determined exactly by 
 the rate of interest the Government may think proper to fix.' 
 
 " The time has come when the claims of a common humanity, and all 
 that can move the manhood of an American citizen, must unite in a 
 demand for an act of common justice now due to the American people 
 who have saved our country from ruin, and will, I trust, forever protect 
 it. The Constitution has made it the first and the most important duty 
 of Congress ( to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
 the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
 of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' 
 
 " To my personal friends I need not say that this sacrifice of peace 
 and rest is like the surrender of what remnant of life I may have. But 
 to the country at large, I will say that I am willing to stand in the 
 place where I have been put by the judgment of an intelligent and 
 honest portion of my countrymen, to stand with them, and try before 
 the whole people this cause of the people's money, and the true financial 
 policy of this Government. 
 
 " Most respectfully yours, 
 
 "PETER COOPER." 
 
A LETTER ON THE CURRENCY. 
 
 By FETKJa COOLER 
 
 ADDRESSED IN 1875. 
 
 To the Editors and Legislators of my native City and Country : 
 
 An inextinguishable desire to do what I can, in this the eighty-fifth 
 year of my age, impels me to call and fix the attention of the American 
 people on the appalling causes that have so effectually paralyzed the 
 varied industries of our country. This destructive cause has already 
 shrunk the value of property, in less than three years, to a condition 
 where real estate cannot be sold, or mortgages obtained on it, for more 
 than one-half the amount it would have brought, three years ago. 
 
 There is nothing that can be more important than to find out and 
 remove a cause that is bringing bankruptcy and ruin on millions of the 
 most industrious and enterprising men of the American people. The 
 national policy that has brought this frightful calamity to our country 
 should receive the most thorough investigation and the most decided 
 action of oiir Government. 
 
 I propose to* show the true public policy that underlies this whole 
 question, and to indicate what appears to me as the principles and the 
 just methods that ought to actuate the people, in their exercise of 
 power through the Government, and the remedies which that Govern- 
 ment ought to devise. .For it must ever be borne in mind that the Gov- 
 ernment and its policy in this country is just what we, the people, 
 make it. It is our duty, therefore, at all times and in every way, to 
 enlighten and exhort the people, and trust to such appeals, rather than 
 any immediate criticism or direct appeal to the Government itself. 
 
 The whole question of the currency and money arises from the neces- 
 sity of trade or exchanges among men in the products of their industry, 
 and the causes and methods that make these exchanges fair, just, and" 
 beneficial to all concerned, or a means of tyranny and injustice, and an 
 occasion for the exercise of greed and selfishness. " A false balance is 
 an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight." This 
 proverb contains the secret of all unfairness in the dealings between 
 man and man. Justice and truth are at the bottom of sJl fair exchanges 
 
25 
 
 that are beneficial to both parties ; but false balances and unjust weights 
 are the means by which the strong and the insincere oppress or deceive 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 Let us then trace, in some simple way, this necessity of exchange 
 among men, and the process by which injustice first creeps in, and the 
 best method of keeping the true balance and the "just weight " in the 
 exchange of one equivalent for the another. 
 
 Suppose a community or race of men to have passed that point in 
 their progress when simple barter is any longer the sufficient means of 
 exchange, when some easier and more rapid method must be devised. 
 The first thing selected for this purpose is a concentrated and valuable 
 form of labor, the most portable, durable, and susceptible of carrying 
 on its very face the record and sign of its value. Such is gold and sil- 
 ver money. Its value is two-fold : it is both intrinsic and representa- 
 tive. But it is its representative value that makes it money, or a con- 
 ventional sign and record of exchanges. So far as its intrinsic value is 
 concerned, the exchange of a piece of gold for anything else is simple 
 barter. Bat it holds the " balance " even, and it gives a just weight 
 for whatever is exchanged for it, because it has cost labor to produce it. 
 
 But there comes a time in the complex and numerous exchanges that 
 take place between men in a higher state of civilization, when even the 
 barter of gold and silver for other products, concentrated and portable 
 as is their intrinsic value, becomes too cumbrous a method, and too slow 
 to effect these exchanges fast enough, and to keep the record of them in 
 the most convenient shape. For this purpose the intrinsic value of the 
 means of exchange is superseded entirely by the representative. The 
 record is taken for a time for the transaction itself, which, however, is 
 assumed will take place infallibly ; and in order to secure a real result 
 of the exchange of values, which at first are the subject of promise and 
 record merely, there must be some real or assumed ability on the part 
 of the one who makes the promise, that he can and will make that 
 promise good. This is the origin of paper money. The value of this 
 paper money, although not intrinsic, as is that of gold and silver, yet is 
 no less real, provided the exchange of values it is used to record can in 
 any way be made certain; it must hold an " even balance," and be sure 
 to give a "just weight " in the end. But here is the point where de- 
 ceit and injustice may creep in. The paper money is always represent- 
 ative of value, and a mere sign of a real exchange of values to take 
 place at some future time. It may, hence, be falsified or trusted blindly, 
 and on insufficient grounds. The selfishness and greed of men, or even 
 their groundless hopes and miscalculations, may give a temporary value 
 to this promise to pay, which it cannot sustain. This is the secret of 
 panics, revulsions in business, and prostration of credits. The lie 
 comes to the surface sooner or later, and the credulous find themselves 
 in the snare. 
 
 This liability increases in proportion to the want of integrity and 
 commercial intelligence in individuals and communities where such 
 methods of exchange take place. Individuals are less to be trusted with 
 such a vast interest as the power of making paper money, than are cor- 
 porate bodies of men, and these in turn are less to be trusted than well 
 
26 
 
 organized governments. Governments themselves differ very much in 
 this respect, in proportion as they are responsible to the people and 
 easily held in check, or rectified by the demands of public interest. 
 Hence, a true republican government is the safest agency in the world 
 to entrust with the power of making paper money. 
 
 A semi-barbarous government, like the Turkish, will, from time to 
 time, even call in all the coin of the country, and reissue it again in a 
 depreciated condition and value. So, paper money is subject to great 
 fluctuations in value, if there be any uncertainty in the real and perma- 
 nent integrity of the power that issues the paper, or a capricious use of 
 its authority in determining its standard of value. 
 
 Experience has shown that individuals cannot be trusted with 
 such a power. Even large corporations cannot be trusted with the 
 common welfare involved in this privilege, and while governments are 
 the safest depositories of the power, they must be such as are not sub- 
 ject either to revolution or to any radical changes of policy, or to any 
 irresponsible exercise of power. This, it appears to me, is now the 
 condition of our Government. Its credit has been, and is now, the sup- 
 port of one of the greatest bonded debts, by means of which the life and 
 the perpetuity of the Union has been secured. The faith of this Gov- 
 ernment now gives value to an immense paper currency for which the 
 law has provided no redemption. It seems preposterous, therefore, to 
 doubt the ability of this Government to give stability to any currency 
 which it might adopt as indispensable to the welfare of 'the nation. 
 
 That value has hitherto been .measured by its exchangeableness with 
 gold, as indicated by the signs of value that are stamped on each, or 
 dollar for dollar. But this is subjecting paper to the laws of barter, as 
 if it had an intrinsic value. It presumes that corporations or govern- 
 ments can control what is uncontrollable, namely, the amount of gold 
 that may, at any time, be in a country. 
 
 Gold is diffusible, because it is accepted by all countries as a standard 
 of value and a means of exchange. .But it is also fluctuating in any local- 
 ity by the laws of production, supply, and demand all over the world. 
 
 To fix upon an arbitrary and fluctuating standard, such as the worth 
 or exchangeable value of a gold dollar, to indicate the exchangeable 
 power of a paper dollar, is as uncertain as to take any other permanent 
 product of human labor, such as a bushel of wheat or a pound of cotton. 
 Nor can any standard be fixed for the value of a currency, because the 
 uses and demand of currency is a fluctuating want itself. Now, the 
 exchangeable value of anything depends upon its convertibility into 
 something else that has value, at the option of the individual. This rule 
 applies to paper money as to anything else. But how shall Govern- 
 ment give an exchangeable value to a paper currency ? Can it do so 
 by a standard which is beyond its control, and which naturally fluctu- 
 ates, while the sign of exchange indicated by the paper remains the 
 same? 
 
 This is the unsound state which possesses the minds of our people 
 and of our politicians. 
 
 We must come out of this unreasonable condition, or we shall be sub- 
 ject, for all time, to these periodic disturbances of our money and cur* 
 
27 
 
 rency which bring such widespread ruin and distress on our commer 
 cial industries, and work on the part of the Government, positive and 
 cruel injustice. The remedy seems to me to be very plain. 
 
 First. We must put this whole power of coining money or issuing 
 currency, as Thomas Jefferson says, " where, by the Constitution, it 
 properly belongs " entirely in the hands of our Government. That 
 Government is a republic ; hence it is under control of the people. 
 Corporations and States have hitherto, in some form or other, divided 
 this power with the Government. Hence come the embarrassments and 
 the fluctuations, as may be easily shown. 
 
 But now we must trust our Government with this whole function of 
 providing the standards and measures of exchange, as we trust it with 
 the weights and measures of all trade. So far from putting the people 
 in the power of our Government and at the caprice of parties in power, 
 I contend, it will bring the Government more under the control of the 
 people and give a check to mere party rule. For the more stake the 
 people have in the wisdom and honesty of the administration of the 
 Government, the more watchful and firm they will be in its control. 
 
 Secondly. We must require the Government to make this currency, 
 at all times, and at the option of the individual, redeemable. The 
 Government can redeem its promises to pay in three ways by its 
 taxes, its bonds, and by coin. The taxes are just as sound and true a 
 method of redemption, as the real debts against a man are an equivalent 
 for his notes. For when a man pays his taxes, with paper, he pays 
 what he owes the Government in evidences of debt, on the part of the 
 Government. 
 
 Furthermore, the Government may redeem its notes, in bonds. 
 This method, although it is paying one debt by another, is redemp- 
 tion by a form more desirable to the holder ; because, one is an in- 
 terest bearing debt, and the other is not. But to prevent the 
 currency from running all into bonds, two regulations are necessary, 
 first that the bonds should be inconvertible into currency ; and secondly, 
 that the bonds should bear a lower rate of interest, than the average of 
 safe investments in active business. The Government has entire con- 
 trol over its bonds, to which it can give a definite as well as a perma- 
 nent value. These are, in fact, a mortgage upon the embodied wealth 
 of the whole country. The reality of their value is as sound and as 
 permanent as the Government itself, and the degree of their value can 
 be determined exactly by the amount of interest the Government may 
 think proper to fix. 
 
 This convertibility will always keep a check, both in the amount of 
 currency and the amount of bonds that may be called for at any time ; 
 for the bonds are property, creating an income, and the currency is 
 merely the measure of property and the means of exchange. If^currency 
 swells in the hands of the people, it will show that business is active, 
 exchanges numerous, and investments profitable. If currency shrinks 
 and bonds increase, it will only be to the extent of those natural fluc- 
 tuations which seasons and times bring upon the productive energies 
 of man. But at no time will either the bonds or the currency be a 
 mere drug upon the market, for they will be mutually convertible. 
 
28 
 
 Lastly, the Government can afford to redeem its paper in coin, if it 
 be also the exclusive paper money of the country ; if it be the only legal 
 tender for debts, and if it be received by the Government for all taxes 
 and dues, and convertible, at par, with the bonds of the Govern- 
 ment, at the will of the holder ; for then, the currency would be on a 
 par ivith gold and silver. But the Government can never afford to do 
 this unless all these conditions are observed, with regard to its currency. 
 The Government can have no other control than these conditions give 
 over the relations between paper and coin, except that of changing the 
 standard weight of the coin dollar. This has been done by Governments, 
 with advantage to the interests of trade, many times, in the history of 
 (joining, because the demands of trade and commerce have outgrown the 
 supply of the precious metals, and it became necessary to redivide the 
 coin as a standard of value. The precious metals are now used mostly to 
 pay "balances " in the commerce of nations ; and this very use disquali- 
 fies them from being the domestic currency of any nation. But a cer- 
 tain quantity of gold and silver, subject to recoining from time to time, 
 will be always very convenient as a standard and measure for a unit of 
 value in the currency. 
 
 When we look into the history of the past for the real cause of those 
 periodical panics, that have brought financial ruin on so many of our 
 people, we find that on all those occasions, as in the present paralyzed 
 condition of the trade and commerce of the country, the main difficulty 
 has originated in the unfortunate financial policy adopted by the Gen- 
 eral Government a policy that is producing for our people what the 
 policy of the British Government has brought about for the people of 
 that country, where the real estate of the whole of England has, in a 
 comparatively short period, been transferred from 165,000 of the past, 
 to 30,000 land-owners of the present. And this, where the most rapid 
 increase of wealth, perhaps, in the world, is also attended with the 
 worst and most unequal distribution ; and where, instead of a diffused 
 happiness and universal prosperity, the rich grow richer and the poor 
 poorer, by constant vacillations in the measures of value. 
 
 Our own Government, instead of taking the whole subject of money 
 and currency entirely in its hands, as provided for by the Constitution, 
 allowed, for a time, local banks to multiply and continue until their 
 notes, which were promises to pay specie on demand, became mere delu- 
 sions, and the best informed and most prudent merchant found it im- 
 possible to distinguish those that were redeemable, or convertible into 
 gold, from those that were not. The chartered Bank of the United 
 States, in the first four years of its operation, issued $40,000,000 of 
 paper with only $300,000 in specie to redeem its notes. Banks evaded 
 the law by issuing paper that they were unable to redeem. The reason 
 of this lay, in the fact that the demand for currency at times was far in 
 excess of the quantity that could be reabsorbed into gold, when the 
 currency was no longer needed. 
 
 Gold alone, was not its proper agent of conversion, because it is un- 
 certain in volume, and is itself subject to the magnetic attraction of a 
 foreign trade that needs it to make up its balances. 
 
 Had the currency, which should have been all United States cur- 
 
29 
 
 rency, been at once convertible into United States bonds, which, in- 
 stead of locking it up, as would be the case now, should have given a 
 small interest, until the currency was wanted again, when the bonds 
 should immediately be convertible into currency, we would have 
 escaped the panics and stagnation of trade and stoppage of industry 
 which has now affected the commerce of the world. 
 
 The local banks were allowed to continue until the war of the rebel- 
 lion compelled the Government to issue a currency as legal tender, as 
 the only advisable means of carrying on its operations for the safety ol 
 the nation's life. 
 
 In this extremity our Government was literally compelled, as a war 
 measure, to offer to these local banks nearly double the ordinary interest 
 of loans, in order to induce them to lend their money to the Govern- 
 ment, and base their banking on the bonds of the Government, and 
 exchange their own currency for that of the United States. This 
 great advantage given to capital invested in the local banks should have 
 come to an end when the war was over, as it was only a war measure. 
 At the end of the war, common justice to the debtor class should have 
 prevented the Government from doing anything to lessen the purchasing 
 power of those legal-tender notes which the people had been literally 
 compelled to accept for all products of their labor. The circulation 
 should have been left simply to the natural law. At the close of the 
 war, the legal tenders should have been made the permanent currency 
 of the country, and the volume should not have been increased or 
 diminished, except as per capita, with the increase of the population of 
 the country. And further, it should have been made convertible into 
 the bonds of the Government, over which it has entire control, and to 
 which it could give a permanent value in interest. Instead of this, 
 what do we find the Government doing ? Resolving that at a certain 
 future time, in 1879, the currency shall be convertible into gold ! "Why 
 did not our Congressmen proceed to resolve that, by that time, there 
 should be gold enough in the country to absorb all the currency that 
 foreigners and importers might wish to be converted into gold ? But 
 this they could, not do. Hence the present unwillingness of capital to 
 invest in business or manufacture, because the capitalist does not know 
 what his property or his money may be worth, four years hence. This 
 currency must be made convertible, or it cannot measure real property, 
 or properly represent it. But its convertibility into gold cannot be 
 made a matter of legal enactment, until the other conditions are ob- 
 served, as above stated, which will make our currency on a par with 
 gold. For this purpose, I would demonetize gold and silver, altogether 
 except as tokens of value, and have nothing but its paper, the legal 
 tender of the country. The paper then would be of such indispensable 
 use that what was needed to be turned into specie, could be converted 
 at par. 
 
 The only policy the Government could adopt to influence the influx 
 of gold into this country, and keep its relations on a par with other 
 commodities and with the paper currency, would be that the Govern- 
 ment should require its import duties to be paid in legal tenders, 
 adding always the premium on gold to the amount as estimated in the 
 
30 
 
 paper currency. That would be desirable at present, or until the 
 national debt is extinguished, because the Government is under obliga- 
 tion to pay the interest of its bonds in gold. It will have a tendency 
 to keep the paper on a par with gold ; for it will make it easier to paj 
 the dues of the Government ; besides, the superior convenience and 
 certain convertibility of the paper will always have a tendency to keep 
 it on a par, or even make it more valuable than gold. But interest- 
 bearing bonds are purely a subject of legal enactment, and hence can 
 be controlled by the Government. This is the whole secret of the diffi- 
 culty, and the real key to our financial condition. Our currency, in 
 point of fact,- is not convertible into gold. When it is not needed, as 
 at present, to the full extent of its volume to effect the exchanges 
 or pay the wages of labor, because these are in a measure interrupted, 
 what is to be done with it? Some say, " Call it in and burn it up," 
 that the rest may be worth its own volume in gold. But this currency 
 has already been in circulation ; it is now the measure of the whole 
 property of the country, and has been the measure of many exchanges, and 
 now represents the great mass of indebtedness. To bring down its 
 i*elative value to that of gold is as arbitrary a measure, as to bring it to 
 the standard of any other product 'that of wheat or iron, for instance. 
 
 It will place all in the power of those who have the most gold. It 
 will transfer a large part of the property of the country to foreigners, or 
 to those who can readily draw gold from Europe. 
 
 But let us consider this subject more closely. If we admit that there 
 is at any one time only a certain amount of gold in the world, it is cer- 
 tain that our community or nation cannot obtain more than its share 
 without leaving all the others in a deficiency at least for a time. 
 
 By this means one nation has the power to derange the exchanges, 
 and through these, the industries of every other country. The caprice 
 and power even of a few large capitalists can do this. It would be, 
 therefore, an unwise policy for our government to allow this one article 
 of gold, that all nations are struggling to obtain by the use of all the 
 arts that human ingenuity can devise, and which must be employed in 
 settling all balances of trade between different countries, and which, as 
 a product of nature and of human industry, is uncontrollable by any 
 law that the government can devise to make this the standard of all 
 values and the legalized measure of all trade and exchange in this coun- 
 try, would be in direct opposition to the opinion of many of the wisest 
 statesmen that our country has produced. This will appear by the fol- 
 lowing expression of their views : 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 
 Vol. VI., p. 199, Jefferson's works, letter to Mr. Eppis. 
 
 " JBank paper must be suppressed, and the circulating medium, must 
 be restored to the nation to whom it belongs. It is the only fund on 
 which they can rely for loans ; it is the only resource which can never 
 fail them, and it is an abundant one for every necessary purpose. 
 Treasury bills, bottomed on taxes, bearing or not bearing interest, as may 
 be found necessary, thrown into circulation, will take the place of to 
 
31 
 
 much gold or silver, which last, when crowded, will find an efflux into 
 other countries, and thus keep the quantum of medium at its salutary 
 level." 
 
 Also the great statesman and philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, in 
 Vol. IY., page 82, of his work, says : " Gold and silver are not intrin- 
 sically of equal value with iron. Their value rests chiedy in the esti- 
 mation they happen to be in, among the generality of nations. Any 
 other well-founded credit is as much an equivalent as gold and silvei. 
 Paper money, well founded, has great advantages over gold and silver, 
 being light and convenient for handling large sums, and not likely to 
 have its volume reduced by demands for exportation.. On the whole, 
 no method has hitherto been formed to establish a medium of trade 
 equal in all its advantages to bills of credit made a general legal- 
 tender." 
 
 JOHN c. CALHOUN'S OPINION. 
 
 The following is an extract from a speech of Hon. John C. Calhoun, 
 in the Senate of the United States, on the currency issue, and is emi- 
 nently appropriate to be quoted in the prevailing discussion. Mr. Cal- 
 houn said, Yol. III., p. 83 : 
 
 " It appears to me, after bestowing the best reflection I can give the 
 subject, that no convertible paper that is, no paper whose credit rests 
 on the promise to pay coin is suitable for a currency. It is the form of 
 credit proper in private transactions between man and man, but not for 
 a standard of value, to perform exchanges generally, which constitutes 
 the approximate function of money, or currency." Then on page 87 : 
 " No one can doubt but that the Government credit is better than that 
 of any bank more stable and more safe. . . . Bank paper is 
 cheap to those who make it, but dear, very dear, to those who use it. 
 On the other hand the credit of the Government, while it would greatly 
 facilitate its financial operations, would cost nothing, or next to noth- 
 ing, both to it and the people, and would, of course, add nothing to the 
 cost of production, which would give every branch of our industries 
 agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, as far as its circulation might 
 extend, great advantages both at home and abroad ; . . . and I 
 now undertake to affirm, and without the least fear that I can be 
 answered, that a paper issued by government, with the simple promise 
 to receive it for all its dues, leaving its creditors to take it, or gold or 
 silver, at their option, would, to the extent it could circulate, form a 
 perfect paper circulation, which could not be abused by the Govern- 
 ment ; that it would be as uniform in value as the metals themselves ; 
 and I shall be able to prove that it is within the Constitution and 
 powers of Congress to use such a paper in the management of its finances, 
 according to the most rigid rule of construing the Constitution." 
 
 SPENCER ON FINANCE. 
 
 Herbert Spencer stands among the first writers and thinkers of this 
 age. He studies and writes for the sake of the truth. Hence the fol- 
 lowing from his pen will be fresh and invigorating to thirsty souls of 
 this time. Yol. VIII. , p. a33 : 
 
The monetary arrangements of any community are ultimately de 
 pendent, like most other arrangements, on the morality of its members. 
 Amongst a people altogether dishonest, every mercantile transaction 
 must be effected in coin or goods ; for promises to pay cannot circulate 
 at all when, by the hypothesis, there is no probability that they wili 
 be redeemed. Conversely, amongst perfectly honest people, paper alone 
 will form the circulating medium, and metallic money will be needless. 
 Manifestly, therefore, during any intermediate state, in which men are 
 neither altogether dishonest nor altogether honest, a mixed currency will 
 exist ; and the ratio of paper to coin will vary with the degree of trust 
 individuals place, in each other. 
 
 " There seems no evading this conclusion. The greater the preva- 
 lence of fraud, the greater will be the number of transactions in which 
 the seller will part with his goods only for an equivalent of intrinsic 
 value ; that is, the greater will be the number of transactions in which 
 coin is required, and the more will the metallic currency preponderate. 
 On the other hand, the more generally men find each other trustworthy, 
 the more frequently will they take payment in notes, bills of exchange, 
 and checks ; the fewer will be the cases in which gold and silver are 
 called for, and the smaller will be the quantity of gold and silver in 
 circulation." 
 
 RICARDO. 
 
 " The pretensions of those who are attempting to drive this country 
 back to the barbarism of a metallic basis for our currency are fast giv- 
 ing away for want of argument. It is being discovered that all the 
 great writers who have analyzed the subject, and viewed it from a sci- 
 entific stand-point, came to the conclusion that paper is superior to metal 
 for a currency. Even Eicardo, the high priest of the bullionists, the 
 father of the present British system, allows this. He says : 
 
 " A regulated paper currency is so great an improvement in com- 
 merce that I should greatly regret if prejudice should induce us to re- 
 turn to a system of less utility. The introduction of the precious 
 metals for the purposes of money may with truth be considered as one 
 of the most important steps towards the improvement of commerce and 
 the arts of civilized life. But it is no less true that, with the advance- 
 ment of knowledge and science, we discover that it would be another 
 improvement to banish them again from the employment to which, 
 during the less enlightened period, they had been so advantageously 
 applied." 
 
 HORACE GREELEY'S PLAN. 
 
 " Let Congress make our greenbacks fundable at the pleasure of the 
 holder, in bonds of $100, $1,000, and $10,000, drawing interest at the 
 rate of one cent a day on each $100 (or $3.65 per annum), and exchange- 
 able into greenbacks at the pleasure of the holder. Now authorize the 
 Treasurer to purchase and extinguish our outstanding bonds, so fast as 
 it is supplied with the means of so doing by receipts for customs or 
 otherwise, and to issue new greenbacks whenever large amounts shall be 
 
33 
 
 required, every one being fundable in sums of $100, $ 1,000, or $10,000, 
 as aforesaid, at the pleasure of the holder, in bonds drawing an annual 
 interest of $3.65 in coin per annum, and these bonds exchangeable into 
 greenbacks whenever a holder shall desire it. 
 
 " Our greenbacks, which are now virtual falsehoods, would be truths. 
 The Government would pay them on demand in bonds as aforesaid, 
 which is in substantial accordance with the plan on which the green- 
 backs were first authorized." 
 
 It appears by a speech of W. W. Allen, Esq., that there had been 
 drawn from the people, in the shape of taxes and duties, during eight 
 years between the 31st .of August, 1865, and the 1st of November, 
 1873, the amount of $631,488,677, making a reduction of the national 
 debt in eight years of $631,488,677, showing that an anunal amount of 
 $195,113,356 has been drawn from the people in the shape of taxes and 
 paid towards the extinguishment of our national debt. This amount was 
 over and above the amount drawn from the people to pay all the expen- 
 ses of the Government, in addition to the amount required to pay the 
 interest on the national debt. 
 
 Such a rapid withdrawal of the people's means from their ordinary 
 business is quite sufficient to account for the ruin now brought on un- 
 told thousands of the American people. 
 
 For our Government to continue such a policy and go on drawing 
 taxes from the people as they have done, to extinguish the national 
 debt before it is either due or wanted by those who hold it, is about as 
 wise as it was for Pharaoh to expect his people to make bricks without 
 straw. 
 
 The people could and would willingly have paid the five dollars 
 interest on every hundred dollars of the national debt. They could 
 have paid the interest on the debt with enough of the principal to show- 
 that they honestly intended to pay the whole amount. 
 
 This they could and would have done if they had been permitted to re- 
 tain the tools of their trades ; the amount of currency on which they 
 were compelled >to depend for their ability to pay the taxes on the cost 
 of the war. 
 
 I believe I have shown that the policy adopted by our Government 
 to hasten a return to specie payments has rendered the attainment of 
 that object more distant and difficult than it was at the close of the war 
 of the rebellion. 
 
 I am now convinced that an opposite policy, one that would have 
 legalized all the Government money in circulation at the close of the 
 war, making it convertible into interest-bearing bonds, and incon- 
 vertible into currency at the will of the holder, would have established 
 justice between the people and the Government, and would have caused 
 our currency to appreciate to the value of gold long before this. It 
 would have left the money, the sinews of war, the tools of trade,' in the 
 hands of the people, to enable them to meet the expenses incurred, and 
 make the necessary provisions for the hundreds of thousands of dis- 
 banded soldiers thrown back on their homes to find employment or 
 starve. 
 
34 
 
 In conclusion, T -would say that we have every reason to hope foi 
 our country. But we must not trust in the amount of our gold or other 
 riches, but in the principles of our Constitution as free people, and in 
 the free development of all our magnificent resources. We must turn 
 again the tide of immigration which is now leaving our shores. We can 
 do this, as in the past, by continuing to offer a better reward for labor, 
 and cheaper land for settlement, by a faithful administration of our 
 laws in the interests of the people, and not of classes or monopolies, 
 and by trusting in all questions of money and currency to the integrity 
 and power of our Government, and not placing ourselves at the mercy 
 of foreign capitalists nor submitting tamely to that war of commerce 
 which every nation is willing to make upon us, if we do not take effec- 
 tual means for our own self-preservation. i 
 
 A LETTER ADDRESSED IN 1875. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Evening Post : " 
 
 IN some of your late issues, I find an article by S. S. P., entitled 
 " Peter Cooper's New Departure," and an article with a similar title, 
 by my old and valued friend, John B. Jar vis. These communications 
 allude to the fact that, seventeen years ago, I held it to be unsafe for 
 the public welfare, as I now do, to allow banks to incur liabilities, pay- 
 able in specie, on demand, by issues of paper and loans many times the 
 amount of the specie they held in their vaults, or could obtain from any 
 source, for the immediate payment of their notes in gold, on demand. 
 This demand was made with all the accompanying disasters of wide- 
 spread ruin and interruption of credit and industry, in times called 
 " panics." The effect of the panic of 1857, and the causes, are very 
 clearly detailed in Mr. Cald well's work on " Ways and Means of Pay- 
 ment" p. 485. 
 
 Gold is a commodity, and a product of industry. Its value is deter- 
 mined, like that of any other commodity, by supply and demand. Why 
 not let those who need it pay the price? Why should the necessary 
 facilities of the home trade be contracted, whenever there is a demand 
 for gold for export? This it is that subjects the whole country, from 
 time to time, to a fall or derangement in prices and an interruption to 
 business ? Even with our present irredeemable legal-tenders, all must 
 see that when gold varies five per cent, in a few days, neither the value 
 of these legal-tenders, as measured by other property, nor the rest of the 
 property of the country is perceptibly affected. My " New Departure," 
 as my friends term it, is the result of observation and experience. I 
 should be sorry to be among those who learn nothing from the past. 
 " Hard money," or what is equivalent to it, a paper currency at all 
 times redeemable in gold and silver, can no longer be relied on to 
 answer the wants of this country. But I am as much opposed to an 
 irredeemable currency, and an inflated and irresponsible paper money 
 as I ever was, Our experience, as a nation, should have taught us by 
 this time, by the " panics " of the past and the oft-repeated failures of 
 
35 
 
 banks, that these banks are utterly unable to redeem their notes in 
 specie whenever gold is wanted of them in any large quantities. It ia 
 evident that there is some intrinsic difficulty about this redemption in 
 specie, beyond the power either of banks or of Government to control, 
 except by methods not yet adopted by Government. I trust that 
 my friend John B. Jarvis and S. S. P. will find, on a more careful 
 examination of what I have written, that 1 am as much opposed 
 to an irresponsible, inflated, paper currency, as I ever was. I am now 
 opposed to the present currency, so far as it is irredeemable ; but I am 
 also opposed to the policy of withdrawing the currency from circulation, 
 until the residue shall be on a par with gold, because that would work 
 great injustice to the debtor class. I do not believe in the good policy 
 . of selling Government bonds, as a means of resuming specie payments, 
 as it will soon be drained from us again, leaving our paper as it was 
 before, irredeemable in gold ; nor in the purchase of silver to take the 
 place of the best small currency our country has ever possessed. It is 
 a currency that is now serving the country without interest ; and is 
 giving back to the whole people whatever is lost or worn out in the 
 public service. But let the currency at all times be exchangeable with 
 interest-bearing bonds, and let the Government not only make its money 
 a legal tender, but receive it for all dues, and we shall hear no more 
 either of " inflation " or of " depreciation." This is my doctrine " in a 
 nutshell." I believe with Jefferson and many of our wisest statesmen, 
 that our general Government is as much bound by the Constitution to 
 hold the entire control of all that is allowed as a legal money measure, 
 in the regulation of trade and commerce, as they are bound to fix a 
 standard for the pound weight or the bushel measure. That this meas- 
 ure of value should be made as unfailing and unalterable as possible. 
 And the currency should always compare well with the most condensed 
 and valuable form of human labor, as it is now found in gold. But 
 after the most mature reflection, I find myself compelled to believe, 
 with Benjamin Franklin, " that any other well-founded credit is as 
 much an equivalent for labor as gold and silver." He says, what all 
 now Snow to be true, " that paper money, well founded, has great ad- 
 vantage over gold and silver, being light and convenient for handling 
 in large sums, and not likely to have its volume, reduced by demands 
 for exportation." " On the whole," he says, " no method has hitherto 
 been found to establish a medium of trade equal, in all its advantages, 
 to bills of credit made a general legal tender." 
 
 That such a policy is practicable is proved by the fact that the French 
 Government has made and maintained a legal tender paper circulation, 
 through one of the fiercest and, to them, the most disastrous wars of 
 modern times ; and, having paid a thousand millions of indemnity, their 
 paper money is to-day nearly on a par with gold. This is because the 
 Government took its own paper for all dues, instead of discrediting it. 
 by not taking it, as ours does. They take their paper also for French 
 Government bonds, which has resulted in the public debt being mainly 
 due to their own citizens, instead of foreigners, as ours is to-day, thus 
 becoming a perpetual tax on the resources of the country. 
 
 My efforts to avoid the evils that have befallen the finances of our 
 
36 
 
 country, will appear in a paragraph from a petition sent by me to Con 
 
 During the session of the Congress of 1869, 1 had the honor to send 
 to every member of the Senate and House of Representatives a plan fot 
 the establishment of a currency thafc all our experience has shown to be 
 the best that our country has ever possessed. It only required an act 
 of Congress declaring that the legal tenders then in circulation should 
 never be increased or diminished in amount, only as per capita, with 
 the increase of inhabitants of the country. It will now only require an 
 act of Congress to make such currency as just and permanent a measure 
 of the value of all property and labor, as the yard-stick or pound weight, 
 as money, weight, and measure must ajways exist by governmental 
 authority. To make ou-r present legal tenders the best currency in the 
 world, it will only require that Congress receive the legal tenders in 
 payment for all duties with an amount of currency added that will be 
 equal to the premium that gold has borne during the month preceding 
 the maturing of all contracts. This plan will make it the interest of 
 every man to bring legal tenders on a par with gold in the shortest 
 possible time." 
 
 . The several quotations of the opinions of eminent men in the history 
 of this country, which I gave in my " Letter on the Currency," were 
 intended to show by good authority that Congress had a right to borrow 
 money on the credit of the United States, and to issue- bonds bearing 
 interest for the same ; and in this is implied the power to issue a cur- 
 rency as legal tender, for this is only another form of the public debt. 
 But to incur the great debt of four hundred millions of dollars in the 
 shape of a paper currency ; to make this a " forced loan," by making 
 this paper a legal tender for all debts as between individuals, and to pay 
 it to every one from whom the Government obtained service or material, 
 and at the same time to discredit this paper, by refusing to take it for 
 the Government dues, and to withdraw forty-four millions of this cur- 
 rency from the active trade of the people in the course of two or three 
 years, thus embarrassing trade and shrinking values, until a "panic" 
 was brought on : all this seems to me a great mistake on the part%)f our 
 Government not the issuing of this currency, for that was a necessary 
 war measure to save the integrity of the Union but to make this cur- 
 rency irredeemable, either in bonds or in gold ; and then to contract it, 
 after all values had been measured by this currency for some years, and 
 debts incurred which the parties had the right to believe were to be 
 paid in good faith, by the same measure as they were contracted this 
 does seem to me not only a great mistake, but a great injustice to the 
 people. 
 
 I have urgently recommended that our Government should hold itself 
 bound, as an inviolable obligation, to regard every dollar of the legal 
 tenders, which were issued to save the nation's life as a loan drawn from 
 the people, which the Government was as much bound to pay in full 
 measure as ever a debt due from one individual to another. This debt 
 was a fair claim on the whole property of the country. When made 
 a legal tender, it should have been received by the Government for 
 all dues, and the whole amount issued should have been allowed to 
 
37 
 
 become the permanent standard and measure of all values, as it was for 
 a time, letting - the natural demands of trade and commerce and the 
 gradual growth of the country determine its future value, as compared 
 with other commodities gold, for instance. 
 
 This currency should have for its base of security the solemn pledge, 
 already given by the Government, that the $400,000,000 and other 
 national currency put in circulation as a war debt should never 
 be increased, unless called for by conditions just as imperative as war. 
 And further, this pledge should have been followed by an act of Congress, 
 to tax the whole property of the country, on which this war debt was a 
 Hen, to pay the interest of it at some proper rate to those who held the 
 currency, but could not use it advantageously in trade, by making it 
 convertible into bonds at any time at the will of the holder. Such a 
 course would have give an annual assurance that our Government 
 meant to pay every dollar of its debt, both at home and abroad. It 
 would also have given to our country a degree of stability in the opera- 
 tions of trade and commerce, that would in time compensate our coun- 
 try for all the losses occasioned by the war of rebellion. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say that ever since paper money was issued 
 by any civilized country, except, perhaps, at the very first, it has soon 
 grown out of all possible redemption in coin alone. So that it has gen- 
 erally been assumed that one dollar in coin would float from three to five 
 dollars in paper. But this has only been true in the times of expanding 
 credits. As soon as contraction came, for any cause, a " panic ensued ; " 
 for it was found that a dollar in coin was needed for every dollar in paper. 
 Why, then, keep up this vain fiction any longer ? It can only serve to 
 expand credits to an unwarrantable degree, while it permits another 
 class to contract credits suddenly and to a ruinous degree. It leads in- 
 evitably to "panics" Now, it seems to me there is a plain way out of 
 all these financial difficulties. If currency is issued only as an equiva- 
 lent of bonds, then every dollar of the currency is at all times sustained, 
 or " floated," by an equal value of the bonds of the Government. An 
 " expansion of currency " can go no further than the actual equivalent 
 received by the Government for its bonds. A " contraction of cur- 
 rency " can go on no faster than the conversion of the paper into bonds. 
 Panics will be impossible, because there will always be a means by 
 which real " assets " can be at once converted into money. It is this 
 want of " ready conversion " that causes panics and ruins even *' well- 
 founded houses." I have said before, that I believe this will bring the 
 currency on a par with gold ; but whether it does or n.ot, it is certain 
 that we cannot, by any legal enactments, keep our currency on a par 
 with gold, without either shrinking its volume to less than the ordinary 
 demands of trade and commerce in this country and doing great injus- 
 tice to the debtor class, or by a proper policy on the part of the Gov- 
 ernment in respect to this currency, to prevent those great fluctuations 
 in its value which lie at the foundation of all financial troubles. 
 
 I have lived too long to enter now, at this late day of my protracted 
 life, into the mere partisan disputes of the day. I have no other object 
 or interest than the welfare of the whole people of my country ; and. 
 believing as I do, I should hold myself very much to blame, if I with 
 
38 
 
 held my feeble testimony in this important crisis of the country, and on a 
 question involving such momentous consequences as a sound currency 
 and a true financial system. On these we must depend for the future 
 prosperity and happiness of the whole industrial class, with whom I 
 have ever been in sympathy. I confess to a most profound anxiety for 
 all those who, with their best efforts, find life a great struggle for a bare 
 subsistence. 
 
 These troubles will be greatly lessened when gold becomes, as it 
 should be, only a guide in the exchanges of commerce, as the mariner 
 looks at the north star as his best guide over a dangerous ocean. 
 
 THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 
 
 The following address was prepared by Peter Cooper for delivery at 
 the meeting of the Union League Club at New York City. It contains 
 a full exposition of his views on financial questions. We recommend 
 its careful reading and consideration : 
 
 Mr. President and Q-entlemen of the Union League Club : 
 
 I find myself impelled by an irresistible desire to call and fix the at- 
 tention of every lover of his kind and country on those appalling causes 
 that have so effectually paralyzed the varied industries of our people. 
 Those causes have been sufficient to shrink the real estate of the nation 
 to one-half the amount it would have brought three years ago ; and that 
 without having shrunk at the same time any of the debts that had been 
 contracted by the use of money authorized by the Government of our 
 country. There is nothing that can be more important than to find out 
 and remove the causes that are bringing bankruptcy and ruin to the 
 homes of millions of the most industrious men of our nation. The 
 national policy that has brought this frightful calamity on our people 
 should receive the most thorough investigation and the most decided 
 action by the Government of our country. There is but one way of re- 
 lief out of all this national trouble and sorrow. The people themselves 
 must enforce upon the administration the obligations laid down in the 
 Constitution, " to establish justice, and thus secure the general wel- 
 fare of the nation." To do this, let us take it out of the power of 
 States or corporations to make or unmake the money of the country. 
 It is the sole duty of the Government to coin money, as the Constitu- 
 tion requires. Let the Government itself, through its Administration, 
 be restrained from meddling capriciously with the currency, and only 
 under permanent laws and a well-understood and predetermined policy, 
 always having reference to the good of the people. 
 
 Let us have a national currency, issued solely by the authority and 
 supported in circulation by the taxing power and the solvency of our 
 Government. Such a currency should be fixed in volume, as per capita, 
 to the amount of the people's money actually found in circulation at 
 the close of the war, and it should be made as certain and as permanent 
 in value in its measuring power as the yard, pound, and V ushel, by its 
 
39 
 
 being made redeemable for all Government taxes, duties, and debts, aa 
 well as a legal tender for all private debts. This currency must be 
 always interconvertible with Government bonds at a low rate of interest, 
 as compared with active investment. It should be a currency which a 
 bank or corporation cannot rightfully issue, enlarge, or contract in its 
 own interest, and which cannot be taken from the hands of the people 
 by the l( ever-shifting balance of commodities " between nations, as is 
 the case with gold and silver when used as money. It will not be sub- 
 ject to any sudden contractions or expansions, but will be regulated by 
 established law, based on scientific facts and principles of a just system 
 of national finances. The greenback can be made just such a currency. 
 This currency can always be kept on an average par with gold or the 
 currency of any other country by the encouragement and the support 
 which it will give to the industry and the productiveness of the coun- 
 try. It will increase indefinitely the country's exporting power. We 
 will then pay our " balances " with other nations with our surplus 
 products, and have but little occasion for the use of gold and silver to 
 pay balances of trade. We can in no way become an exporting nation 
 except by stimulating our own productiveness, diversified and enlarged 
 in every direction of human industry, in which our materials are as 
 good and abundant as those of other nations, and the labor and skill 
 are ready for use if properly encouraged. For this purpose I believe 
 it will be wise for us to remove all internal taxation, and rely solely on 
 a sufficient revenue tariff to meet the expenses of Governrcent. This 
 subject is very much misunderstood or misrepresented by our own ad- 
 vocates of free trade. It is the surplus productions of foreign countries 
 mostly that reach our shores as imports, and it is also the surplus cap- 
 ital of the importers and the foreigners that is employed to bring them 
 here. Hence it is but right to tax this " surplus " for the absolute 
 wants of our own domestic industry and capital. This is precisely what 
 a tariff accomplishes. It taxes the importer and the foreigner chiefly, 
 who must find a market somewhere, and those of our people who will 
 buy and use foreign products, who leave our own good raw materials un- 
 used, and our own domestic laborers unemployed. This is violating the 
 first law of nature self-preservation. Let us take care of our own 
 people here at home as the first duty of our own Government. And 
 let us not make the great mistake of the governing classes in France, 
 England, and Germany, where the wages of the operatives and working- 
 men are reduced to a bare subsistence. 
 
 It is this ignorance or want of patriotism that stands in the way of 
 the public weal, both in the management of our finances and tHe adop- 
 tion of a judicious tariff. The people alone can vindicate their rights 
 and secure their own welfare by taking an intelligent and proper in- 
 terest in the administration of their own Government. Let them re- 
 quire from this Administration a return to the principles of public 
 justice and equal rights. Let the Government be required in some 
 proper way to restore to the people the tools of their trade. and com- 
 merce, which have been so unjustly and cruelly taken from them. Let 
 there be provision made for the return of the whole of that currency 
 found in circulation at the close of the rebellion, which was worked out 
 
40 
 
 and paid for by the people in the labor, material, and service which 
 had rendered to the Government during our struggle for the nation's life. 
 It was a currency which had lifted the American people into a state of 
 unexampled prosperity, never before known in this or any other coun- 
 try, and which can be restored to the people by the issue of greenbacks 
 paid out for the necessary expenses of Government, for the execution 
 of great necessary international works, such as the Northern and South- 
 ern Pacific railroads, which, when made, will strengthen the bonds of 
 the Union, and open a vast country, with its untold wealth, for the en- 
 terprise and labor of the people. I have sounded these notes of en- 
 couragement, warning, and advice time and again, because I believe they 
 are for the peace and happiness of our country. At my advanced age 
 I have no personal ambition or motive left but the welfare of mankind 
 and the prosperity of my beloved country. If it were the last word I 
 should utter with my dying breath, I should warn the people of this 
 country against the insidious wiles of professed politicians, who are 
 seeking for the spoils of office and the attractions of power men who 
 are ready to lend themselves to all special and partial acts of legislation, 
 if they can only advance their own individual interests. Such men 
 oppose " civil service. " because it will curtail their political patronage ; 
 such men barter the rights, the prosperity, and even the bread of the 
 people, in order to share in the spoils and the temporary gains which 
 are thrown into the hands of a few by a pernicious system of banking, 
 of which the periodical panics of our country, bear a frightful record. 
 They are the natural outgrowth of the same injurious system. 
 
 My arguments will be confirmed by a reference to the facts stated in 
 the following letter in relation to the currency by F. E. Spinner, the 
 former United States Treasurer. Mr. Spinner says that there was put 
 in circulation, in all the forms of six per cent., five per cent., and 
 3.65 per cent., of legal tender money, $1,152,924,892, besides the 
 seven-thirties, $830,000,000, which Mr. Spinner says were intended, 
 prepared, and used as currency. This amount had been paid out as so 
 many dollars, and had become the people's money, which the Govern- 
 ment was then and forever bound to receive from the people as legal 
 tender dollars for every form of taxes, duties, and debts. The failure 
 of the Government to do that duty lias cost the nation thousands of 
 millions of dollars. It will be recollected by many members of this 
 club that we were favored on a former occasion by Prof. White, of 
 Cornell University, with an account of the losses sustained by the peo- 
 ple of France by the use of the assignats authorized by that Govern- 
 ment. I have always regretted that my esteemed friend, Prof. White, 
 had not gone far enough into the true history of the rise, progress, and 
 use of the assignats of France, to see that the injurious losses occa- 
 sioned by them did not arise from an improper action of the republican 
 Government, but by the combined powers of the internal and external 
 enemies of the Republic. This will appear by the following facts : The 
 assignatg of France were based on the confiscated property of the clergy 
 and nobility, in which both the clergy and the nobility had a deep interest, 
 that led them to denounce the assignat as based on theft and outrage. 
 There was another royal party that united in declaring that their lands 
 
41 
 
 iiad been taken without any of the forms of law, and therefore the 
 title still remained in the clergy. The parties all united in declaring 
 that the assignats were utterly without basis to secure their redemption. 
 The parties never ceased to agitate war on the credit of the assignata. 
 But finding the Revolution too strong for them, and that its cause was 
 being so successfully strengthened by conquering the enemies of liberty 
 and of the nation, that other nations were yielding to its power, and 
 that its armies were victorious, and that its principles, as developed by 
 the constitution and laws, were such as reason and humanity approved, 
 history tells us that all the enemies of the new French Government 
 united in an effort to destroy the power of the new Government by cir- 
 culating counterfeit assignats in every direction. The counterfeiting 
 commenced in 1792 in Belgium and Switzerland, and was used exten- 
 sively as the best means of destroying the power of the Republic. It 
 was found by the nobility that Belgium and Switzerland were too much 
 in sympathy with the revolutionists to be trusted. They then ex- 
 tended their operations to London, where they found more scope and 
 greater opportunities for uninterrupted work. History charges that 
 England lent her aid by allowing " seventeen manufacturing establish- 
 ments in operation in London, with a force of 400 men, in the produc- 
 tion of the assignats." 
 
 It was found that 12,000,000,000 of counterfeit francs had been cir- 
 culated in France, when only 7,860,000,000 of francs had been issued 
 by the Government, showing that the danger of an over-issue was from 
 the enemies of the Government, and not from the Government itself. 
 The assessed value of the property on which was based the 7,860,000,000 
 of francs was, in 1795, 15,000,000,000, showing that as long as the con- 
 fiscation of property was maintained by the Government the assignats 
 had good security for their redemption. 
 
 it is more than probable that we shall see again what are called tl pros- 
 perous times," when the banks have annihilated our greenback cur- 
 rency, and have substituted their own money, on the old and false pre- 
 tence of a " specie basis," which makes their money " as good as gold " 
 until the gold is really wanted. But I warn my countrymen that this 
 will be a baseless prosperity, that can only last while there are any 
 securities or property that can be pledged for loans, the loans them- 
 selves being puffed up under the conceit that they are payable in gold ; 
 then another crash will come, and we shall have the same scenes of 
 desolation and suffering that we have experienced as a people for the 
 past three yaars. I do most earnestly beseech the American people to 
 to see to it that their chosen rulers are men imbued with the spirit and 
 letter of the Constitution, which, after a great struggle, was enacted 
 " to establish justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the bless- 
 ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." 
 
 PETEB COOPKU 
 
AN OPEN LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BY 
 
 PETER COOPER. 
 
 New York, Jwne 1st, 1877. 
 
 HONORED SIR: 
 
 Allow me to offer you my heartfelt thanks for the wise and 
 independent course you have adopted in the discharge of the responsible 
 and difficult duties that you have been called upon to perform. The 
 deep interest you are manifesting in the nation's welfare has already 
 sent a thrill of hope and joy into the heart of suffering millions through- 
 out our country. They are looking to you with anxious hope that you 
 will urgently recommend and insist upon the " establishment of justice r 
 in the dealings of the Government with the people ; as that is the only 
 possible way by which the general " welfare of the nation can be pro- 
 moted." 
 
 Your noble course has, thus far, inspired the people with the hope 
 and trust that you will, in the providence of God, be our country's Moses, 
 to lead the people from a threatened bondage that now hangs over the 
 liberties and the happiness of the American people. 
 
 This bondage has its manifold centre and its secret force in more 
 than two thousand banks that are scattered throughout the coun- 
 try. All these banks are organized expressly to loan out their own 
 money and the money of all those who will entrust them with 
 deposits. These loans are made to men whose business-lives will 
 soon become dependent on money borrowed from corporations that 
 have a special interest of their own. Such a power of wealth, under the 
 control of the selfish instincts of mankind, will always be able to control 
 the action of our Government, unless that Government is directed by 
 strict principles of justice and of the public welfare. The banks will 
 favor a course of special and partial legislation in order to increase their 
 
43 
 
 power "for even the good want power"; they will never cease to ask 
 for more, as long as there is more that can be wrung from the toiling 
 masses of the American people. 
 
 Such a power should never be allowed to go out from the entire and 
 complete control of the people's government. The struggle with thw 
 money -power, intrenched in the special privileges of banks, has been 
 going on from the beginning of the history of this country. It has en- 
 gaged the attention of our wisest and most patriotic statesmen. Frank- 
 lin, Jefferson, Webster, Calhoun, Jackson, have all spoken of the danger 
 of such a power and the necessity of guarding against it. 
 
 In the opinion of Thomas Jefferson, the Constitution has made this 
 subject clear, plain, and positive. He says: " Bank paper must be sup- 
 pressed, and the circulation must be restored to the nation, to whom it 
 belongs." 
 
 The great delusion and the snare of the banks is " a specie convertible 
 paper," which they. can never convert when the specte is most wanted. 
 On this point Benjamin Franklin declares that a national " paper money, 
 well-founded, has great advantages over gold and silver, being light and 
 easy to handle in large sums, and not likely to have its volume reduced 
 by demands for exportation." "On the whole," he says, "no method 
 has hitherto been discovered to establish a medium of trade equal in 
 all its advantages to bills of credit made a general legal tender." 
 
 John C. Calhoun declares that, " after bestowing the best reflection I 
 can give the subject, that no convertible paper is suitable for a currency. 
 It is the form of credit proper in private transactions between man and 
 man, but not for a standard of value, to perform exchanges generally, which 
 constitutes the appropriate function of currency, or money." Then, on page 
 87, he says : " No one can doubt but that the Government credit is better 
 than that of any bank - more stable and more safe. . . . Bank- paper is 
 cheap to those who make it, but dear, very dear, to those who use it. 
 On the other hand, the credit of the Government, while it would greatly 
 facilitate its financial operations, would cost nothing, or next to nothing, 
 both to it and the people, and would, of course, add nothing to the cost 
 of production, which would give every branch of our industries agricul- 
 ture, commerce, and manufactures as far as its circulation might 
 extend, great advantages both at homo and abroad ; . . . and I no\v 
 undertake to affirm, and without the least fear that I can be answered, 
 that a paper issued by Government, with the simple promise to receive 
 it for all its dues, leaving its creditors to take it, or gold and silver, at 
 their option, would, to the extent it could circulate, form a perfect paper 
 circulation which could not be abused by the Government ; that it would 
 be as uniform in value as the metals themselves. And I shall be able to 
 prove that it is within the Constitution and powers of Congress to use 
 
44 
 
 auch a paper in the management of its finances, according to the most 
 rigid rule of construing the Constitution." 
 
 The present Secretary of the Treasury, speaking in the Senate, 
 when the subject of regulating the currency was under consideration, 
 declared it to be a fact, that "every citizen of the United States had 
 conformed his business to the legal-tender clause." That Senator fur- 
 ther declared, as appears by the " Congressional Record/' that " if the 
 bondholder refuses to take the same kind of money with which he 
 bought the bonds, he is an extortioner and a repudiator. . . . 
 There is no such burdensome loan negotiated by any civilized nation in 
 the world as our five-twenty bonds if they are to be paid in gold." And 
 yet these very six per cent, bonds, that were issued under a law that 
 made them payable in the currency of the country, have by a most cruel 
 and unaccountable change in the law, been made payable in gold the 
 very bonds which had been sold at from forty to sixty dollars in gold for 
 one hundred in currency, thereby causing a debt that now hangs like a 
 millstone on the neck of the nation. It should always be remembered 
 that debt, in all the ages of the world, has been the most effectual 
 means for holding the mass of mankind in a species of enslavement. 
 
 Within my own recollection unmarried white men could be sold for 
 debt in the State of Connecticut ; so that debt is a species of slavery, as 
 commerce is a kind of commercial war. It is a war of interests, as all 
 nations are using their highest arts to buy as cheap and sell as dear as 
 they can. 
 
 Our Government can only regain its former prosperity as a nation by 
 adopting a similar national policy to that which has made and protected 
 the industries of France. 
 
 One of the causes that brought on the Revolutionary War, as will 
 appear by the following statement, were the laws that were passed by 
 England expressly to deprive her colonies of the right to manufacture 
 for themselves. 
 
 " The first attempt at manufacture in the American colonies was fol- 
 lowed by interference on the part of the British Legislature. . . . 
 In 1710, the House of Commons declared that the erecting manu- 
 factories in the Colonies tended to lessen their dependence on Great 
 Britain. In 1732, the exportation of hats from province to province, 
 and the number of apprentices, was limited. ... In 1750, the erec- 
 tion of any mill or engine for slitting or rollkig iron was prohibited. 
 
 ... In 1765, the exportation of artisans from Great Britain was 
 prohibited, under a heavy penalty. ... In 1781, utensils required 
 for the manufacture of wool or silk were prohibited. ... In 1782, 
 the prohibition was extended to artificers in printing calicoes, muslins, or 
 linens, or in making implements used in their manufacture. ... In 
 
1785, the prohibition was extended to tools used in iron ana steel manu- 
 facture, and to workmen so employed. ... In 1799, it was so ex- 
 tended as to embrace even colliers. 
 
 " The war of the Revolution of our own country was brought on by 
 a war of commercial interests. It was a war that showed a determina- 
 tion on the part of the mother country to keep her colonies entirely de- 
 pendent on England for all forms of manufactured articles. Laws were 
 enacted to prevent the colonies from manufacturing out of their own 
 good raw materials things indispensable for their own use, and necessary 
 to give employment to those who have nothing to sell but their own 
 labor." 
 
 Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and the Eevolutionary fathers, were 
 men who could see how utterly impossible it would be for the American 
 people to 'buy anything cheap from foreign countries that must be bought 
 at the expense of leaving our own good raw materials unused and our own 
 laborers unemployed. 
 
 Our Constitution has declared that Congress shall have power to 
 make all laws that shall be necessary and proper, to lay and collect 
 taxes, duties, imports, excises, to pay the debts and provide for the 
 common defence and the general welfare of these United States. Also 
 " to borrow money on the credit of these United States." 
 
 It was by this constitutional power vested in Congress that all forms 
 of Treasury notes were issued and used as so many dollars of legal 
 money of the country. At the close of the war of the rebellion, our 
 Government found itself encumbered with promises to pay that which it 
 did not possess and could not command, only as the amount could be 
 drawn from the people in some form of taxation. The promise to pay 
 should never have been made. It should have been a promise to re- 
 ceive instead of a promise to pay tokens of debt which the Government 
 had been compelled to pay out as money in its struggle for the nation's 
 life. It was a currency that had proved itself, as President Grant had 
 declared it to be, " the best money that our country had ever possessed, 
 . . . that there was no more of it in circulation than what is required 
 for the dullest business season of the year." 
 
 These facts being established by a condition of unsurpassed national 
 prosperity that prevailed throughout our whole country at the close of a 
 great and terrible war. After such a demonstration of the strength, 
 wealth, and power of a nation, there was no good reason for acts of 
 legislation avowedly to strengthen the credit of a nation that had car- 
 ried on such a war and obtained such a victory. 
 
 What must the American people think when they come to know and 
 understand that a governmental policy has been adopted that has taken 
 from the people their currency that was furnished by the people without 
 
46 
 
 cost, and turned into such an oppressive debt a now burdens and para- 
 lyzes the industries of the country 1 
 
 The amount of currency so found in circulation at the close of the 
 war should never have been allowed to increase or dimmish, only as per 
 capita with the increase of the inhabitants of the country. 
 
 Such a currency should have been made receivable for all forms of 
 taxes, duties, and debts. That would have made our national paper 
 money as much more valuable than gold in proportion as it would be 
 more easily and cheaply handled in large sums. 
 
 Our national currency must be made receivable for all purposes 
 throughout the country, and interconvertible with three per cent. 
 Government bonds ; it would then, like the consols of England, soon be- 
 come an ever-strengthening bond of national union. Such a currency 
 would have been worth more to the American people than all the gold 
 mines that have ever been discovered on the continent of America.* 
 
 I hold our Government bound to give back to the people their small 
 currency that was costing them nothing, and then call in the silver cur- 
 rency that has been put in its place at a cost of $31,738,400 paid for sil- 
 ver up to April 20, 1877. This silver should be immediately withdrawn, 
 and used in the purchase of foreign bonds, thus saving for the American 
 
 * The following is a statement of the interest of money paid by the United States 
 since the close of the -war of the rebellion. The following statement shows that $1,422,- 
 037,577 has been paid in interest in 11% years : 
 
 Principal Interest-bearing $1,717,642,130 
 
 Non-interest-bearing '. 473,923,757 
 
 $2,191,565,887 
 Interest due on above 33,092,616 
 
 $2,224,658,503 
 Less cash in Treasury 154,299,886 
 
 Debt a*t May 1 , 1877 $2, 070,358,617 
 
 Debtat July 7, 1866 ... 2,783,425,879 
 
 Reduction since July 1, 1866 (10 10-12 years) $713,067,262 
 
 Since the close of the war, or from July 1, 1865, to April 1, 1877 (11%. years), the in- 
 terest on the public debt was $1,422,057,567, or $121,000,000 per annum 1 
 
 The universal cry over the land is for employment. When well employed the people 
 are well clothod, well fed, and well housed. The adjustment of the fiscal question NOT 
 for one class, but for the masses must be made ere prosperity is ours. The recall from 
 Europe of our gold bonds (by sale of commodities, placing them at low interest) and sub- 
 stituting greenbacks for national bank-notes, would remove grievous burdens, providing 
 employment by stimulating our depressed industries. 
 
 Will President Hayes inaugurate this just policy, insuring general prosperity and 
 spontaneous "resumption," or the par of paper with gold ? 
 
 The true remedy for national relief from the enslavement of debt, with its burdea of 
 taxation, is the substitution of greenbacks for national bank-notes. 
 
 The national banks have received since 1833 twenty-one millions of dollars Interest 
 on bonds deposited with the Government. 
 
47 
 
 people an amount of interest, if compounded, that would pay the national 
 debt several times in one hundred years, and at the same time give the 
 country a more convenient currency, which would be more than paid for 
 by the amount that would be worn out and lost by its use. If silver 
 change is ever needed, it can be had with only the cost of coining it by 
 the Government, as nearly all the silver produced in the country will 
 go into coins whenever the Government will coin it without cost to its 
 owners. 
 
 I find myself compelled to agree with Senator Jones where he says 
 that "the present is the acceptable time to undo the unwitting and blun- 
 dering work of 1873." . . . " We cannot, we dare not, avoid speedy 
 action on the subject. Not only does reason, justice, and authority unite 
 in urging us to retrace our steps, but the organic law commands us to do 
 so, and the presence of peril enjoins what the law commands." 
 
 I have ventured this long letter in the firm belief that the adoption of 
 a permanent, unfluctuating national currency, as before stated, equal to 
 the amount actually found in circulation at the close of the war, and that 
 amount should never be increased or diminished only as per capita with 
 the increase of the inhabitants of our country such a measure of all in- 
 ternal values, with a revenue tariff of specific duties to be obtained from 
 the smallest number of articles that will give the amount needed for an 
 economical government such a national policy would introduce pros- 
 perity once more into the trade, commerce, and finances of this country. 
 
 NOTE. "Expansion versus Contraction. The following statistics 
 from the London Economist demonstrate the fact that the expansion of 
 French Government legal tenders has kept pace with the accumulation of 
 specie, and materially develops the home industries of that country : 
 
 " Of legal tenders in April, 1869, the circulation was 214 millions dol- 
 lars, and in April, 1876, 494 millions, being an increase in seven years of 
 280 millions, or 130 per cent. ! 
 
 " Of specie and bullion in December, 1869, the stock was 247 millions 
 dollars, and in November, 1876, 432 millions, or an increase in seven 
 years of 185 millions, or 75 per cent. ! 
 
 " The striking prosperity of French industries under the above fiscal 
 policy augurs strongly for an expansion equal to the amount found 
 in circulation at the close of the war, and against a contraction." 
 
 Our Government has, from its origin, neglected to perform one of the 
 most important duties enjoined on it by the Constitution, where it says 
 that Congress shall have power not only to coin money but to regulate 
 the value thereof. This can be and should have been done by an Act of 
 Congress to regulate the value of money by fixing the amount that can 
 be legally collected as interest for the use of money. 
 
When such an Act has been provided to prevent extortionate de- 
 mands for the use or interest on money, and when the law has been re- 
 pealed that is now paralyzing the country with the terrible fact that 
 some fifteen hundred millions of dollars now due from the people to the 
 banks, with all the other debts that are to become due in 1879, are ty law 
 made payable in gold, then the way will be opened for a restoration of con- 
 fidence and a permanent financial relief. The law contracting the cur- 
 rency is now taking from the people their legal money, costing the Gov- 
 ernment and the people nothing, and then converting this same currency 
 into a national debt, for which the people are to be taxed for the next 
 thirty years. It should never be forgotten that the first sixty millions of 
 Treasury notes were issued and made " receivable in payments of duties 
 on imports a lawful money and a legal tender." 
 
 The fact that the sixty millions then issued did continue receivable 
 at the Treasury on a par with gold, when gold was selling at 235 in 
 currency, this fact is proof positive that had the Government made all 
 the greenbacks full legal tender, instead of sending them out partially 
 demonetized and repudiated, they would never have fallen below par. 
 It was the partial demonetization and the contraction of the currency 
 that has so effectually destroyed confidence and dried up the sources 
 of both production and consumption. The people are deprived of their 
 currency which had for years formed the life blood of the trade and com* 
 merce of our country. 
 
 My efforts in all that I have written have been to call and fix the at- 
 tention of the American people on those truths and principles so grand- 
 ly set forth and declared in the Preamble to the Constitution, formed for 
 us by the Fathers and founders of a Government intended to establish 
 justice as the true and only sure means by which the general welfare of 
 the American people can be substantially promoted. 
 
 Hoping and believing that your best efforts will be given to secure 
 for our beloved country the blessings of a good Government, 
 I remain, yours, with great respect, 
 
 PETER COOPEB. 
 
 NOTE. The following quotations will show the monstrous absurdity 
 of a national policy that would make all the industries of a nation to de- 
 pend on an article like that of gold, the price of which no government 
 or individual can control, as it bears one price to-day and no man can 
 tell what price will be offered for it to-morrow. 
 
 To the above we append the following suggestions from John Earl 
 Williams, President of the Metropolitan Bank of this city, in the same 
 direction : 
 
 "I would suggest: That Congress assume, at once, the inherent 
 
49 
 
 sovereign prerogative of a government l of the people, by the people, and 
 for the people, 7 and exercise it, by furnishing all the inhabitants of the 
 United States with a uniform national currency ! Surely the people, 
 and the people only, have a natural right to all the advantages, emolu- 
 ment, or income that may inure from the issue of either $1,000 bonds 
 with interest, or $10 notes without, based on the faith and credit of the 
 nation ! 
 
 "This principle, simple, clear, and undeniable, ought to be recog- 
 n'zed as fundamental, and the only safe and proper basis on which may 
 securely rest all the circulating medium of the country, for the sole bene- 
 fit of all the people, and not, as now, for the profit of a class of stock- 
 holders, however deserving they may be in all other respects. 
 
 " To carry into effect this principle to substitute United States 
 notes for bank-notes take away, as soon as practicable, and for ever, all 
 circulation from banks. 
 
 " They would do a strictly legitimate business as banks of discount 
 and deposit; knowing that whatever leads to the prosperity of the 
 whole people must be beneficial to the banks ; but leaving the right 
 where it belongs, to the United States Government, to supply the whole 
 circulating medium of the country. 
 
 " In this connection, we must remember that b&nks are the creatures 
 of law. The laws which created them may, by virtue of rights reserved, 
 be amended, altered, or repealed. 
 
 " To those who are disposed to complain of the change as a hardship, 
 one is tempted to ask what natural right a dozen stockholders have to 
 receive notes from Government to circulate that any other dozen men do 
 not possess? 
 
 " One thing is certain, that the national debts can never be paid by a 
 governmental policy that shrinks the currency, destroys values, para- 
 lyzes industry, enforces idleness, and brings wretchedness and ruin to 
 the homes of millions of the American people. It is equally true that 
 Americans can never buy anything cheap from foreign countries that 
 must be bought at the expense of leaving our own good raw materials 
 unused, and our own labor unemployed. It should be remembered that 
 neither gold, silver, copper, nickel, or paper are money without the stamp 
 of the Government upon it. The Constitution has made it the duty of 
 Congress to coin the money of our country and regulate the value there- 
 of, and fix a standard of weights and measures, as the only possible 
 means by which commerce can be regulated between foreign nations and 
 among the several States." 
 
 PETBK COOPER. 
 
THE DANGERS OF A WAR OF COMMERCE 
 
 AND THE NECESSITY OP A 
 
 TARIFF AND OF AN UNFLUCTUATING CUR- 
 RENCY TO NATIONAL PROSPERITY. 
 
 BY PETEK COOPEK. 
 
 ei The experience of nearly eighty-one years has taught me that the 
 greatest and most important question that now demands the considera- 
 tion of the American people is, whether we, as a nation, are willing to 
 know the truth, and let the truth make and maintain our freedom, or 
 whether we have deliberately determined to follow the advice of men 
 and nations that have a direct and an immediate interest to mislead and 
 deceive us. For we may rest assured that all trade between foreign 
 nations and our own is a kind of commercial war. It is a war of inter- 
 ests, as all nations are using their highest arts to buy as cheap and sell 
 as dear as they can. All are trying to buy their raw materials in the 
 cheapest market, and to sell their manufactured labor for the most that 
 can be obtained for it. This they are doing by the use of all the arts, 
 both fair and foul, that human ingenuity can devise. 
 
 a There has been nothing comparable with the evils that have and may 
 result to nations from a war of commerce. Invasion of armies is at- 
 tended with waste of property, destruction of life, and suspension of 
 all fair exchange of the products of labor; but, with the return of 
 peace, men can again combine their efforts, and in a few years all is as 
 it had been before. Such, however, is not the case with the substitu- 
 tion of foreign trade, for the home commerce of the products of our 
 own land and labor. Under the artful and alluring fascinations of the 
 powers of foreign trade, association for mutual benefit dies away ; intel- 
 lect declines, and the life's blood of a nation slowly ebbs away, render- 
 ing recovery from day to day more difficult, and closing finally in the 
 material and moral death of a nation. 
 
 " It can be shown that the wars of commercial interests are more in- 
 sidious, and are more to be dreaded, than wars of conquest. There is 
 nothing in all history that admits of more complete demonstration than 
 the fact that the wars of commercial interests, carried on by England 
 alone, have led to and have caused a greater destruction of life and 
 property, during the last seventy years, than has been occasioned by all 
 the wars of conquest that have taken place in the civilized world during 
 that period of time. It is now less than seventy-five years since a 
 company, chartered by Great Britain, commenced a mercantile war on 
 the people of Hjndostan, a country with its then 150,000,000 of in- 
 habitants, famed for manufacturing the finest quality of goods, and for 
 
51 
 
 being in possession of the riches of the East. History tells us thai 
 'in no part of the world has there been seen a greater tendency to vol- 
 untary association for a mutual exchange of labor than once existed in 
 Hindostan. . . . Each village had its distinct organization, under 
 which the natives had lived from the earliest times down to a recent 
 date. . . . Revolutions might occur, and dynasties might succeed 
 each other ; but, so long as his own little society was undisturbed, the 
 simple Hindoo gave himself no concern about what might happen at 
 the capital. . . . Though often over- taxed and plundered by in- 
 vading armies, the country continued both rich and prosperous,' until 
 an East India Company, chartered and sustained by the power of Great 
 Britain, commenced a war of encroachments on the trade and commerce 
 of that country. This war of commercial interests led to a war of con- 
 quest, which, after the battle of Plassey, had established British power 
 in India. * The country became filled with adventurers ; men whose 
 sole object was to accumulate fortunes, by any means, however foul,' 
 as was shown by the indignant denunciation of Burke in the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain. Fox declared, in a speech on the East India 
 Bill, that * the country was laid waste with fire and sword, and the 
 land once distinguished most above others .by the cheerful face of fra- 
 ternal government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation 
 and plenty, is now almost a dreary desert, covered with rushes and 
 briers, jungles and wild beasts.' . . . The misgovernment of the 
 English was carried to a point such as seemed hardly compatible with 
 the existence of society. They forced the natives to buy dear and sell 
 cheap. 
 
 " Macaulay says : c The misgovernment was carried to such an extent 
 as seemed hardly compatible with the existence of society. They forced 
 the natives to buy dear and sell cheap. They insulted, with impunity, 
 the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal authorities of the country. 
 Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, where 
 30,000,000 of human beings were reduced to the extremity of wretch- 
 edness. They had been accustomed to live under tyranny ; but never 
 tyranny like this. Under their old masters, they had one resource 
 when the evil became insupportable, the people pulled down the Govern- 
 ment. But the English Government was not to be shaken off. That 
 Government, oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian des- 
 potism, was strong with all the strength of civilization. It resembled 
 the government of evil genii rather than the government of human 
 tyrants. . . . Under the title of Zamindars, a landed aristocracy 
 was created and held accountable for the collection of taxes.' Ful- 
 lerton, a member of the Madras Council, says : ' Imagine the revenue 
 leviable through 100,000 revenue officers ; collected or remitted at their 
 discretion, according to the occupant's means of paying, whether from 
 produce of the land or his separate property ; and in order to encourage 
 every man to act as a spy on his neighbor and report his means of 
 paying, that he may save himself from all extra demand ; imagine all 
 the cultivators of a village liable at all times to a separate demand, in 
 order to make up the failure of one or more individuals of the parish. 
 Imagine collectors to every county, acting under the orders of a Board, 
 
52 
 
 on the avowed principle of destroying all competition for labor by a 
 general equalization of assessments, seizing and sending back all run- 
 aways to each other. Lastly, imagine the collector, the sole magistrate 
 or Justice of the Peace of the county j through the medium of whom 
 alone, complaint of personal grievance suffered by the subject can reach 
 the Superior Court. Imagine at the same time every subordinate 
 officer employed in the collection of the land-revenue to be a police 
 officer, vested with the power to confine, put in the stocks, and flay, 
 any inhabitant within his range, on any charge, without oath of the 
 accuser or sworn recorded evidence in the case.' . . . Under 
 this state of things, * the works constructed for irrigation have gone to 
 ruin, and the richest lands have been abandoned.' 
 
 (t Capt. Westmacot tells his readers that in many places the longest 
 under British rule, there is the largest amount of depravity and crime. 
 Campbell, one of the most distinguished of British poets, characterizes 
 the course of their policy in India prophetically when he says : 
 
 " ' Foes of mankind ! ' her guardian spirits say, 
 * Revolving ages bring the bitter day, 
 
 When heaven's unerring aim shall fall on you, . 
 
 And blood for blood these Indian plains bedew.' " 
 
 " ' The immolations of an Indian Juggernaut,' says a recent writer, 
 * dwindle into insignificance before it, and yet to maintain this trade 
 the towns and cities have been laid in ruins.' The middleman system 
 of Ireland and of the West Indies was transplanted to those countries 
 of the East, to which Macaulay declares that * the English Government 
 became as oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian des- 
 potism.' The poor Hindoo was not allowed to make salt from the 
 waters of the ocean. Every form of tax and exaction was forced on 
 that people in order to drive them to send all their cotton and wool to 
 England (the great workshop of the world), to be converted and re- 
 turned. Sir Robert Peel says : ' The effects in India exhibit them- 
 selves in such a ruin and distress that no parallel can be found in the 
 annals of commerce? The great city of Dacca, that only seventy years 
 since contained 90,000 houses, and exported millions of pieces of the 
 finest quality of goods, is now a mass of ruins. The same authority 
 says: 'For the accomplishment of this work of destruction, "the chil-. 
 dren of Lancashire, England, were employed fifteen to seventeen hours 
 per day during the week, and until twelve o'clock on Sunday, clean- 
 ing and oiling machinery, for which they received two shillings and nine 
 pence per week. The object was to underwork the poor Hindoo, and 
 drive him from the markets of the world.' The pound of cotton, 
 costing in India one cent, was passed through British looms, and sold 
 to the Hindoo for from forty to sixty cents. ' Thus England was 
 enriched, as India became impoverished. Step by step, British power 
 was extended,' and everywhere was adopted the Hindoo principle that 
 the sovereign, as proprietor of the soil, was entitled to half of the gross 
 produce.* While these exorbitant local taxes were expended among its 
 own people, the burden could be borne ; when these taxes were drawn 
 from the people and expended on absentee landlords, the burden brought 
 
53 
 
 desolation and premature death to millions of the people of that country. 
 History tells us that one-half of the labor of that people ran to waste 
 for the want of employment. 
 
 " The exactions of British power in China, made to force the sale of 
 opium in that country, are stated to cause the destfe. annually of 
 500,000 of the Chinese people, besides a tax of nearly $20,000,000. 
 Campbell says, ( the immolations of an Indian Juggernaut dwindle into 
 insignificance before it.' The ruin of Portugal was effected by the Gov- 
 ernment having been induced to adopt a British commercial policy that 
 broke up the harmony of the agricultural and mechanical interests 
 interests that had for so long a time made Portugal so rich and prosper- 
 ous. ' It is less than two hundred years since the merchants of London 
 petitioned their Government to restrain the manufacture of cloth in 
 Ireland: Of all the 1,700,000 slaves imported into the British West 
 India Islands, only 660,000 were found living on the day of emancipa- 
 tion. This was the result of a war of commerce. The planters on those 
 islands had been deprived by law of all right * to refine their own sugar, 
 or to introduce a spindle or a loom, or to mine coal, or to smelt their own 
 copper,' thus depriving the people of the islands of all power of associ- 
 ation, and exchange of labor and harmony of interests, without which 
 ruin falls to the lot of every community. The British policy that was 
 forced on the Island of Jamaica alone cost the lives of hundreds of 
 thousands of men, in order that a few absentee owners might live in 
 splendor on the Island of England. The policy of forcing the whole 
 labor of a community into the single pursuit of making sugar effectu- 
 ally prevented the growth of towns and schools, and impoverished the 
 people and the land. All communities require the families of the black- 
 smith, the carpenter, mason, and of other tradesmen, to consume a 
 large part of the agricultural product of the soil, to secure them pros- 
 perity, and to enable them to leave offal to enrich the land that feeds 
 them. ' On the Island of Jamaica, with a population of 320,000 black 
 laborers, and with inexhaustible supplies of timber, that island has 
 been without a single saw-mill up to I860.' Out of the amount paid 
 to the British Government by the people thirty years since for the pro- 
 ducts of its 320,000 black laborers, the Home Government took no less 
 than $18,000,000, or almost $60 per head, and this merely for superin- 
 tending the exchanges. The negroes imported into Jamaica were no 
 more barbarian than those brought to Virginia and North Carolina ; 
 yet, while each of the negroes imported into the latter States is repre- 
 sented by seven of his descendants, the British Islands present but two 
 for every five they have received. But a century since, Portugal and 
 the West Indies were England's best customers. What are they now ? 
 All impoverished by a policy that has broken up their own home com- 
 merce, and has subjected their countries to the heaviest kind of tax 
 the tax of transporting their heavy products to great distances, to be 
 exchanged for the light products of other countries. 
 
 " ' The first attempt at manufacture in the American Colonies was 
 followed by interference on the part of the British Legislature. . . . 
 In 1710, the House of Commons declared that the erecting manufac- 
 tories in the Colonies tended to lessen their dependence on Great 
 
54 
 
 Britain.' c In 1732 the exportation of hats from province to province 
 and the number of apprentices was limited. ... In 1750, the 
 erection of any mill or engine for slitting or rolling iron was prohibited. 
 
 . . In 1765, the exportation of artisans from Great Britain was 
 prohibited, under a heavy penalty. ... In 1781, utensils required 
 for the manufacture of wool or silk were prohibited. . . . In 1782, 
 the prohibition was extended to artificers in printing calicoes, muslins, 
 or linens, or in making implements used in their manufacture. . . 
 In 1785, the prohibition was extended to tools used in iron and steel 
 manufacture, and to workmen so employed. ... In 1799, it was so 
 extended as to embrace even colliers.' 
 
 " The war of the Revolution of our country was brought on by a war 
 of commercial interests. It was a war that showed a determination on 
 the part of the mother-country to keep her colonies entirely dependent 
 on England for all forms of manufactured articles. Laws were enacted 
 to prevent the colonies from manufacturing out of their own good raw 
 materials things indispensable for their own use, and necessary to give 
 employment to those who have nothing to sell but their own labor. 
 The war of the Revolution was a war of resistance to a war of com- 
 merce then being forced by the mother-country on the colonies. Our 
 conquest' of a country did not deliver us from the consummate power of 
 highly-educated British diplomats, whose business it has always been 
 to find the weak places in surrounding governments, and to so control 
 the legislation of those countries as to make them tributary to the 
 wealth and power of Great Britain. These diplomats, after having 
 secured for their own manufacturing interests more perfect protection 
 and more perfect mechanical powers than any other nation possessed, 
 have enabled their Government to gain greater advantages by their war 
 of commerce on our own country than they could have gained if the 
 colonies had remained entirely under their own control. Such has 
 been the consummate ability that foreign diplomacy has been able to 
 exert in a war of commerce that has brought our country in debt to 
 foreign Governments to an amount the interest on which is now equi- 
 valent to a large proportion of the agricultural export of the country. 
 This state of things must continue or grow worse, unless our Govern- 
 ment will raise its whole revenue out of duties on imports, and relieve 
 the country from all forms of direct taxation, and by that means 
 encourage the application of knowledge, economy, and labor, in a course 
 of efforts to supply our own wants by our own industry, out of our own 
 good raw materials, that can be put into useful forms with as small an 
 expense of human labor here as in any other part of the world. Thus 
 it; will enable the country to win back its independence of foreign debt 
 by paying it off as fast as the amount can be raised from the duties on 
 imports. 
 
 " Our Government can only hold its power as a free system by avoid- 
 ing in future all special, partial, or class legislation, and by the enact- 
 ment of only such general laws as are necessary and indispensable to 
 establish justice. Justice can only be established * and the general 
 welfare promoted ' by the Government holding an entire control over 
 all that is all( wed or intended to measure or weigh the different forma 
 
55 
 
 and values of labor in its course of exchange from one pernon to another 
 Hence the absolute necessity for the establishment of a just and unyield- 
 ing system of money, weights, and measures. This is indispensable to 
 facilitate the business of the country. If paper is to be coined into 
 money the amount should be limited and so regulated that the sum 
 could only be increased in regular proportion with the natural increase 
 of the inhabitants of the country. All Government paper should be 
 a legal tender in the payment of all private debts that were contracted 
 during the time that paper is allowed to circulate as money. All 
 persons should have the privilege of paying duties on imports, and also 
 all contracts to pay gold, by adding to the amount in legal tenders a 
 sum sufficient to be equal to the average premium that gold had sold 
 for during the month preceding the maturing of the contract the 
 Government to advertise the rate of premium on the 1st of every 
 month. 
 
 " The people of our country should never forget that one of the great 
 causes that led to the American Revolution was the determination 
 on the part of Great Britain to force its manufactures on the colonies, 
 to be paid for by sending raw materials to England ; thus keeping them 
 dependent by preventing them from manufacturing for themselves. 
 This policy of England has drawn to its little island the wealth of every 
 country that has allowed itself to become the subject of its policy and 
 power. It is still trying to persuade the people of this country to run 
 their ploughs in competition with the mighty machines in England, where 
 a single engine is doing the work of a thousand horses. To see the 
 folly of yielding to a British policy, we have only to look at the effects 
 produced on our country during the war with England. At that time, 
 when our foreign trade was cut off, labor was in demand and money 
 abundant ; furnaces and mills were built, and all actively employed ; 
 wages were high, and our national debt small. Four years later, our 
 country was persuaded to yield to a British policy of Free Trade. At 
 once all was changed ; mills and furnaces were stopped, labor went 
 begging, our poorhouses were filled, the prices of land declined, money 
 became scarce, and interest high ; the rich who held mortgages became 
 richer, and the poor and those who were in debt, were ruined. At 
 that time the American farmer had no foreign or home market for the 
 surplus product of the country. Complaints grew and increased until 
 things grew so bad that in 1828 our Government found it necessary to 
 adopt what I call a true American system a system of Free Trade a 
 trade that extended to all parts of our own country in all articles that 
 are the product of our own soil or of American labor. By this system 
 duties were laid on imports that soon gave new life and energy to the 
 trade and business of the country. The public debt was soon paid off, 
 and prosperity became universal. 
 
 " By degrees, between 1834 and "1842, the tariff was again repealed 
 by the influence of southern and pro-slavery politicians, whose whole 
 wealth was invested in cotton and slaves. The mills were again stopped, 
 furnaces closed, lands fallen to half-price, the sheriff at work, States 
 repudiating their debts, the Treasury unable to borrow at home or 
 abroad, and bankrupt laws passed by Congress. In 1842, the true 
 
56 
 
 American System was again tried ; and in less than five years the pro- 
 duction of iron alone rose from 200,000 tons to 800,000 tons. Pros* 
 perity was again universal, mines were opened, mills were built, and 
 money plenty, and the public and private revenues greater than ever. 
 Once more, in 1846, the British policy of Free Trade was adopted by 
 repealing our tariff, and, notwithstanding the discovery of gold in Cali- 
 fornia, money was as high as ever. British iron came in and gold went 
 out. In 1857, the culmination was reached, and a crisis came on. 
 The Treasury was again nearly bankrupt. In three years, emigration 
 fell below the point of twenty-eight years before, and our own exports 
 fell off to a mere nothing. Such have 'been the effects of yielding to 
 a policy recommended by men and nations having interests to serve that 
 are at war with all the best interests of our own country. 
 
 " A war of commercial interests is not peculiar to England alone. It 
 has been the habit of all trading nations since * naught said the buyer.' 
 They will all continue to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the 
 dearest as long as men do not love their neighbors as they do themselves. 
 There are thousands of those now engaged in foreign trade whose for- 
 tunes depend on filling the country with foreign goods. There are 
 other thousands who are holders of mortgages, who hope to buy in the 
 property for the face of their mortgages, or for half its present value. 
 And that they will do as soon as they can induce our G-overnment to try 
 another experiment in what they call free trade. The policy of these 
 persons, who are all clamorous for free trade, would deprive millions of 
 men of their means of living by mechanical employments, and drive 
 them into competition with the farming and agricultural interests of 
 the country, making the mechanics competitors of the farmers ; instead 
 of consuming, as they now do, ten times as much of the agricultural 
 product of the country as is now sold in all Europe. 
 
 " It would be as unwise for our country in time of war to govern the 
 movements of armies by the advice of our enemy as it would be for our 
 Government to allow our national policy to be controlled by the advice 
 of the trading nations of Europe, who will always consult their own 
 interests, entirely independent of any interests of ours. It is well to 
 remember that there is nothing that can be said to be purchased cheap 
 of foreign countries that must be bought at the expense of leaving our 
 own labor unemployed, and our own good raw materials unused. I 
 advocate the cause of our manufacturing interests, because they secure 
 to the farmer his surest and best market for the agricultural product of 
 the country, and because experience has demonstrated the fact that the 
 surest way to maintain our independence, and cheapen goods to the con- 
 sumer, is to foster the home productions of our country, and give diver- 
 sified employment to our people. And I advocate an American system, 
 because I desire the political power and the financial honor of the 
 nation to be maintained and vindicated before the world. This can be 
 most effectually accomplished by making ourselves independent as far 
 as our own soil and climate and good raw materials will enable us to 
 produce the articles we need ; and this they do with as small an ex- 
 pense of labor as it would require to produce the same articles in any 
 other part of the world. I advocate a policy that will maintain the 
 
57 
 
 National Government and pay the nation's debt out of duties on im- 
 ports. The heaviest duties should be laid on all articles of luxury, and 
 the lightest duties on all articles that will aid in securing a diversified 
 employment to our people. 
 
 " There is nothing else that our Government can do that will so eff&ct- 
 ually stimulate and develop all the best energies of a free people as 
 will the adoption of a. just, uniform, and unyielding system of money, 
 weights, and measures. It is greatly to be regretted that our Govern- 
 ment failed in its very commencement to perform the most important 
 duty enjoined by the Constitution. They should never have allowed 
 the individual States to issue paper money that was to all intent bills oj 
 credit. It has been the inflation of irredeemable paper money that has 
 so raised the price of all property and labor that we now tempt the 
 world to sell us everything, and we have made everything with us too 
 dear to sell with profit in return. Free Trade with foreign nations 
 must, where all things have been made unequal by the use of paper 
 money, prove in the future, as it has in the past, a delusion and a 
 snare. It must in the future, as it has in the past, bring panic, 
 pressure, and ruin, to untold thousands made bankrupt by the change 
 of value in all kinds of property. This must be the result of leaving 
 our own labor unemployed and our own good raw materials unused." 
 
 But it should ever be borne in mind that besides the great disadvantage 
 which always results to a nation by depending abroad for the supply 
 of its wants, for any product of the soil, or of manufacture, which can 
 as well, if encouraged, be produced at home, we have to encounter also 
 " a drain of specie" which, if it be our only money and legal tender, 
 subjects the value of the paper, based on coin, to great fluctuations in 
 value, owing to this drain which such a commerce brings on the country, 
 and thus becomes a source of incalculable loss and misfortune to the 
 country liable to such a drain of its money. But a national paper cur- 
 rency of our own (greenbacks), made a perfect legal tender, and always 
 interconvertible into bonds, would be a complete protection against a 
 drain of our money, and leave our gold and silver, as the rest of our 
 productions, to pay all "balances of trade." The "American policy" 
 is, therefore, a Tariff, with a " domestic, unexportable, and well-founded 
 currency.' 11 EDITOR. 
 
 LABOR PROSPERITY IN ENGLAND EIGHTEEN YEARS FROM 1797 TO 1815. 
 
 Extract from MARVIN WARREN'S Work on American Labor. 
 
 Sir Archibald Alison, author of the History of Modern Europe, 
 says: "The next eighteen years of the war, from 1797 to 1815, were, 
 as all the world knows, the most glorious, and taken as a whole, the 
 most prosperous which Great Britain had ever known. Ushered in by 
 a combination of circumstances the most calamitous, both with refer- 
 
58 
 
 cnce to external security and internal indue/fay, it terminated in a blaze 
 of glory and flood of prosperity which have never since the beginning 
 of the world descended upon any nation. Prosperity universal and un- 
 heard of pervaded every part of the empire. Our colonial possessions 
 encircled the earth ; the whole West India Islands had fallen into our 
 hands ; an empire of sixty millions of men in Hindoostan acknowledged 
 our rule; Java was added to our Eastern possessions; and 'the flag of 
 France had disappeared from every station beyond the sea. Agricul- 
 ture, commerce, and manufactures at home had increased in an unparal- 
 leled ratio ; the landed proprietors were in affluence ; wealth to an un- 
 heard of extent had been created among the farmers ; the soil, daily in- 
 creasing in fertility and breadth of cultivated lands, had become almost 
 adequate to the maintenance of a rapidly increasing population ; our 
 exports, imports, and tonnage had more than doubled since the war 
 began." 
 
 What caused this prosperity ? Exactly the same thing in kind that causes 
 the present French prosperity. This eighteen years of English prosperity 
 commenced in 1797, when the Bank of England was authorized by the 
 Government to suspend specie payment, and continued just so long as it 
 was not insisted upon by any party that the bank should be required 
 to pay specie, and ceased immediately as soon as that requirement 
 was seriously urged. The money of England during that eighteen years 
 was irredeemable paper money ; it was rag baby in its nature. The very 
 kind of money that the ministers of finance in our country tell us is a 
 sore evil to have. True, like our present greenback money, it was in- 
 ferior to the French paper money, because it was not a full legal tender 
 for all debts in the country. Of course, then, it depreciated some in 
 value as compared to gold, and did not have that full and complete ben- 
 eficial effect, in dispensing its benefits to all interest and to everybody, 
 as it otherwise would, and as the French money does. But like the 
 French money in one respect it was not redeemable in specie on de- 
 mand, and hence it could be and was issued in quantities for the most 
 part to adapt itself to the necessities of labor and business. Take notice, 
 American laborers, that this period of English prosperity lasted just the 
 eighteen years of time that the money of England was not disturbed by 
 redeemability in specie, nor seriously threatened so to be, and not any 
 longer. So that English experience and French experience as to what 
 causes prosperity accord one with the other, and they both are to the 
 effect that prosperity comes at once, upon the liberation of the money 
 or currency of the country from being redeemed in specie, and then 
 issued in quantities suited to put the labor of the country all into active 
 and profitable employment. 
 
 And take notice, also, just what kind of prosperity that was. It was 
 the prosperity of labor ; all honest, useful labor. It was " prosperity 
 universal and unheard of," and it " pervaded in every part of the em- 
 pire." " Agriculture, commerce, and. manufactures at home had in- 
 creased in an unparalleled ratio." And take notice, American farmers, 
 the landed proprietors were in affluence, and wealth to an unheard of 
 extert had been created among the farmers. 
 
 And I say this, also, that there was not in that English prosperity 
 
59 
 
 anything at all savoring of fiction, or wanting of substantiality. It 
 was built on labor, and the labor stimulated by honest principles of 
 finance that simply rewarded the laborer instead of robbing him. If 
 those principles had been followed up and perfected, and kept alive in 
 the laws of the country, instead of being supplanted by fraud and fic- 
 tion, as they afterward were, that prosperity would have lasted to this 
 day, and would last as much longer as the true principles might be pre- 
 served. And so in our own country, we cannot only have that prosperity, 
 but we can establish it upon principles that shall make it enduring, and 
 that is the business of the true men of this generation. 
 
 Why was it that just in that eighteen years of war England author- 
 ized her national banking institution to suspend specie payments and 
 issue money in quantities suited to the industrial and commercial wants 
 and prosperity ? It was because Napoleon was then pressing her by 
 his military power, and the very existence of the Government a^id nation 
 itself required all the resources of the nation to be brought into active 
 use for its defence, suspending for the time being the avaricious gains of 
 the moneyed nobility. As stated above by the historian, this eighteen 
 years was " ushered in by a combination of circumstances the most calami- 
 tous, both with reference to external security and internal industry." 
 Think of it. All this prosperity came, not by favored circumstances, 
 but in spite of circumstances, external and internal, the most calamitous ; 
 all simply through the power of honesty and truth, in the money of the 
 country. 
 
 But in 1815, the war closed by the capture of Napoleon at Waterloo. 
 The scourge of war now being removed, it seems to have been thought 
 that the country could endure without entire destruction a scourge far 
 worse than the war ; and the Shy locks, with Sir Robert Peel at their 
 head, or as an associate, began to insist seriously upon a law for 
 resumption of specie payments. And then what took place ? 
 
 Let Thomas Doubleday, in his financial, monetary and statistical his- 
 tory of England, tell what took place. He says : " Prices fell on a 
 sudden to a ruinous extent banks broke wages fell with prices of 
 manufactures ; and before the year 1816 had come to a close, panic, 
 bankruptcy, riot, and disaffection had spread through the land. Yast 
 bodies of starving and discontended artisans now congregated together 
 and demanded reform of the Parliament. The discontents, as usual, the 
 Government put down by an armed force. As the memorable first of 
 May, 1823, drew near, the country bankers, as well as the Bank of Eng- 
 land, naturally prepared themselves by a gradual narrowing of their 
 circulation for the dreaded hour of go'i and silver payments on de- 
 mand The distress, ruin and bankruptcy which now took 
 
 place were universal, affecting both the great interests of land and 
 trade." 
 
 Peel and his Shylock backers pressed the matter of the specie resumption 
 law, and it was passed in 1819, requiring by its terms, specie payments 
 to commence May 1, 1823 four years. Between the years 1815 and 
 1825, inclusive, by the specie resumption law, and by. the loss of confi 
 dence growing out of its pendency, more than four-fifths of .the land- 
 owners of England lost their possessions. The number of land-owners 
 
60 
 
 was reduced from 160, j)00 to 30,000. The very farmers that had accu* 
 mulated wealth to an unheard of extent in the eighteen years of suspen- 
 sion, now became bankrupt and penniless. 
 
 Wendell Phillips, in a letter to the New York Legal Tender Club, 
 dated August 23, 1875, though slightly inaccurate in two or three his- 
 torical dates and some other forms of expression, draws a faith fu. 
 sketch of this English resumption, as compared to our own now in 
 progress but not completed. The following is an extract of the 
 letter : 
 
 " History is repeating itself. England never knew more prosperous 
 years than from 1800 to 1820, during which she had neither gold nor 
 wished to have it, nor promised to pay gold to any one whatever. All 
 that while she extended and contracted her currency without any re- 
 gard whatever to gold. Her enormous trade and expenditures were all 
 paper, resting on credit and nothing else. We had similar prosperity 
 during the war, and after on the same terms. In. 1820, England, lis- 
 tening to theorists, tried to put this new wine into old bottles, and 
 dragged her business back to methods a century old to specie. Bank- 
 ruptcy, the very history of which makes the blood cold to day, blighted 
 the empire. It took half a generation to recover from the mistake. 
 No man can to-day begin to show that such suffering was necessary, 
 that it achieved any good, or that it effected any change which could 
 not have been as well made without it." 
 
 The object was not to have the paper currency redeemed in specie ; 
 there was really no desire or expectation of that ; but simply that the 
 paper money be driven from circulation, by making this impossible 
 requirement of specie payment in respect to it, thus leaving but very 
 little currency in circulation of any kind, and forcing down prices of 
 labor and property, real estate especially, to almost nothing, rendering 
 debtors unable to pay their debts, that their estates might be bought in 
 at forced sales, or voluntary to prevent the forced, at prices ruinous, 
 and quite likely still leaving them in debt and without means to pay. 
 
 The scheme worked like a charm. By it under the forms and sanc- 
 tion of law, the property of the English people was gathered up in vast 
 sweeping accumulations, and handed over to the nobility, and thus 
 was the genius of the British society, its distinction of nobility and 
 vassalage, restored intact. 
 
 The specie resumption law of this country, passed in January, 1875, 
 is in substance and design a copy of the British law of 1819, above 
 mentioned. Bear in mind the excuse is to redeem the paper currency 
 in specie, the real object is to drive from circulation the currency of the 
 country, reduce prices, and so rob the debtor class. 
 
 But let us look at the matter. What will the national bank-notes be 
 redeemable in when the greenbacks are withdrawn and burned up? 
 The bank-notes must be redeemable in something, else they will be 
 worthless, for they are not a legal tender for debt, as the greenback 
 money is. At present the bank-notes are redeemable in legal tender 
 greenbacks, and that makes them good. But the greenbacks withdrawn 
 and burned up, and then what? Why, the bank-notes must then be 
 redeemable in specie of course, as the resumption law provides. And 
 
61 
 
 where will the banks get the specie to redeem with ? Some c f the 
 strongest of them will be able to get it, and continue their business 
 But it looks to us that the bank-note circulation will be contracted in- 
 stead of enlarged under the operation of this specie resumption law. 
 Contraction has been the effect of it so far, and we have every reason to 
 believe it will be more and more so up to the time of resumption. The 
 requirement to redeem in specie causes this. That was the effect in 
 England, as shown in the foregoing extract from Doubleday's History. 
 
 The contraction under our specie resumption law up to November 1 , 
 1876, was $30,710,732 of national bank-notes, and $14,464,284 of 
 greenbacks, besides $20,910,946 more of greenbacks deposited in the 
 treasury of the United States for the retirement of national bank-notes, 
 making a total contraction of the currency of $66,085,962 up to the 
 date mentioned, and the contraction and destroying of the greenback 
 money is still going on. 
 
 But when this contraction has gone on for a certain time and instead 
 of a diffused and large credit pervading the country, we have all the 
 loanable capital concentrated in the great money centres, and controlled 
 by the banks, then expansion of credits will be the order of the day. 
 Bank credit will be thrown out in unlimited quantity, in the shape of 
 bank-notes, ostensibly redeemable in specie, but really not; but all 
 secured as loans on the property of the borrower. Then the banks and 
 the money lenders have only to contract these loans, and the securities 
 being suddenly thrown upon the market, sweeps the property of the 
 many into the hands of the few. This is the game of all banking. 
 
 We purpose not to be an alarmist, and believe we are not. Wo 
 think we have no motive or desire whatever to create misapprehension, 
 or groundless fear or unjust distrust of the integrity or capacity of those 
 in authority. But if this greenback money, constituting as it now does 
 more than half of the currency of the country, be withdrawn from cir- 
 culation by the first of January, 1879, the time fixed for resumption, 
 there will be no enlargement of the bank-note circulation to take its 
 place, or at least a very inadequate one, and probably a contraction in- 
 stead, and at that time there will be precipitated upon the people of this 
 country a financial disaster and loss of estates, like unto arid probably 
 equal to that which was brought upon the English people in 1823, 
 when more than four-fifths of the land-owners of that country were 
 robbed of their possessions. All our principal finance laws passed in 
 the last eleven years seem to us framed with a direct reference to a 
 grand future crisis of that kind, to be brought about by contraction of 
 the currency. We do not believe there has been a single annual report 
 of our Secretary of the Treasury in all that eleven years that did not 
 contain one or more recommendations, equally monstrous with that one 
 just quoted from the last report, seeming to us to ignore the plainest 
 dictates of common reason, common justice, and practical experience, 
 and aiming for a future crisis such as above mentioned. 
 
 I now ask the reader to again peruse carefully the progress of the 
 English crisis from its beginning, in 1815, to its culmination, in 1823, 
 the time of resumption, as given in the above extract from Doubleday's 
 History, and compare therewith, as far as we have progressed, our 
 
62 
 
 * 
 
 own experience, embracing the last eleven years of our history, again 
 inspecting withal the table of bankruptcies. It will be found that 
 we are travelling the same road exactly, and unless our people demand 
 a halt, or restrain the Government by popular demands, we are destined 
 to the same end. The only difference is, that the game here has to 
 proceed slower and more cautiously, more shifts and devices are 
 needed, and more newspaper aid has to be employed here to befog 
 the people than was required in England, because history throws 
 more light on the subject now than it did then, and because the people 
 here have more to do in the cause of Government than they had in 
 England ; and moreover, by reason of our greater natural resources, our 
 country is able, without total and immediate ruin, to endure a greater 
 amount of robbery. I do not believe there was ever such a horrid sys- 
 tem of usury practised amongst men as preys upon this country at this 
 very time. 
 
 The crisis proceeds here as it did in England, with increasing bank- 
 ruptcy of business firms, throwing laborers more and more out of em- 
 ployment. According to reliable statistics, failures in bankruptcy in 
 this country have had a general increase for the last eleven years, being 
 nineteen times as much in 1876 as in 1865. And every increase of 
 bankruptcy has been marked by an increase of pauperism, suffering, 
 death from destitution, disaffection, political and governmental corrup- 
 tion, and a failing of the confidence of our own people in our own re- 
 publican institutions. 
 
 Specie basis or specie payments should be something of great value to 
 cost so much suffering. What is it, therefore, and what is it for ? 
 This specie basis, or specie payment; is a something written down in 
 the books of British science, and from thence copied into ours. Specie 
 is a something that a very few wealthy men, of almost any country, can 
 buy up and hold at will, substantially the entire stock in that country, 
 as is done now in the United States. This being done, then if there be 
 no law for any legal tender paper money in the country, but all the 
 money, in order to be good, must be either specie or redeemable in 
 specie, these few men will hold entire control of the money of the coun- 
 try, and can control all business and prices, and virtually own nearly 
 everything in the country sooner or later, as always is done where this 
 specie basis fraud exists. 
 
 Again, this same specie is good to make watch cases, watch chains, 
 and gold and silver dishes of, and to work into an innumerable variety of 
 ornaments for persons, male and female, and otherwise to gratify the 
 whims, vanity, and pomp of the wealthy classes. And to what extent 
 it may be required for this purpose in any one country depends upon 
 the changes of fashion and the ability of men to indulge in it, either of 
 which is unstable as the waves of the sea. Likewise in times of war, 
 danger, or financial uncertainty,- this specie is good to hoard up, and is 
 hoarded by men who are able, from motives of both security and specu- 
 lation. 
 
 And besides these things occurring within the country, the like casu- 
 alties all ever the world, together with the uncertainty of the yield of 
 the mines, and the ever-varying laws of the different countries in moiie- 
 
63 
 
 tizing and demonetizing gold and silver and other materials, make the 
 presence and availability of specie, either for money or the basis of cur- 
 rency, one of the most unreliable things in this unreliable world. 
 
 Yet British science calls this most fickle commodity the most reliable 
 for a money basis. This policy will do for the British nobility as a 
 most excellent fiction by which to turn systematically to themselves the 
 earning of the British laborers, as is constantly done in that country. 
 It may also do for American politicians or office-seekers (who, as we are 
 aware, are excusable if they have no ideas of their own) to prate about, 
 so as to please the money-dealers and get their money support. But an 
 American farmer, who is entitled to vote, and has a farm that he desires 
 to keep and not have filched from him, and every other person identified 
 with the labor interests of the country, should consult his own common 
 reason and his practical observation of things, and not lay aside either 
 of these to be misled and ensnared by British fiction and clap-trap. 
 
 To know anything about this subject of money it is necessary bo pause 
 right here and consider definitely what specie basis or specie payments 
 mean. Most people think they do understand it, and yet do not exactly. 
 Very many think that because we, the greenback men, oppose specie 
 basis we oppose specie money. This is furtherest possible from the 
 truth. We do not object to specie money. The greenback principles, if 
 thoroughly carried out, will make specie abundant in the country. 
 Nor do we very seriously object to having our paper money promise to 
 be redeemed in specie. The dependence on redemption in specie as 
 an exclusive basis, so called this is what we do object to most stren- 
 uously, and having the value of currency depend in the least degree 
 upon its being so redeemed in specie. That is, the paper currency, 
 whether so redeemed or not, should be a full legal tender for all debts 
 throughout the country, the same as specie, so as to keep it par with 
 specie in. value. Owing to the fickle nature of specie there is, in fact, 
 no such thing as specie basis for the currency of any commercial nation. 
 Specie basis means no basis at all, but the absolute power of a few men 
 to decide in their own interests how much currency the people shall 
 have for business, or whether any at all or not, with power to change 
 the amount to suit their own speculative purposes. 
 
 To illustrat* still more completely the real nature of this specie bask 
 idea, take, for example, our own country, the United States. Now, any 
 one year of prosperous business throughout this country would be 
 attended always by two things : one is the activity of its money passing 
 from hand to hand, the other is growth. In other words, if we have a 
 single year of active, healthy business, we are ready the next year to do 
 a still greater business. Business grows with its growth. Growth of 
 business requires a corresponding growth in the quantity of money, 
 just exactly as a tree that grows vigorously one year by the nourish- 
 ment of the earth and air, received through the sap, requires a greater 
 quantity of that sap the next year to continue the growth and health of 
 the tree. Hence we see, in the Creator's order of things, a a tree 
 grows larger its roots, fibres, and foliage reach forth deeper and higher 
 and broader, that they may gather and transmit the necessary increase 
 of sap and nourishment to the whole tree. Circumscribe those roota 
 
64 
 
 and fibres, or otherwise withhold the necessary increase of 8 up required 
 by nature, and you dwarf the tree or kill it. 
 
 Precisely so it is with nations. Prosperity, if we have any, is 
 attended with growth, and a necessity for an increase of mo'aey. With- 
 hold the increase of money and you will dwarf the nation, or kill it, 
 and murder the inhabitants. Under a specie basis order of things 
 what has the supply of specie to do with the wants of the nation for 
 more or less money. Is it anywhere revealed to us that mines and job- 
 bers will always give forth a supply just suited to the business necessi- 
 ties ? Nay, verily. But in proportion as you attempt to actually base 
 the currency on specie will the jobbers grasp the specie and keep it out 
 of legitimate business. Thus you limit the money of the country by 
 an arbitrary, irresponsible power, that feels no sympathy with the 
 money wants of the nation. The theory, therefore, of basing the money 
 of a country upon specie, the most liable of all materials to be snatched 
 away for luxury, vanity, and speculation, and all the more sure to be 
 so snatched away as the more we attempt actually to base money upon 
 it, is a diabolical idea, a wholesale, murderous conception, and contrary 
 to the Creator's order of things. To say that such materials, gold or 
 silver, or both together, constitute the best basis for currency, is as 
 contrary to the truth as to say that a brothel is the best place to pre- 
 serve chastity, or that the taking of strong drink is the best way to 
 keep temperate, or that a deep-sounding bed of quick-sand is the best 
 foundation for a house. 
 
 England herself does not in reality base her currency on specie, nor 
 could she without bringing all business to a dead stop in a very short 
 time. She just mixes enough of this specie basis fiction in her finances 
 to continually or periodically divest the laboring classes of their earnings 
 for the benefit of the nobility. But for the real basis of value to her 
 currency, she makes the notes of the Bank of England, as well as her 
 coins, a full legal tender for the payment of debts, but not the notes of 
 the other banks. From this we see that even in England specie basis is 
 a mere fiction, a false pretence. 
 
 We have already seen what a terrible siege of robbery, destitution, 
 suffering, and death the Government of England made its people pass 
 through from 1815 to 1823, to reach specie basis, or specie payments, 
 the pretended haven of rest and happiness. And what was the result ? 
 The following statement being condensed from an article in the St. Louis 
 Commercial of March 23, 1876, shows what that specie payment bliss 
 amounted to when obtained : 
 
 "At the time of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, in 1815, the Bank 
 of England and the country banks had an issue of $270,000,000. The 
 cry of resumption being raised, the banks set about a sharp contraction 
 of both their issues and their discounts. Between 1815 and 1823, they 
 reduced the volume of their issue 33 per cent. 
 
 "The crisis was at its height from the 12th to the 17th of December, 
 1825. tTp to the night of the 14th the Bank of England had restricted 
 its issues ; but at that time, becoming sensible of its error, it resolved 
 to make common cause with the country, and issued circulating notes 
 to the amount of $25,000,000. This policy was crowned with the most 
 
65 
 
 complete success. The panic -was stayed almost instantly. Oedit was 
 revived, and a needless and protracted period of suffering was averted. 
 This remedy consisted in a profuse issue of irredeemable paper money 
 to the amount of $25,000,000. 
 
 " Similar but less disastrous panics happened in 1836 and 1839, and 
 from then to 1843 general commercial stagnation prevailed throughout 
 England. 
 
 "In 1844, Peel's restriction act was passed by Parliament, forbidding 
 the bank to issue beyond 14,000,000 pounds sterling on the Government 
 stocks, except she has the gold in her vaults, pound for pound. 
 
 " Three years after this act was passed, in 1847, the next panic ensued. 
 The extreme pressure began September 23d and continued until October 
 23d, when the terrible game was played out. The Queen's Government 
 ordering the act suspended and the currency expanded, two millions of 
 dollars, with the assurance that plenty more could be had, cured thia 
 panic instanter. 
 
 " In 1857 the most unexpected and disastrous crisis they had ever 
 experienced swept across to them from our shores. To stop this panic 
 the bank act was suspended again, and the currency paper money 
 was expanded nearly $34,000,000, in excess of the limit, which then 
 stood at nearly 15,000,000 pounds. 
 
 " In 1866, they had it again. The Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 said the excitement was without parallel. On the evening of this black 
 Friday, the ministry advised the suspension of the bank act, which was 
 done the next morning, and in the course of five days $60,000,000 of 
 paper money issued to the entire relief of business and restoration of 
 confidence." 
 
 From the above it will be seen what a beautiful thing this forced 
 specie payment was when reached through the horrible robbery of the 
 English people in 1823. After it was reached it was maintained with 
 increasing suffering and misery for two years and seven months, and 
 then December 17, 1825, a suspension had to take place, and $25,000,000 
 of irredeemable paper money had to be issued to stay the wretchedness. 
 And again another author, Hon. Isaac Buchanan, says : " England 
 seems to the world to have survived the process of a return to specie 
 payment, although how she has done so, if gone into in detail, would be 
 the saddest and most harrowing record of human Buffering. . 
 At the end of thirty years (in 1839) the revenue, or in other words the 
 property of the country, got fairly broken down, under the insidious 
 operations of the British money system." Further the honorable 
 gentleman says that, in the> 1847 panic, thousands died of starvation in 
 the cellars of the manufacturing and seaport towns of Great Britain. 
 
 Such are the effects of specie basis, or specie payments, so called, a 
 thing that the English Government pretended to think of such great 
 value, and so desirable, as that, in order to reach it, she dragged her 
 people from a condition of " prosperity universal and then unheard of," 
 through eight years of unheard-of bankruptcy, starvation, and misery, 
 and then, when reached, the result was a continuation of the same hor- 
 rors, until relieved again in two years and seven months by a temporarv 
 return to suspension of specie payments and the issue of irredeemable 
 
66 
 
 paper money. And then again, after twenty yeiars more of miserable 
 existence on the part of the labor of the country, we find the laborers 
 dying by thousands, of starvation, in the cellars of the manufacturing 
 and seaport towns. And still these scenes have been followed by suc- 
 cessive horrors of a similar kind at intervals ever since, relieved 
 in every instance by a return to suspension and an issue of irredeemable 
 paper money. 
 
 And still further, as late as 1875, we find the Chamber of Commerce 
 of the British kingdom unanimously adopted a resolution praying the 
 Chancellor of Exchequer to appoint a commission to inquire, amongst 
 other things, " into the constitution and actual management of the 
 Bank of France, as compared with the constitution and actual manage- 
 ment of the Bank of England ; as to the points of difference in the 
 constitution and actual management of those banks respectively, to 
 which may be attributed the crisis and panics which occur periodically 
 in the English money market, and do not occur in the .French money 
 market at all" 
 
 Now, it is to be borne in mind that there has been no specie pay- 
 ments in France since 1870, or at least no law yet in force requiring it; 
 and yet the paper money of that country, unlike that of England, is all 
 a full legal tender, and all the time substantially par with gold. This 
 is the one essential point of difference between the two systems of money 
 of those two countries, the French paper currency, or money, is a full 
 legal tender for the payment of all debts, public and private, within the 
 realm, and can, therefore, issue continually, and does issue, in sufficient 
 quantities for the business of the country, without any depreciation of 
 value. Whilst in England, the bills of none of the banks, except the 
 Bank of England, are a general legal tender for debt, but depend for 
 their value on being redeemed in specie, or in the Bank of England 
 bills ; whilst the bills of the Bank of England, although a legal tender, 
 are limited usually to such amount as can be redeemed in specie. That 
 is, in short, the English paper money is, to some extent at least, specie 
 basis money, whilst that of France is irredeemable, rag-baby stuff, essen- 
 tially such as England had in time of her great prosperity, and yet such 
 as the prevailing authorities of this country and England call a perni- 
 cious evil, but which the commercial or mercantile interests of England 
 are longing to have established in opposition to the specie basis fiction 
 of the money craft of that country. 
 
 Note. The foreign balance of trade, in our favor at present, is, in 
 this instance, not the result of prosperity at home, but of lack of em- 
 ployment and poverty among our people'. Our bankruptcies and bank- 
 rupt sales being of greater number than any former year, and laborers 
 more unemployed than ever, would seem to indicate that we have not 
 been producing more, but have been selling abroad cheap, and buying 
 less from abroad, because of increased poverty among laborers. That is, 
 we sold cheap abroad because our own people were too much unem- 
 ployed and poor to buy and use what were to them the necessaries of 
 life and of business. And our own factories, to a very large extent, are 
 unable to be run at all, only because, having changed hands, the present 
 owners got them almost for nothing, and are able to get work-hands on 
 
67 
 
 the same scale of prices. What a triumph is this of governmental 
 political economy I The real test of prosperity is, whether or not labor 
 has been employed and well paid. And labor was never so much un- 
 employed, and never so poorly paid in any one previous year as in 1876, 
 showing a constant decline in our industrial and financial condition, 
 despite of constant prediction tc the contrary by our Government func- 
 tionaries and their Shylock admirers. 
 
 And, furthermore, the withdrawal of the greenback money from cir- 
 culation, as recommended by our Secretary of the Treasury, and Presi- 
 dent Grant, also, will itself bring greatly increased prostration of labor 
 and business, and turn the flow of specie away from us, provided we 
 shall then have any to flow away. 
 
 When Mr. Chase was Secretary of the Treasury, in time of the war, 
 and before the commencement of this eleven years of decline, he desired 
 authority from Congress to receive deposits of money in the Treasury 
 from our people, payable back on ten days' notice in our own lawful 
 paper money, with interest at five per cent. This would have been on 
 the like principle of the interconvertible bond, now urged by the green- 
 back advocates. Had the plan of Mr. Chase been carried out, it would 
 have enabled our Government to obtain constant credit among our own 
 business men to the amount of several hundred millions of dollars, much 
 to the benefit of the men themselves, and the saving of gold bonds being 
 issued to foreigners. But Congress was full of bankers, as it always is, 
 and they wanted these private deposits to bank on themselves ; for 
 which reason the Secretary was permitted to receive only one hundred 
 millions in this way, which was eagerly deposited. 
 
 One Secretary of the Treasury under President Grant's administra- 
 tion, by long-continued effort, funded five hundred millions of our 
 national debt in gold bonds and sold them in the foreign market, when, 
 had our people been provided with legal tender paper money, so as to 
 have kept our labor employed at home, after the French manner, we 
 could have paid off the whole five hundred millions in less time than the 
 Secretary was funding it. The policy seems to be to foster gold debts 
 abroad and prostration of the industries at home, because this double 
 fostering tends to increase our debts, public and private, and especially 
 as we are going to base our currency all on specie, we nmst have these 
 foreign debts to take the specie away from us in the shape of interest, 
 then we will be without specie, without money basis, without money of 
 course, and without price for anything ; then will we be in good condi- 
 tion for our merciful British nobility benefactors, and their generous co- 
 adjutors on these shores, to take us, with this little heritage of ours, into 
 their kind care and keeping, both for ownership and government, civil 
 and military. Then we shall have nothing to do but to hew their wood, 
 draw their water, cultivate their soil, and fight such battles as they see 
 fit, for their own glory and amusement, to set in array for us. 
 
 The demonetizing of silver, as was done by act of Congress of Febru- 
 ary 12, 1873, is a part of this same scheme, taken in connection with 
 issuing of foreign gold bonds, to get the country destitute of specie, 
 and in that condition force specie payments, and thereby create a sweep- 
 ing transfer of the people's property to a moneyed few, in the same 
 
63 
 
 manner as was done in England, and to establish tlie same condition of 
 things here as there, to wit : a noble few to own the country and rule 
 it, and a vassalage to perform the work. If this is the destiny intended 
 for us by the founders of our Government, I have labored under a great 
 mistake all my life. 
 
 MARVIN WARREN. 
 
 NOTE. In place of over-producing, we have imported, in the last ten 
 years, over one thousand million dollars ($1,000,000,000) in excess of 
 what we were able to pay by sales of exports, proving positively that 
 over-importation is one cause of our financial troubles, and under-pro- 
 duction to be the real cause, instead of over-industry. These " bal- 
 ances " must have been paid by sending our bonds abroad, thus alien- 
 ating our national debt, and having to pay the interest abroad. 
 
 To reduce our imports two hundred millions annually is giving our 
 laboring and producing classes annually two hundred million dollars of 
 additional employments. This can easily be done by means of proper 
 tariff law, without cost, and without borrowing. 
 
 A large increase of duties on foreign industries of our own kind, is no 
 increase of taxes upon our own people, but the reverse, being an increase 
 of wealth to them, as our Government requires only a certain amount of 
 revenue for its support, which is as large under low as under protective 
 duties. The difference and gain to our people is the increase of em- 
 ployment and gold, corresponding with the reduction made in the 
 amount and gold cost of our imports. 
 
 The unparalleled prosperity of France, fresh from her disastrous war, 
 can only be attributed to her wise protective policy, which results in 
 having annually a balance of trade of over one hundred millions in her 
 favor. 
 
 I favor a free list and low duties for all necessary productions im- 
 ported, which we ourselves do not produce and sell. 
 
 A tariff for revenue, and not for the protection of American indus- 
 tries, would quickly cause our great republic to be, reduced to the level 
 of European countries for workingmen, a country to migrate from to 
 seek elsewhere work and a living. 
 
 There are two ways to renew specie payments. One is by contract- 
 ing and destroying our present and only money and continue low duties, 
 and leave all in poverty, so that eventually we cannot import for the 
 want of funds, which would necessarily largely reduce imports and give 
 us the balance of trade. The other way is a large increase of duties, 
 which would cause a like large reduction of imports, and cause a large 
 demand for American employments and productions at home, to supply 
 the reduction made in imports. 
 
 Our Congress should make our paper currency as good as gold, a 
 legal tender for import duties, and at the same time largely increase the 
 duties, to cover the loss in the difference of value in gold and currency, 
 and to largely reduce imports below trade exports. 
 
 Whenever our nation's annual exports (exclusive of gold debt pay- 
 ments sent abroad) will not fully meet and pay all foreign demands, 
 both for purchased imports, debt, and interest annually due abroad, then 
 
69 
 
 we shoul 1 increase duties to retrench and economize our nation's for- 
 eign extravagance in purchasing imports. Then our country could not 
 be impoverished as now, either of its own employments or its own 
 gold. 
 
 When either of the real producers of our country's wealth, manufac- 
 turers, miners, or farmers, are impoverished by foreign competition, 
 then all are made to suffer, because each one's productions add to the 
 one total production of our country. 
 
 There is only one quick way to possess an abundance of specie, and 
 that is this way, which is a very old one Do not spend so much specie 
 with other nations for foreign productions. Manufacture and produce 
 more for ourselves. This will give our people more specie and more 
 employment and wealth. A high tariff alone will do this. 
 
 The protectionists of foreign industries in Congress are easily known. 
 They are always in favor of taxing heavily American productions three 
 hundred per cent., and would tax tea and coffee, which our poor people 
 must have and should not be taxed, because it will not increase our em- 
 ployments, as duties on foreign industries would do. 
 
 Our American people cannot support all other nations' industries and 
 our own beside, as low duties now cause us to do. A tariff law for 
 American industries alone would dissolve this ruinous and unnatural 
 division of our market, as was found necessary to do after the bank- 
 ruptcies of 1837 and 1857, to our country's immediate relief from de- 
 pression of business. 
 
 GEORGE W. DEAN. 
 
 FREE TEADE ITS EFFECTS ON THE FARMER. 
 
 IN my letter to the Hon. James Brooks in reply to a speech made by 
 him in favor of free trade, I made the following offer, saying that 
 
 ff I am informed from Washington that Mr. Brooks is now ready * to 
 mount on a peddler's wagon and ride through the agricultural districts 
 of the country exhibiting hoes, shovels, axes, bars, chains, rods, knives, 
 forks, cottons and woollens, to demonstrate to the eyes of the people the 
 enormous taxation imposed on them by the existing tariffs.' 
 
 t( Before he commences this journey among the farmers, I propose to 
 share with him a large part of the expense, on condition that he will 
 inform the farmers as he goes through the country that, according to 
 Mr. Wells's report, there are one million of men now employed in the 
 manufacture of those articles so indispensable to every fanner. 
 
 " I want him to ascertain from the farmers how many millions of 
 bushels of their grain and all other agricultural products are annually 
 consumed by these hundreds of thousands of the workingmen of our 
 country. I want him to be very particular, as he goes along, to show 
 the farmers how perfectly insignificant the amount of grain is that has 
 been sold abroad, when compared with the amount that is annually con- 
 sumed by the men now employed in making the various articles he enu- 
 merates. It will be well, as he comes in contact with the farmers, to 
 ascertain where they expect to find a market when those hundreds of 
 
70 
 
 thousands that now consume their produce are forced to turn farmers 
 and come in competition with them for a market. 
 
 " I hope Mr. Brooks will quote from Mr. Wells's report, where he 
 states * that the American agriculturist does not command his own price 
 in a foreign market, but the price commands him,' as he is compelled 
 1 to sell at the price offered in London, the central market of the world, 1 
 where farm labor is hired for one-half the price paid for it in this coun- 
 try. 
 
 " It will be a matter of the greatest interest for the farmers to know 
 that Mr. Wells says * there are now one million of skilled artisans in 
 our country, making the largest and most valuable consuming class in 
 this community.' 
 
 " Mr. Brooks should tell the farmers that these are the men, with 
 their families, employers and laborers, that consume a large part of all 
 they have to sell, and are now paying them more than they could get in 
 any other part of the world. 
 
 " I hope Mr. Brooks will be sure, as he passes through the country, 
 to tell the farmers that he and his friends are doing all they can to 
 withdraw the legal-tender notes, and bring about a speedy return to 
 specie payments, and that, notwithstanding, we are a debtor country to 
 an amount nearly equal to our national debt. 
 
 "He can assure the farmers that, as soon as our bank paper is pay- 
 able in specie on demand, there will be some four or five dollars of 
 paper afloat for every silver or gold dollar in the country'. 
 
 " He should assure the farmers that when all our paper money is 
 made payable in specie on demand, it will prove the most certain means 
 that can be used to * fertilize the rich man's field by the sweat of the 
 poor man's brow.' 
 
 " It will do this by ensuring the periodical return of those scenes of 
 panic, pressure and general bankruptcy and ruin that have so often 
 changed the values of all property and labor some twenty- five or fifty 
 per cent, in a single year, whenever it was for the interest of foreign 
 creditors or merchants at home to withdraw a few extra millions from 
 our banks, as they did in '57, when a withdrawal of only seven millions 
 produced the panic of that year, which sunk the values of all the pro- 
 perty of our country to the amount of thousands of millions of dollars. 
 These millions were taken from the farmers, mechanics and merchants 
 who were in debt, and put in the possession of those who had the 
 means to buy at the ruinous rates at which property of all kinds was 
 compelled to be sold, thus making, as it ever must, the rich richer, and 
 the poor poorer. 
 
 11 Mr. Brooks should sound an alarm as he goes through the country, 
 and say to all that there can be no security for any man that is in debt 
 until our general government shall perform its most important duty, 
 which is not only to establish a just system of money, weights and 
 measures, but a system of legal-tender paper money, in amount equal 
 to the amount put in circulation at the end of the war by the necessi- 
 ties of the government. 
 
 " Such a legal-tender paper money would be a bond and mortgage on 
 the whole property of the country and a bond of union among the states, 
 
n 
 
 and wo?ild leave gold and silver to be an article of commerce in the 
 hands of those who hold it. 
 
 " Mr. Brooks will perform a most valuable service to the country if 
 he will tell the farmers that Dr. Franklin says that the American peo- 
 ple under the old colonial government were so immoderately fond of the 
 manufactures and superfluities of foreign countries ' that they could not 
 be restrained from purchasing them,' * because such laws, if made, would 
 be immediately repealed as prejudicial to the trade and interest of Great 
 Britain.' Dr. Franklin then adds that 'it seems hard, therefore, to 
 draw all their real money from them, and then refuse them the privi- 
 lege of using paper instead of it.' 
 
 " Mr. Brooks will perform a most valuable service to the country by 
 showing the farmers that the absenteeism that has -ruined Ireland was 
 nothing more the turning of a hundred small farms into one large graz- 
 ing farm, that can be managed by a single individual, instead of making 
 a home for the hundred individual farmers. 
 
 " He should show the farmers that Ireland has been impoverished by 
 the same policy that England tried to force on her American colonies, 
 as will appear by the following facts of British legislation : 
 
 "In 1710 a law was enacted in the House of Commons that declared 
 the erecting of manufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their 
 dependence on Great Britain. 
 
 " In 1782 the exportation of hats from province to province, and the 
 number of apprentices, was limited. 
 
 " In 1750 the erection of any mill or engine for slitting or rolling 
 iron was prohibited. 
 
 "In 1765 the exportation of artisans was prohibited under a heavy 
 penalty. 
 
 " In 1781 utensils required for the manufacture of wool or silk were 
 prohibited. 
 
 "In 1782 the prohibition was extended to artificers in printing cali- 
 cos, muslins, or linens. 
 
 " In 1785 the prohibition was extended to tools used in iron or steel 
 manufacture, and to workmen employed. 
 
 "In 1799- it was so extended as to even embrace colliers." 
 
 All classes -should gather wisdom by reflecting on the history and the 
 experience of the past. 
 
 Free trade is beautiful in theory, and will be in practice where all 
 things are equal and peaceful in the relations of nations, and rapid 
 transit shall go far to annihilate space. 
 
 Our government having allowed and used paper money until the 
 day's labor has been made to cost at least one-third more than a similar 
 day's labor would cost in other countries, to bring about an equality in 
 trade will require a tariff based on the difference in the cost that will 
 purchase a day's labor in our country as compared with that of foreign 
 countries. 
 
 If the farmers desire to secure for themselves a reliable market and 
 the highest price for their product, they must use the means best calcu- 
 lated to effect that object they must encourage the manufacture of the 
 articles they consume and have them made as near their homes as pos- 
 
T2 
 
 sible. This should be done wherever good raw materials can be found 
 that can be put into forms of usefulness with as small expense of labor 
 in this country as in any part of the world. 
 
 If I am not mistaken our country will rise out of its great embarrass- 
 ment in a way that would astonish the world, if our government would 
 perform what was and is its first and most important duty. 
 
 The Constitution made it the duty of Congress to adopt measures 
 that will "establish justice;" that is the only means by which the 
 " common welfare can be promoted." 
 
 To establish justic for a nation there must be created and maintained 
 a just and uniform system of money, weights and measures. 
 
 It is of the greatest importance that all the paper money allowed by 
 the government should be made as unyielding in its power to pay debts 
 as the yard-stick or the pound weight. 
 
 Our government having been literally compelled to issue and use a 
 legal-tender paper money in order to save the nation's life, has, by its 
 use, caused the whole property of the country to be measured by its 
 purchasing power. By this use of paper money the government has 
 created a most solemn obligation on its part to do no act to increase or 
 diminish the amount of paper money beyond the absolute necessities of 
 the government. As an increase of the amount would inflate prices 
 without increasing real values, in the same proportion a diminution of 
 currency must cause all property to shrink in price, and thereby put it 
 out of the power 6f the people to pay the national debt. 
 
 One thing is certain that the national debts can never be paid by a 
 governmental policy that shrinks the currency, destroys values, para- 
 lyzes industry, enforces idleness, and brings wretchedness and ruin to 
 the homes of millions of the American people. It is equally true that 
 Americans can never buy anything cheap from foreign countries that 
 must be bought at the expense of leaving our own good raw materials 
 unused, and our own labor unemployed. It should be remembered that 
 neither gold, silver, copper, nickel nor paper are money without the 
 stamp of the government upon it. The Constitution has made it the 
 duty of Congress to coin the money of our country and regulate the 
 value thereof, and fix a standard of weights and measures, as the only 
 possible means by which commerce can be regulated between foreign 
 nations and among the several States. 
 
 PETER COOPER. 
 
THE 
 
 UNMEASURED IMPORTANCE 
 
 OF AN 
 
 UNFLUCTUATING NATIONAL CURRENCY 
 
 OVER WHICH THE GOVERNMENT HAS ENTIRE COKTROL. 
 
 AN INTERVIEW OP A REPORTER WITH PETER COOPER, AS PUBLISHED IN 
 The New York Herald. 
 
 REPORTER. Mr. Cooper, what do you think of the late letter of Mr. 
 Reverdy Johnson on the subject of the currency ? 
 
 MR. COOPER. I think that Mr. Johnson has there given some very 
 wholesome truths, and for a man of his intelligence, he has made some 
 remarkable mistakes. He says truly that " the question of currency is 
 now the most important one before the country. It rises, or should rise, 
 far above mere party contests." 
 
 He adds, with great propriety, that " the subject of currency affects 
 the permanent welfare of every citizen the prosperity of the country, 
 and the reputation of the Government." 
 
 He then adds that "it must be obvious to every reflecting mind that 
 a currency ought to be as far removed from fluctuations of value as 
 possible." 
 
 I believe that Mr. Johnson is unquestionably right in saying that, 
 " with a currency, subject at times to a depreciation and at times to 
 appreciation, the consequences can but be injurious; and the extent of 
 injury will be in proportion to the changes of value." 
 
 Mr. Johnson then states, what I believe to be an entire mistake, that 
 " the experience of the world has long since demonstrated that gold and 
 silver alone constitute a safe currency." 
 
 As to what control the Government has over money, this will find 
 its best answer in the language of the Constitution, where it says that 
 " CONGRESS SHALL HAVE POWER TO LAY AND COLLECT TAXES," " to bor- 
 row money, to regulate commerce," " to coin money and regulate the 
 value thereof," a most important function, and " to make all laws which 
 are necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing 
 powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Govern- 
 ment of the United States." These are necessary to " establish justice 
 and promote the welfare of the nation." 
 
 REP. But what are your views, Mr. Cooper, on this question of 
 currency in relation to the Government at the present time ? 
 
 MR. C. I think the currency question has been managed by the 
 Government very much in the interests of the moneyed classes, and 
 very poorly in the interests of the people. Let us look at some of the 
 facts. 
 
 In the year 1860, a civil war broke out in this country \vhich threat- 
 ened the integrity and life of this nation. At this time, the expenses 
 
74 
 
 of the Government increased very largely over its current expenses in 
 time of peace. 
 
 In fact, it became necessary for the Government to borrow money 
 and place a large debt On the shoulders of posterity, in order to transmit 
 unimpaired the priceless boon of free institutions, and a powerful and 
 self-protecting Republic of States. Now, a nation is not like a private 
 individual, who, if he wants money, must go and borrow it of some one 
 else because he has no resource of his own from which money can come, 
 but only some security which he may give that the money will be 
 returned. A nation has, always, indefinite resources on which to draw, 
 and yet can give no LEGAL security for the payment of its obligations. 
 Money itself is a creature of law, and the sovereign prerogative of the 
 State. The Government can make anything a legal tender, and it is 
 only a question of expediency what it shall make. But it can give no 
 legal security for payment of its debts, because a sovereign State cannot 
 be sued, nor can you replevin on its property, except by war. To be 
 sure, a nation may borrow as a private individual from another, or 
 from a corporation ; but in doing so, it puts itself in a false position, 
 and makes itself subject to the lender, as in any other debtor, to the 
 extent of his debt except that the creditor has no other resource for 
 collection BUT TO TAKE ENTIRE CONTROL OF THAT GOVERNMENT, as respects 
 its financial policy. Therefore, the people and their interests may be 
 shoved aside, for they become antagonistic to the class who are the 
 creditors, who naturally desire to make their loans at the least cost and 
 the highest interest. But if the people themselves 'in their solid inter- 
 ests and unity, as represented by a Republican Government, were both 
 the debtors and creditors of all the public debt, then there would be no 
 antagonism between the debtors and creditors. 
 
 REP. But do you mean to say, Mr. Cooper, that a Government has 
 no need, and should never borrow from individuals and corporations ? 
 
 MR. C. I think that a republic like ours, with its forty millions, with 
 its enormous extent of unoccupied land, its wonderful resources, and its 
 enterprising people equally marvellous for their growth and the in- 
 crease of their wealth within the century has no need to borrow from 
 anybody. Why should this people borrow, as a private debtor ? If, 
 in their sovereign capacity through the Government and under consti- 
 tutional and legal forms, they can lay under contribution the whole 
 property, and the services of every man, in protecting the lives and 
 property of all, they certainly can issue tokens of this undoubted fact, 
 in the shape of legal tenders ; and these become, by this act of sover- 
 eignty, the money of the country, the measure and the means of ex- 
 changes. The people who give them, in their sovereign capacity, must 
 take them in their private capacity, and again receive them in their 
 sovereign capacity as the Government, for taxes. This makes their 
 circulation and their use. But the significance of these paper " legal 
 tenders" is that they are tokens of such service or material rendered 
 to the Government ; and they are also promises to render an equal 
 amount of money, service, or useful material in exchange, to the holder, 
 by the Government. 
 
75 
 
 The paid functions of Government, or the equivalent taxes, form a 
 just and adequate basis for the redemption of a paper currency, and 
 furnish a better legal tender than gold or silver, for the domestic pur- 
 poses of trade, if properly regulated by the Goverr mei-t ; hence, I would 
 demonetize gold and silver, except as mere tokens of value, and make 
 Government paper, exclusively, the legal tender. 
 
 This is a very important proposition, in the discussion of national 
 finances, and demands a clear explanation. 
 
 1st. If a private note of hand or a bank-note is "good" in propor- 
 tion to the known credit and resources of the individual or the bank, so 
 is that of the Government, and in a superior degree, as the Government 
 has a larger credit and more resources than an individual or a bank. 
 
 2d. An individual or a bank pays its debts by means of its credits, 
 or the valid claims either may have on others ; so does the Government ; 
 and the valid claims of Government are all represented in rightful 
 taxes, imposed for its proper functions and employments. 
 
 Government, on one side, is the giver of sound credit, represented by 
 its paper j the validity and redeeming basis of this paper is in the fact, 
 that the community is indebted to the Government in the shape of 
 taxes for so much service and material as may be necessary to carry on 
 its proper function, and pay its officers for services rendered to the 
 public ; this creates an obligation on the part of the public to receive 
 Government paper for " value received." Thus the circulation is com- 
 plete. As the creditors of an individual or of a bank receive its paper, 
 and pass it to debtors, who in their turn- pay their debts to the bank 
 with its own paper, so the Government puts out its paper for service 
 and labor, and redeems its notes by the taxes due. This is the sort of 
 legal tender and currency we need, as undoubted representative for 
 value received, as gold or silver. Regulated in volume by the amount 
 of taxation which the people are willing to bear in order to support 
 Government ; for not a dollar of it can be issued except for " value re- 
 ceived," and under the watchful guard of the whole machinery of Gov- 
 ernment. Where, then, is the danger of inflation, except in time of 
 war, or by a temporary wresting of the Government from the hands of 
 the people ? One of these contingencies is comparatively rare, and not 
 without its compensations, in the objects attained by the war. Tho 
 other is a very remote and improbable contingency, in a country like 
 this hardly worth taking into account, in this argument. 
 
 On the other hand, bank -paper is sure to be inflated sooner or later, 
 without compensation, but with general loss or disaster. For, if it 13 
 to be redeemed by specie, the paper cannot be kept within the limits of 
 redemption and satisfy at the same time the demand for credit. If a 
 part of it becomes irredeemable, the whole of it becomes irredeemable 
 at a blow. 
 
 But if the paper merely represents credit, it is the real capital and 
 claims or assets of the bank that must support that credit ; and the his- 
 tory of banking clearly shows that the inevitable tendency is, that bank 
 circulation gets in advance of its real capital or assets; because the 
 assets are sure to fall greatly in the market if they are brought quickly 
 forward to pay its debts, as is the case in times of panic. The sudden 
 
76 
 
 curtailment of its loans from time to time can alone keep up a system 
 of banks, and this is sure to bring on ruin and panic in business. Not 
 so with a Government currency, regulated solely by Government taxes 
 and dues. It must be comparatively steady and unfluctuating as the 
 taxes ; and hence, the general credits based on such a currency cannot 
 fluctuate enough to produce great inflations, in times of peace, and the 
 consequent reactions and panics in business. 
 
 REP. Why not ? It seems to me that Government paper may be 
 subject to great inflations, as well as bank paper, and the expanded 
 credits that arise from such inflations must suffer contraction, sooner 
 or later, by a natural law ; for the " pay day " must come at last, and 
 few who are eager to borrow can meet the payment. Government 
 paper may be inflated on a more gigantic scale than bank paper, as our 
 last war proved. 
 
 MR. C. That was a war measure, and was justified for the same rea- 
 son as the war. But the mischief did not arise from the expansion of 
 the currency, which sent a vivifying influence throughout all our indus- 
 tries, and produced the most prosperous times this country ever had ; 
 but it was the contraction of the currency which brought the distress ; 
 and this was neither necessary nor called for by any advantage accru- 
 ing. 
 
 The eagerness with which our currency was funded by foreign bond- 
 holders was owing to the fact that our government gave such high rates 
 of interest, as compared with other governments, and promised both 
 principal and interest in gold when the paper that bought the bonds 
 was at forty or sixty per. cent, discount on the gold. Was that patri- 
 otic or necessary ? To pay so much of the debt of the nation before it 
 was due, as Mr. McCullough boasted was his object, and to turn so large 
 a part of the currency which fed the industry of the people, into bonds 
 that taxed that industry, was a very short-sighted policy for the Gov- 
 ernment to pursue. 
 
 REP. But how is the Government always to keep its paper issues, in 
 time of peace, on a par with the standard adopted as a unit of value 
 so much weight of silver or gold, in the coin dollar f This standard 
 gives meaning to the stamp on the paper, as equivalent to, or exchange- 
 able for, so much value, as the number of dollars stamped on the paper, 
 measured by the standard coin dollar. This is a necessary starting- 
 point in measuring values, as a certain length or a certain weight is to 
 the yard-stick, or to the pound weight. 
 
 MR. C. That is very true. It is necessary to have some substantial 
 and recognized standard of value to start with, in money, whether it be 
 coin or currency. This standard, however, might be a pound of cotton 
 of a certain fineness, or a pound of tobacco of a certain quality, as far 
 as giving a standard value to the paper was concerned. It is also true 
 that the paper must have some exchangable value as money, as mea- 
 sured by a standard ; and the Government cannot give it that exchange- 
 able value, in any quantity, by merely stamping the paper as worth so 
 much. What we want is & paper money, made equal in exchangeable 
 value to gold or silver of a certain standard. 
 
 Now the Government keeps its promise to pay in three ways. First, by 
 
77 
 
 accepting these paper promises, as they may be called, for all taxes and 
 dues to the Government. Secondly, by compelling every individual to 
 accept them in payment of all debts. And finally, by redeeming them 
 in that which the holder of the currency shall accept as equivalent 
 value, the Government Bonds, thus distributing burdens and benefits 
 over the whole country. 
 
 REP. But this is only compelling individuals to accept one token of 
 dobt for another. How is the public debt to be paid at last, and how 
 shall we get out of this vortex of promises to pay ? 
 
 MR. C. In one sense, there is no need to get out of this vortex; the 
 planets move in a vortex ; the whole of society, and the universe, as far as 
 we see it, move in vortices. This is the grand law of motion and circula- 
 tion. But circulation also signifies growth, and ministers to it. Parts of 
 every circulating medium settle down to something solid, which makes a 
 .part of the organism, and keeps up its integrity, and adds to its growth. 
 The circulating medium of money settles down, at last, into something 
 solid in interest and property, under the same law of conversion that 
 makes each drop of blood contribute to bone, muscle, or other organ of the 
 body. For instance, New York City is building a great series of piers 
 and wharves, for the accommodation of its present and future commerce 
 and trade. It is demonstrable that these piers and wharves will pay in 
 rents to the city, not only the interest but the principal of all the money 
 invested, in twenty years. The city issues its bonds for this work, which 
 represent a certain amount of interest and principal. But the city, not 
 having the right to issue money, offers its bonds for sale to the banks, 
 or to private individuals, which are henceforth alienated from the pos- 
 session of the city, in order to get the money or currency to pay for labor 
 and material in this public work. You might ask, why should not the 
 city keep these bonds in its own safes, and issue the money for current 
 expenses on its own authority and credit ? I answer : Because that 
 would be an act of too great a local sovereignty though it is no more 
 than is now virtually conceded to local banks. Let the general Gov- 
 ernment, then, in its sovereignty, make such a currency, so based and 
 secured, a legal tender. Then, when this work is done, and begins to 
 pay to the city rents, let the income be applied to the extinguishment 
 of the bonds, as well as keeping it in repair. This is what I mean by 
 settling down a circulating medium or currency INTO SOLID MATERIAL, 
 and capital, organized into permanent use. 
 
 This makes a circulating medium always expanding and always con- 
 tracting into a solid form. The true design and highest function of 
 currency and credit are to encourage and stimulate industry and enter- 
 prise in useful forms, and to promote the work by giving the very tools 
 with which it can be done. It represents the material value of the 
 products of labor in process, and not yet complete ; for which it pro- 
 vides merely the current wages or support, till the fruit of labor cornea 
 to maturity, when that pays for all. 
 
 REP. Mr. Cooper, what is your opinion of the present banking 
 system ? 
 
 MR. C. Financial institutions are very useful, and will always 
 be necessary to carry on the commerce, trade, and industries of the 
 country. They concentrate capital in. financial centres, from which it is 
 
78 
 
 agaiix distributed all over the country where it is most wanted. 1 regard 
 a banking system, properly confined to the collecting and loaning out of 
 the real capital, in aid of all useful enterprises, as a national blessing. 
 But, incidentally, banks do a great deal of mischief by doing business, 
 in part, on a bad system and on false assumptions. They often con- 
 found the distinction between credit and capital, and do business on 
 credit without capital. Credit must be distinguished from capital. 
 Credit cannot be borrowed or lent ; it can only be given, or exercised 
 by one mind toward another. Capital is borrowed and lent, for it can 
 be passed from hand to hand. The one is very necessary to the other ; 
 for capital supports credit, and credit sets capital to work in multiply- 
 ing capital ; thus preventing the latter from waste and loss of it. 
 Credit and capital, therefore, naturally imply each other, and are neces- 
 sary to a mutual existence. It is death or disaster to both to separate 
 them. Financial troubles may come from the want of capital, or credit, 
 or both. 
 
 REP. But how do you account for our present financial troubles? 
 
 ME. C. Our present financial troubles doubtless began in the 
 want of sufficient capital, at command, to carry on certain great and 
 small enterprises to successful issues, in which the parties asked more 
 credit than there was capital to back it. But when these parties failed, 
 it gave a shock to credit ; this paralyzed the active use of capital, and 
 withdrew it still more from the support of credit, until a " panic " 
 came. For people did not know where or when this trouble would 
 stop. Like a crowd in a public building, the rush for escape, when 
 there is an alarm given, bears no proportion to the danger ; but it soon 
 substitutes a far worse source of destruction and suffering in the 
 "panic." And, as in this case, the trouble is soon relieved by opening 
 wide the doors of egress, so, in financial panics and troubles, the true 
 remedy is expansion of credits and capital, and not contraction. 
 
 REP. But what have the banks to de with all this? 
 
 MR. C. I have not, as yet, mentioned the chief source of our 
 financial troubles and panics ;*it is the false system which our financial 
 institutions mix up with what is true in them. They rest much busi- 
 ness on a " false bottom," which may drop out at any time. They 
 lend their credit without sufficient capital to back it, and call it *' lend- 
 ing capital." The old system of banks which some are now anxious to 
 renew, lent out three and five dollars in paper to one of gold kept for 
 redemption. Their capital was to the credit they assumed as one to three, 
 five, or more ; consequently, when the capital promised by the paper was 
 called for, as sooner or later it must be, so much of the credit came to 
 naught, involving loss to the banks, not of their capital, but of their 
 sham credits. But these " sham credits " meanwhile had transferred a 
 great deal of real property from the hands to which the property belonged 
 to those who held the temporary credit. This injustice and wrong comes 
 to the surface, at short intervals, in the shape of " panics " and financial 
 distress. The present system of banks, although not doing business on a 
 specie basis, yet introduces a " false bottom " to business in another way ; 
 they do a large amount of business on their depositors' capital. If the 
 " deposits " are called for faster than the bank can return them, the 
 
79 
 
 bank fails in its credit, but loses comparatively little. The loss of real 
 capital falls chiefly on the trusting " depositors." This system goea 
 smoothly, transferring property and facilitating trade, till the capital 
 implied by the credit is needed in substantial form. The promise can 
 no longer be put off ; the payment is required ; then the false props are 
 all taken away, and financial ruin is the result ; credit given to brains, 
 muscle, industry, and enterprise is one 'thing, and credit given to actual 
 products and estates is another ; but still, credit based on either is a real 
 credit, because brain- work and enterprise are just as real as the material 
 products to which they give existence. But credit based on meie 
 assumption or supposition of capital, is not properly based. It is a 
 bogus credit, that looks like the real thing, but sooner or later fails 
 entirely. 
 
 If the Government does not require the banks to redeem their notes 
 either in gold or in bonds, or if it allows them to coin their deposits into 
 loans, it gives them the privilege of giving others the use simply of the 
 banks' credit, far beyond their capital. The banks have done too much 
 of that business already. 
 
 REP. What, then, would be your remedy for this false system of 
 banking ? 
 
 MR. C. The true remedy for all these financial shams and pretences 
 that transfer the property of the real owners to those who are mere 
 financial agents, is to permit the banks to do business only on real 
 money or legal tender, interconvertible with bonds. This will convert 
 all money into a safety fund, and make it unnecessary for banks to loan 
 their deposits, which they can always fund in government securities, and 
 have them again " on call." But this system will expand the real 
 credits which the banks can give, based all on real capital, and make 
 such credits equal to the wants of a new and expanding country like 
 ours, with institutions that stimulate the industries, the enterprises, 
 and the powers of this people, beyond anything that history can yet 
 show of any people. 
 
 Some people mistake altogether, or put a false construction on trans- 
 actions called credit, which are not so, strictly. For instance, if you 
 go to a bank or a broker, and give your bonds, stocks, or securities in 
 mortgages, or any other shape, and borrow a certain amount on tho 
 same, that is not strictly giving and receiving credit ; it is simply a sale 
 of property, WITH AN IF. For if you fail to pay on a certain day, there 
 will be transference of property, but no credit lost. In fact, the man 
 borrows the use of credit in the shape of money, but makes it good on 
 his own property. Therefore, the borrower himself gives the only- 
 foundation there is to that credit. But if the man is about to improve 
 a farm, or build a factory, and borrows money to buy material or employ 
 labor, which money can only be returned if he succeeds in his enter- 
 prise, and produces a piece of property on the strength of that credit, 
 which may return all that has been invested in it, THAT is REAL CREDIT. 
 That money represents the credit or faith given to an enterprise and a 
 work in progress, which may result in some valuable property ; but if 
 it does not, the credit is lost, and both borrower and. creditor are suffer- 
 ers by the failure. There is certainly a difference between borrowing 
 
80 
 
 OL the security of a tangible property, equivalent to the sum 
 borrowed, and borrowing money on the faith of the powers, intelligence, 
 and capad ty for work which will create a piece of property if given the 
 credit and opportunity which the money furnishes. This last is the 
 only credit that the poor need, or can ask. But it is essential in the 
 world, and there ought to be no limit to such credit, except what is 
 sufficient to set every man and woman to some useful work. 
 
 This makes credit in finance, like faith in religion, " the evidence of 
 things unseen and the substance of things hoped for." This process is 
 going on every day, for there can be no growth or development in society 
 without it. But now governments, general an local, mix up their own 
 credit, or seek altogether to sustain the public, on private credit. The 
 sovereign authority of making this circulating medium of money, which 
 ought to be backed by the highest, the most permanent and reliable 
 ability to pay, is thought safer by many when the weight of responsi- 
 bility is put upon private shoulders or those of corporations, than when 
 it is resting upon the broad and secure basis of a nation organized under 
 republican institutions, " by the people and for the people," and pledg 
 ing its wealth and honor as a nation for the redemption of all debts 
 incurred for the public weal. 
 
 This enslaves a people, through the very machinery of free institutions 
 and republican forms, to the will, the caprice, or the greed of particular 
 classes of individuals that control money. The Government should 
 never be a borrower, except of such labor and material as is necessary 
 to public service. This it must acknowledge by tokens of its own crea- 
 tion and stamp, and pay at muturity, by means of taxes on property 
 which this very credit has brought into existence, and, as it were, SOLIDI- 
 FIED into a permanent source of income, such as a great public work, or 
 any form of fixed capital, or, still more a nation's life and prosperity. 
 What I said New York was doing, and might do with regard to her 
 public works, could be done by the Government on a far grander scale. 
 
 REP. But, Mr. Cooper, I do not understand what you call " real 
 money" Is not gold and silver the only real money, and all other 
 forms merely representative of value ? 
 
 MR. C. No, sir ; gold and silver is not the only real money. The 
 precious metals are constituted money by the same authority, and for 
 the same purpose, that paper may be employed as money. Money is 
 purely a creature of law. All metals must be coined by authority be- 
 fore they can pass as money ; and the proof of this is in the fact that 
 the precious metal stamped and made into money by one Government 
 will not pass as such under the jurisdiction of another. Foreign coin 
 is never a " legal tender" This being the case, we must look to some- 
 thing else as the essential characteristic of money than the exchangeable 
 value of the substance of which it is made, which makes it a commodity 
 in any market. The value of money depends upon two conditions only, 
 both of which are governed by law, and only one of which depends upon 
 demand and supply, as do the values of pure commodities. The first 
 condition of giving value to money is to make it a legal tender for all 
 private debts, and also the taxes and dues of Government. This gives 
 it a purely legal value, and makes it like a mortgage on property, and 
 
81 
 
 also like a note of hand, issued by the Government, *ad secui ed as well 
 as redeemed by its taxing power and authority over the whol* property 
 of the country. The second condition of value in money is that it 
 should be rentable, like any other capital, or bear some interest, to the 
 lender. This can also be fixed by law, as in laws of usury. But the 
 Government can go further than this in giving a l-sgal value to its own 
 legal tender in the shape of paper money ; it can make this legal tender 
 fundable at a fixed rate of interest, payable either in coin or in its equiva- 
 lent paper. The bonds of the Government thus give a secondary or 
 vendible value to the paper money, which makes it like any other com- 
 modity, rentable, and of a market value. This being a fact, it shows 
 that in all the proper qualities of real money paper money can be made 
 such by the Government that issues it, as gol i or silver coin it will 
 pay all your debts and taxes, and also has a ma? ket value, because it is 
 rentable or loanable. 
 
 REP. But not abroad ; you cannot send this money abroad. 
 
 MR. C. No, you cannot send any money abr md except as commodity, 
 vendible, which takes from it the character of money. But this is an 
 advantage in the use of paper money, which, being an indispensable 
 measure of values at home, and a necessary means of exchange, should 
 never be taken from the trade and domestic uses of one country to be 
 exported as commodity to another. 
 
 REP. How, then, shall we keep up its value on a par with that of 
 other countries, so that we shall not be buying abroad with one stand- 
 ard of value and selling at home with another "? 
 
 MR. C. That is no great hardship, compared to being left without 
 sufficient money to do business and pay the wages of labor. But the 
 true remedy for this is to encourage industry in every way at home, so 
 as to have a surplus of production in things that can find a market 
 abroad, and thus keep even the " balance of trade" which keeps the 
 money of different countries at a par val te. For this purpose nothing 
 is more conducive than a good, sound .uirrency at home, in sufficient 
 quantities, at all times, to keep up all thf exchanges and the payment of 
 wages needed for our own domestic industries, and to protect our own 
 people from too great a competition wi< h the cheap labor of Europe by 
 a proper revenue tariff. This is the commercial and financial sheet- 
 anchor of any people. A tariff taxes the surplus of other countries 
 which finds its way to our own markets for the support of the Govern- 
 ment that protects, and in a manner furnishes that market. It taxes 
 chiefly the capital of the foreign manufacturer and tjie domestic im- 
 porter of this surplus production, because they must find a market 
 somewhere, and therefore sell at whatever rates they can get in compe- 
 tition with the industry at home, helped by the tariff; and it taxes the 
 consumer, who will buy luxuries, that lea ve our own good raw material 
 unused and our own domestic labor unemployed for I assume that 
 nothing but what interferes with these shall be subject to tariff. 
 
 REP. But gold and silver have an intrinsic and inalienable market 
 value all over the world ; whereas your Government paper money 
 currency or bonds has purely a Legal value, and may be real to-day but 
 nothing to-morrow, depending ectirely apon the stability of Government 
 
82 
 
 MR. C. So has all paper representing true value and made the medium 
 of exchange a " note of hand," a mortgage, or a bank-note they all 
 derive their virtual value from the law that constitutes them repre 
 sentatives of value. Yet modern commerce and trade cannot dispense 
 with these and reduce all their transactions to barter, or to paying bal 
 lances with gold and silver. They assume the stability of governments, 
 without which neither property nor life are secure. What security would 
 gold give if there were no Government to protect it ? All these paper 
 obligations, used as medium of exchange, and having a market value, 
 are based upon the faith, the property, and stability of individuals or 
 corporations, with the further sanction of law. We desire, as a medium 
 of exchange, a legal tender that shall represent the whole taxable prop- 
 erty of the country and the stability and faith of the Government. It 
 seems to me that if a corporation can issue valuable paper, much more 
 can a Government, backed by the resources of a whole people, <lo the 
 same. 
 
 REP. But how has the Government failed in its duty to the people ? 
 
 MR. 0. The Government, during the progress of this war of the rebel- 
 lion, felt obliged to employ more service and material in the struggle for 
 existence with a powerful foe than it could pay fram any immediate re- 
 sources. It felt obliged to borrow this material and service on credit. 
 It issued its bonds ; but the Government went begging, as New York 
 does, to private individuals and to corporations to furnish another credit, 
 called money, for the purpose of paying current expenses The limited 
 amount of this latter credit which was at the service of the Government 
 made' the bonds sell at great discount on their face. 
 
 GOLD was sought for, when there was not enough of this product of 
 labor within reach to represent a tithe of the credit sought by the Gov- 
 ernment. JSTow, if the Government could issue one fovm of credit, why 
 go begging for another ? 
 
 This occurred at last to some of those in authority and paper money 
 tokens were issued. Under a patriotic impulse and faith in this nation 
 and its resources, some of these were made receivable for all dues of 
 the Government, and others made convertible into 5-20 bonds at par 
 at the will of the holder. This made and kept the currency nearly 
 at par with gold, even in the DARK days of CIVIL WAR. This will always 
 keep the national currency equal in value to gold, provided it is the 
 only paper in circulation, and the exclusive legal tender, and fully re- 
 deemed by taxes, duties and Government bonds, at the option of the 
 holder. The Government thus has a three-fold method of redeeming 
 its paper, whereas the banks have but one method, and that is by 
 specie. This method must fail them, at times, because the specie will 
 go out of the country, when the balances of trade are against us, in 
 quantities sufficient to interfere with redemption. " Bank paper," 
 as Calhoun says, "is cheap to those who make it, but dear, 
 very dear to those who use it." Banks can never redeem their 
 paper in specie, except in times of expanding credits, when very 
 little specie is wanted. During such times the banks secure them- 
 selves on real property, but the public is secured on the bank 
 papor only in its promise to pay coin. Bu ' '.his national currency was 
 
83 
 
 found to be far safer than any private or corporation tokens of in 
 debtedness, and threatened to supersede all other tokens of indebted- 
 ness as a currency. .Thus the great power and moneyed advantage 
 which the making of such tokens, and the passing of them into circu- 
 lation, gave to private corporations would be destroyed. Those who 
 had personal interests involved took the alarm ; they regarded their 
 " vested rights" infringed upon, and they had influence enough with the 
 then existing administration and Congress to have that law repealed. 
 They represented that gold would be drained from the country, and our 
 purchasing power abroad reduced to nothing. 
 
 " How should we get our silks, our wines, and our cigars?" The 
 importers, brokers, and money changers of all kinds, as well as the 
 speculators in gold, would find their occupation gone ! It was in vain 
 to tell these alarmists that gold was one of the many products of 
 industry, and those who needed it must buy it at the market price, 
 which no legislation could control, though it might falsify and interfere 
 with the natural price of gold for a time. That it was of small import- 
 ance to the people at large, how much gold, measured as a commodity, 
 a legal tender would buy, but of much greater importance how much 
 bread could be got for the same money. If paper is made a legal ten- 
 der, under the same advantages as gold, that is, that it should always 
 represent a real and exchangeable value in interest-bearing property, 
 and receivable for all debts, public and private, the paper would then 
 be on a par with gold as money. No ! these parties understood, as 
 they thought, THEIR OWN INTERESTS, and under specious but false pre- 
 tences and arguments induced Congress to repeal the law that made 
 the currency of the United States receivable for all dues to the Govern- 
 ment, and also the law making legal tender notes fundible into Govern- 
 ment securities at par. The repeal of the law permitting holders of 
 legal tenders to convert them at their option into interest-bearing bonds 
 was the most cruel act of injustice that was ever inflicted on the 
 American people. From thence have come most of the financial 
 troubles and disasters of which so much complaint is made at the 
 present time. Our bonds were rushed abroad, to be exchanged for 
 luxuries and for gold at sixty cents on the dollar, instead of being 
 taken by our own people at par. 
 
 Millions of gold go abroad to pay interest to foreign bondholders, in- 
 stead of being paid to our own people. 
 
 A policy of rapid contraction was then inspired into the Government ; 
 when, the necessities of the war being over, further issues of bonds were 
 made and currency was withdrawn, and all credits began to contract, as 
 a natural and inevitable consequence. This brought on one of those 
 irrational conditions in human affairs which we call a " panic," that 
 brought down credit at once to the zero point, and shrunk the value of 
 all property. 
 
 REP. But, Mr. Cooper, do you not think that personal extravagance, 
 rash speculations, and over-production generally, have much to do with 
 the present financial embarrassments ? 
 
 MR. C. In a restricted sense all these causes lie at the basis of much 
 financial embarrassment. But all of them put together will not account 
 
84 
 
 for the fact that there are over two mi. lions of workmen, operatives, 
 and employees, out of work at this time in this country, or on short 
 allowance of work, who three years ago had ample employment. Specu- 
 lations ruin a few in financial centres and cause merely a change of 
 ownership in property, and the loss of credit to those engaged in such 
 speculations. Personal extravagance is chiefly confined to a few rich 
 men, for most people care not or are unable to indulge beyond their 
 means. 
 
 Over-production and undue importations seem to be the most plausible 
 of the reasons offered for the present financial embarrassments ; because, 
 when goods accumulate in merchants' hands, and products multiply in 
 the factories, the mines, and farms, without a corresponding demand and 
 consumption, the most obvious cause or explanation is, that there have 
 been too much production and importation. But have these been too 
 much for the demand and consumption previously existing, or subse- 
 quently ? The true law of supply, and the stimulus, and the reason for 
 production, is demand ; this comes first, and the former comes last in 
 the order of nature. There might be a production that overtakes and 
 passes an existing consumption in particular cases ; but it is well also 
 to examine, in a general way, whether any cause has paralyzed consump- 
 tion. Now, it has been seen that the systematic and constant contrac- 
 tion of Government credits naturally induced the contraction of all other 
 credits ; this finally brought on a panic that acted like a paralysis on all 
 credit ; this led inevitably to the stoppage of so much active industry 
 and work as to take away the PURCHASING power of a great many, and 
 to stop a large part of the previously existing consumption and demand. 
 Hence, the over-production (so-called) has been merely an accumulation 
 of products, due to UNDERCONSUMPTION. The proof of this lies in the 
 fact, as I have said, of so many industrious people being thrown out of 
 work, and in the statistics of the country, with regard to its exporta- 
 tions and importations the last few years. In this connection the opinion 
 of President Grant, as expressed in his annual message of 1873, is im- 
 portant. 
 
 REP. But how would you have prevented this sad condition of things 
 from coming on ? It appears to me it arose naturally out of the irre- 
 deemable nature of the currency. Gold and silver have always been 
 regarded as the currency and money of the world. A man that is in 
 debt naturally desires to get out of it as soon as he can. Why, then, 
 should not a nation exercise economy or " contraction " for the same 
 end? 
 
 MR. C. Because " contraction " in finance is not the same thing as 
 economy in private life. " Contraction " in the finances of a country 
 means the stoppage of a certain amount of the industry and exchanges 
 going on in the nation, by reason of the contraction of the credit by 
 which these are sustained. It means factories stopped, and men thrown 
 out of work, and distress of families for want of the means to buy bread. 
 Now, THIS is ALL WRONG, and it arises out of a false financial system, 
 not adapted to the wants of a people whose wants and powers are all 
 the time expanding, by reason of a natural increase in the population, 
 and by our possession of a new country of unlimited natural resources. 
 
85 
 
 which yet need to be developed by the EXPANSION and n>t the contrac- 
 tion of the credit which capital gives to labor. 
 
 But, I grant you, there is a contraction on the side of debt in the 
 finances of a country which is always desirable. It is in that SOLIDIFY- 
 ING process which I have already described, that turns currency into 
 fixed capital, as the blood is deposited into bones, flesh, and organism. 
 The bond, and the currency based on it, must be paid and destroyed as 
 evidence of that debt, as soon as value received for them can be turned 
 into some permanent source of industry and capital, like the stone 
 wharves and piers of the City of New York. But new credits must 
 ever spring up, which are the incipient condition of new improvements, 
 public and private, and all fixed forms of capital. There must always 
 be expansion enough in the currency to set all the capacity for useful 
 labor in the country to work. This is the only limit to the expansion 
 of credits. Gold and silver ceased long ago in the history of the world 
 to serve as an adequate representative of all those exchanges which are 
 going on in the civilized world, and which it is the proper function of 
 money to represent. Coin has long called to its assistance " paper of 
 credit," both private and public, not merely to represent coin as money, 
 but to represent other real property, and ESPECIALLY THE CURRENT 
 
 DAILY LABOR OP THE WORLD'S INDUSTRIAL CLASSES, whose aggregate 
 
 wages any day could not be paid BY ALL THE COIN IN THE WORLD. 
 France uses gold, silver, and paper, all as legal tenders, and keeps them 
 all busy to satisfy her industrial and financial wants. But France could 
 not get along a single day with the coin alone which is within its bor- 
 ders, or with paper that merely represented coin as currency. This 
 being the fact, as every one ought to know who talks on this subject, it 
 is a most preposterous claim that coin alone can serve as legal tender, 
 or paper always convertible into coin. You may adopt the legal fiction 
 that all legal tenders should be convertible into coin at the will of the 
 holder, but you cannot carry out this in fact ; and the failure to carry 
 it out at any given time, for any cause, may produce a " panic," with 
 all its disasters. 
 
 REP. But what would you have the Government do in reference to 
 its present policy ? 
 
 MR. C. The course is plain. Let the Government issue, not only 
 all the legal tenders, but all that passes in the shape of money all 
 should have the tl image and superscription " of the Government, 
 whether it be coin or paper. Let the Government start from a fact, 
 that there has been, and is now, through its instrumentality and neces- 
 sities, so many millions of legal tenders and bank paper or currency set 
 afloat, which, with the Government bonds now out, represent so much 
 credit resting on the honor and ability of the Government to pay, but 
 furnishing also the basis for a great amount of credit in the financial 
 system of the country. On this the country has been depending, and 
 with this it has been at work, in all its industries and trade, since the 
 credit paper came into existence. 
 
 The Government has no right to take away these tools, that have set 
 so much work on foot, from the people. IT is NOT JUSTICE. Suppose a 
 man has engaged another in the enterprise of building a house or factory, 
 
86 
 
 by promising to furnish all the tools, and by giving a certain valuation 
 or rent for it when it is finished. Then at a certain stage of the pro- 
 cess of erection, the proprietor takes away a part of the tools necessary 
 to finish the work, and, moreover, diminishes the valuation of both 
 work and material. Would not that be considered a great act of in- 
 justice, especially if the builder had no remedy in law against the pro- 
 prietor? Now, this is precisely what the Government has done to the 
 industrial part of the nation, with the additional injustice of COMPULSION 
 in its dealings with the people who are not the moneyed and the go vern- 
 ing class. The Government, during a time of great exigency, issued 
 millions of credit paper, on the strength of which the people willingly 
 furnished labor and material to carry on a war of self-preservation 
 against rebellion and disruption. But not only that, the people began 
 to build tip. the country on the strength of this same credit paper ; they 
 set on foot new enterprises, built railroads, factories, and opened new 
 mines and farms on the same credit, and by the facilities for paying 
 labor and material which this Government currency afforded. After 
 the war was over the Government began to contract this currency, and 
 to tax the people, in order to buy its bonds before they were yet due j 
 which policy contracted credit so much the more ; and it has continued 
 to pursue systematically a policy of contraction, for the purpose, as 
 alleged, to resume specie payments on this currency. The people do 
 not want specie ; they want the CREDITS already given them NOT TO BE' 
 WITHDRAWN ; they want their labor and material freely given to save 
 the country, or to build it up, to be valued by the same standard as 
 that by which it was measured when they began to work. Thej 
 moneyed class obviously want scarce money and high rates of interest.' 
 This gives them more power and less expense. But the advantage of 
 the whole people, including this very moneyed class, if their interests 
 were rightly understood, is to have credit easy to the industrious, the 
 honest, and the enterprising, and the interest of money more nearly 
 equitable. 
 
 REP. What, then, Mr. Cooper, would be your specific remedy for the 
 financial troubles which involve the country at present ? What would 
 be the policy you would recommend for the action of Congress ? 
 
 MR. C. At present Congress has devised no better plan for the 
 financial policy of the country than this. Congress has passed a law 
 that specie payments for all currency shall be resumed in 1879, and to 
 provide for this it has authorized the Treasurer of the United States to 
 withdraw currency until the present volume shall shrink from four 
 hundred to three hundred millions ; and he is further authorized to 
 sell bonds at 4 or 4J per cent, interest, to the amount necessary to get 
 the specie wherewith to resume payments. As the 5 per cent, bonds, 
 outstanding, are only at par now, I think the prospect is very poor for 
 selling the 4 or 4^- per cent, without ruinous discounts and large addi- 
 tion to the debt of the nation. If the banks also are made to do busi- 
 ness and issue their notes only on a specie basis, instead of bonds aa 
 now, it will shrink their currency so as to bring another panic. 
 
 But if the banks are allowed to give credits secured by Government 
 bonds, why should not the Government itself do the same ? If it will 
 
87 
 
 hurt the banks, atf d cripple and curtail so much their resources for giv 
 ing credit, why is not such a policy objectionable as to the credits given 
 by the Government ? But here is precisely the point of departure of the 
 moneyed class from the people at large. They wish to monopolize not 
 only private but all public credits. All credits under the sanction and 
 provision of law and the Government ought to be public credits, for which 
 the Government alone should be held responsible. Such is any paper 
 currency now, even if it is not legal tender. Nothing but a legal sanc- 
 tion can pass a bank-note into the circulation of the country. The 
 credit of the bank is indorsed by the Government, in order to be regarded 
 as good. The Government, under the present system, often borrows its 
 own indorsement ! But the first point of departure I would have from 
 this whole system of finance is, that everything, gold, silver, or paper, 
 that passes into the circulation of the country as money should have the 
 Government's " image and superscription " upon it, and should be issued 
 and controlled entirely b the Government, so that there shall be no 
 legalized money, directly or indirectly, belonging to private corporations. 
 This is a part of that " special and class legislation " that I have always 
 contended against as the bane of republican institutions. 
 
 Now, I would have Congress repeal this last act of contraction of the 
 people's credits in the shape of currency, while it is an expansion of 
 credits to the moneyed class, in the shape of bonds. 
 
 I would have Congress pass an act that should make all currency that 
 of the Government alone ; and, of course, I should abolish the present 
 bank currency, giving these institutions the Option of doing business only 
 on legal tenders ; tHese they may secure at any time, by simply giving 
 up to the Government an equivalent amount of Government bonds, whose 
 interest thereafter stops until bought up again by legal tenders. This 
 will extinguish the interest-bearing debt of the country in part, by one 
 not bearing interest. 
 
 Secondly, to start all fairly and justly, I would have Congress pass an 
 act restoring the currency in volume to the condition in which it was 
 at the close of the war, or soon after ; when, peace being declared, the 
 whole nation. sprang"to the arts of peace with the energy of war ; when 
 they took these very credits, which the necessities of Government had 
 furnished, as the price of the nation's life, and began to build up the 
 country still more securely in the wealth and products of " myriad- 
 handed industry ; " when their hopes and their faith were stimulated to 
 new life by this mighty credit poured into the circulation of the country, 
 and all the property of the country and its products were measured and 
 exchanged by the new standard ; when none were found idle except the 
 shiftless and those who sought idleness ; when no factory stopped its 
 production for want of- consumers, for all were consumers, because all 
 were producers. I would have all that currency restored to the country, 
 and not withdrawn or contracted by taxing the property of the country 
 to pay it ; but allowed to remain, till it had produced its equivalent 
 by the industry and products which it brought into existence. 
 
 I would have this whole volume of currency made as permanent and 
 invariable a mea'sure of property and exchange as possible, by neither 
 increasing nor diminishing its volume by any arbitrary law ; but rather 
 
88 
 
 use the agency of Government to keep at its present stated volume, by 
 issuing it again with one hand for labor, service, and bonds, while it 
 received it with the other as currency. I would have this specific 
 volume of the currency from which we shall now start, he nceforth and 
 forever, never diminished at all, and only increased as per capita, very 
 gradually and imperceptibly, as statistics shall show, and a rule of in- 
 crease founded thereon, as the exchanges and the population of the 
 country increase. And this would be virtually equivalent to making 
 the currency a permanent and unfluctuating standard of values ; for it 
 would keep it in the same ratio or relative measure to all the property 
 of the country and the increase of its population. I would thus make 
 the stated volume of currency which has been forced upon the country 
 at one time, but which now threatens the most unhappy consequences 
 if it be withdrawn I would make this one volume an unvarying 
 measure .for all time, by giving it an expansion by rule and statistical 
 measure of slow application, and such as would never derange prices or 
 permit fluctuations. I would not increase the bonded debt of the coun- 
 try either, except by rule and statistical measure ; but I would change its 
 form from the present high rate of interest, and from so large a portion 
 payable in gold to foreigners, into a debt of equitable rate of interest, 
 and payable to our own citizens. 
 
 REP. But how can this be done without repudiation and dishonor to 
 the country ? 
 
 MR. C. No vested rights can stand in the face of the public welfare ; 
 common and statute law recognizes this principle. Hence, all vested 
 rights can be repealed by the law-making power that conferred them. 
 Under this principle, private property can be taken for public use, and 
 all corporate rights can be abolished that stand in the way of the public 
 welfare but never without proper compensation to the parties that may 
 be losers ; and of this, the piiblic administration must appoint the means 
 and provide the regulations. But I propose to change the character of 
 the bonded debt by a voluntary process. 
 
 First. Whoever needs currency must give up the Government bonds 
 for it. The compulsion here is in making every -one do business and 
 pay debts in legal tenders j and the principle for their use exclusively 
 is that the public welfare admits of no other money. 
 
 Secondly. Whoever desires to fund the currency shall receive bonds 
 at a lower rate of interest than that which legitimate business now gives, 
 but which is higher than the average yearly increase of the whole prop- 
 erty of the country. This I would fix upon as the interest of the bonds ; 
 it is now about three per cent. 
 
 There is an element of compulsion here ; but as the whole country 
 pays the interest on the public debt, it seems -but just that only that 
 amount of interest should be paid, which the increase in the public 
 wealth justifies, and no more. 
 
 REP. But how will you prevent the too rapid funding of the currency, 
 and keep it at a steady volume, as you propose ? 
 
 MR. C. This " too rapid funding " is, I think, a groundless fear, con- 
 sidering the* low rate of interest given. Because, in a country like this, 
 fio active, so enterprising, and so full of new resources, the opportuui- 
 
89 
 
 ties and the solicitation for safe investments is far greater than in the 
 old country, and would naturally tend to draw money from funding ; so 
 that the calls for currency would be equal, if not superior, to the ap- 
 plications for funding. But as the Government controls the whole 
 matter, it can keep an " even hand " by allowing neither the funded 
 debt nor the currency to increase beyond a certain ratio to each other. 
 As the currency was received it might be paid out again for service, 
 material, or bonds ; as the bonds were received they could be paid out 
 again for service, material, or currency. Thus the whole of the circula- 
 tion between bonds and currency could be kept even. 
 
 This great bonded debt o^the country would really become the refuge 
 and security of the widow ana the fatherless, and those poor and ignorant 
 people who cannot invest their little savings in legitimate business, 
 even through others, because they* cannot trust them, and have no 
 ability to watch the safety or protect the use and return of their money. 
 The public debt would become the poor man's " savings bank," instead 
 of being, as now, the exchequer of the rich, and the means of pampering 
 wealth and idleness. Benevolent institutions, churches, and college 
 endowments would seek it, for the same reason, because of its perfect 
 safety y and even the same funded interests of Europe would seek 
 investment in this country for security, and will gladly pay gold for all 
 the bonds they could buy, at a little higher interest than their own 
 countries could afford. 
 
 REP. But what about the gold all this time, which is now very 
 much mixed up with this question of finance, because it is so uni- 
 versally the legal tender of civilized nations ? 
 
 Mr. 0. It might be a part of our legal tender still. France 
 makes gold, silver, and paper all legal tenders ; why cannot we ? But 
 if any one wants gold as a commodity, let him buy it as any other com- 
 modity, at the market price. Let such exchange currency or any other 
 commodity for gold, as suits their convenience and the state of the 
 market, which no government can control without tyranny and in- 
 terference with private rights. That whole subject will take care of 
 itself, and the whole circulation of the world will naturally mingle and 
 interchange with our national circulation, as the outer air mingles and 
 interchanges with the air of the room, if passages are left free. 
 
 REP. I understand you, then, Mr. Cooper, that you regard this 
 whole contest about the currency as a conflict between the " vested 
 rights" of the whole moneyed class and their interests, "but ill under- 
 stood," and the rights arid interests of the whole people; that you re- 
 gard the whole legislation of Congress on this subject, with little ex- 
 ception, as made in the interests of class, special, and partial legislation, 
 which has been, thus far, the bane of our republican institutions ; be- 
 cause, under forms of law, it sacrifices the people to classes of special 
 privileges ; and I understand your present remedy for all the present evils 
 and all the future that are likely to occur from our system of finance, 
 is, that Government alone issue all currency and whatever circulates as 
 money, and makes this currency interconvertible with bonds, which the 
 Government can control, and not with gold, which it cannot control ; 
 and further tha": the Government start in the present emergency, from 
 
90 
 
 precisely that volume of credits in currency and in bonds, that was set 
 afloat by the irresistible necessities of the war for the Union ; that this 
 volume should be sustained substantially as it was soon after the close 
 of the war, when it rose to its maximum ; and be made the measure of 
 all values, and the means of exchanges for all coming time subject 
 only to the slow increase of volume which statistics shall justify as the 
 increase of population, and its ratio, per capita, to the currency. 
 
 MR. C. That is precisely what I propose ; and my efforts to bring 
 this subject before the public are heartily seconded by many able gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 HEP. But it appears to me, Mr. Cooper, you place great power in 
 the hands of the Government by such a pfllicy. It may lead to enor- 
 mous speculations and peculations on the part of individuals and offi- 
 cials. Politics will become a trade more than ever, because of their 
 close connection with finance, commerce, and moneyed institutions. 
 Some administration may ride again and again into power, and over- 
 throw finally all the free institutions of the country with a great flood 
 of currency, which it can manufacture in unlimited quantities by a 
 slight change in the laws that Congress may be induced to enact at any 
 time. 
 
 MR. C. It would require almost a treatise on republican government 
 to answer all your objections, and then you could not be answered if 
 you had no faith in free principles and democratic forms, and in the 
 paternal functions of a government instituted l( by the people and for 
 the people." -The slave-holders of our country had to learn this lesson 
 at last, and I do not know any vested rights in property so enormous, 
 or so intelligent and well organized resistance as slavery brought to 
 bear upon the free institutions of this country. And yet the slave- 
 holding portion of this country will find itself the greatest gainer by its 
 losses. They lost in the conflict, chiefly through the might of truth and 
 justice, which will be their great gain. We shall have many conflicts, 
 doubtless, between the people on one side, and moneyed, social, or 
 religious classes organized with certain claims, and even vested rights ; 
 but never again so great a conflict as the slave-holders brought about. 
 I think the Union and the Republic may be regarded as safe for a long 
 time to come. The people can and will control this Government in 
 their own interests in the future, as well as in the past, precisely in 
 proportion as they can be made conscious of their power and their 
 rights. The forms of the Constitution and laws are all favorable to 
 them now, but their understanding is darkened by bad counsels. The 
 Government is already, and ought to be in a still larger measure, 
 paternal. It should aim constantly to " establish justice," and organize 
 love and right into law. If we can teach the people justice and truth, 
 they will see to it that the " Republic suffers no detriment." There is 
 nothing that I can perceive in the policy I. advise that will place any 
 uncontrollable power in the hands of any Administration or Congress. 
 If the law will not protect the people's rights, let provisions of the 
 Constitution be resorted to. Let -us have a " civil service" that will 
 inalw office under Government more of a " professional " and regular 
 occupation than of trade and bargain for place and patronage. Let the 
 
91 
 
 United States embody in their Constitution, as has the Sts tu of 
 York, that there shall be " no special, partial, or class legislation" and 
 make its laws on the currency conform to this provision of the Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 The question of the currency is of boundless importance to the Amer- 
 ican people. The stability of our Government will depend on a wise 
 settlement of this momentous interest. 
 
 The American people will never allow this subject to rest until it is 
 safely moored to that sure foundation of the eternal principles of truth 
 and justice on which our fathers placed the Constitution of these 
 United States. 
 
 Our fathers meant that the Government should be of the people and 
 for the people. They intended to embody the " wisdom of simplicity " 
 into law, and make it a shield of protection for the unsuspecting masses 
 of the people against those that are resorting to all forms of art to 
 obtain property without labor. The framers of the Constitution would 
 never have recommended one kind of money for the issues of the Gov- 
 ernment, and another for the people. 
 
 Under the circumstances in which our Government was placed at 
 the close of the late war, they would have taken the advice of their 
 most venerated member, Benjamin Franklin, who said that " paper 
 money, well-founded, has great advantages over gold and silver, being 
 light, and convenient for handling in large sums, and not likely to be 
 reduced by demand for exportation." 
 
 " On the whole," he says, " no method has hitherto been found to 
 establish a medium of trade, equal in all its advantages to bills of credit 
 made a general legal tender." 
 
 If I have done, or can do anything to restore the tools of trade to 
 the American people, to enable them to work out the salvation of our 
 country from the present paralyzed condition of trade and commerce, I 
 shall regard it as a treasure that " moth and rust cannot corrupt," 
 one that will brighten while life and thought and immortality endures. 
 
AN OPEN LETTER 
 TO PKESIDENT K. B. HAYES. 
 
 BY PETER COOPEE. 
 
 NEW YORK, August 6, 1877. 
 
 ALTHOUGH I have but lately addressed you an open letter on the sad 
 state of the industrial and financial conditions of our common country, 
 and the causes that have brought it about, yet the events that have 
 since transpired, while they have given additional emphasis to that 
 appeal, justify me in once more addressing you on the same subject. 
 
 Surely the peaceful expostulations and complaints of so many thou- 
 sands of your fellow-citizens, going up from every part of this distressed 
 country, not to speak of the violence and lawlessness which this distress 
 has occasioned, not only appeal to your humanity and patriotism, but 
 call for the most earnest and instant action on the part of the Govern- 
 ment of which you are the chief Executive. 
 
 From your past patriotic life and action, and from your present wise 
 and conciliating conduct in the political affairs of this country, we have 
 every reason to hope a new and straight path of relief will be found for 
 the manifest evils under which this country is laboring. 
 
 It is with this hope, and, at my advanced age, with no other motive 
 than the welfare of our beloved country, that I unite with thousands 
 of my fellow-citizens in calling your attention, and that of your political 
 advisers, not only to the facts, which are obvious enough, but to the 
 causes and the remedies that ought to be considered in devising the best 
 means of curing the present evils. The facts themselves are appalling 
 to any patriotic heart. 
 
 More than two hundred thousand men, within the last few weeks, 
 have joined in " strikes " on the various railroad lines, the workshops, 
 and the mines of the country, on account of further reduction in their 
 wages, already reduced to the living point. That some of thwe strikes 
 have been attended with lawless and unjustifiable violence, only shows 
 the intensity of the evils complained of, and the despair Of the sufferers. 
 For four years past, since the " panic of 1873," millions of men and 
 women, in this hitherto rich and prosperous country, have been thrown 
 out of employment, or living on precarious and inadequate wages, have 
 felt embittered with a lot in which neither economy nor industry, nor 
 a cheerful willingness to work hard, can bring any alleviation. 
 
 Is it to be wondered at that enforced idleness has made tramps of so 
 7 
 
98 
 
 many of our laboring population, or induced them to join the criminal 
 and dangerous classes ? 
 
 During this same period, immigration into this country of the hardy 
 and industrious of all nations, who have hitherto built up our country, 
 has, in a great measure, stopped, while thousands of artisans and 
 mechanics whom a prosperous country cannot spare, are emigrating to 
 other countries. Our manufactories are, many of them, closed, or 
 running at a loss, or giving starvation prices to their operatives. Our 
 merchants are demanding the reduction of their rents, discharging many 
 of their employe's, and such as are in debt are fast going into bank- 
 ruptcy. The mining and railroad interests of the country, on which 
 the income and the employment of so many thousands depend, are fast 
 succumbing to the general failure in the finances of the country, so that 
 their stocks have become depreciated or worthless, and their employes 
 discharged or mutinous on aqcount of reduced wages. Pteal estate has 
 depreciated to less than half of what it would have brought four years 
 ago ; much of it cannot be sold for any price, and mortgages of one- 
 quarter its value, if foreclosed, swallow up the whole. The thriving 
 and enterprising farmer of the West, especially, feels this rise in the 
 value of money, as compared with ]abor or property. "With the hardy 
 toil of years, he has opened and improved his farm, and the compara 
 tive small loan, which laid but a light weight on the resources of his land 
 in prosperous times, and with a sufficiency money, is now threatening 
 to swallow up the labor of his life ! Even the banks and the loaning 
 institutions, not being able to invest their money on " good securities," 
 are embarrassed on both sides the failure of their debtors, that throws 
 so many of the securities on their hands, and makes " bonds and 
 mortgages " a " glut in the market," and the difficulty of making any 
 new loans or investments so that money lt goes a begging " at one 
 and a half and two per cent. ! 
 
 But these moneyed men are very patient with their troubles in this 
 respect, for they know that money is appreciating in value all the time ! 
 It may be now that loanable capital, on good security, is gathered 
 largely in the moneyed centres, and much of it comparatively idle ; but 
 this is no great hardship to those that own the capital, in the presence of 
 the fact, that money is appreciating in its relative value while waiting for 
 active investment. This is the secret why money seeks no active in- 
 vestment now, but only good security, or idleness. The country at 
 large, its various industrial enterprises, and its labor, are in want of 
 money. Is there any fact more obvious than this ? Nor is it the rich 
 that want money, bub the poor, as a necessary condition for selling the 
 labor which is their sole possession. Hence, to the poor man, cheap 
 money is equivalent to cheap bread. 
 
 Ever since 1865, this country has been losing its money. 
 
 During the last ten years, thousands of millions of money have beea 
 swallowed in Government and railroad bonds and other securities, and in 
 importations which, till lately, have far exceeded our exportations. It is 
 a fact on record in the books of the United States Treasury, and by such 
 authorities as Spaulding in his " History of the Currency," Mr. May- 
 nard, Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency in Congress, 
 
and Spinner, Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury, that this country 
 had, up to the year 1865, issued in different forms of currency and 
 treasury notes, current as money among the people, $2,192,395,527 ! 
 This vast sum had, on the first of November, 1873, shrunk to $631,- 
 488,676 (see Congressional Record, March 31, 1874). 
 
 In the year 1865 there was in the hands of the people, as a currency, 
 $58 per head ; in 1875 the currency of all kinds was only a little more 
 than $17 per head. 
 
 You may call this currency a vast debt of the people, as it was in 
 curred by the Government to save the life of the nation. But it was 
 money every dollar of it. It was paid by the Government " for value 
 received ; " it was used by the people to pay their debts, to measure 
 the value of their property, and, as your present Secretary of the 
 Treasury said in his seat in the Senate, " every citizen of the United 
 States had conformed his business to the legal tender clause." 
 
 This currency was also the creature of law, and under the entire con- 
 trol of the Government, but held in trust for the benefit of the people, 
 as are all its functions. Was it either just or humane to allow 
 $1,100,000,000 of this currency, a large part bearing no interest, 
 but paying labor, and fructifying every business enterprise, to be 
 absorbed into bonds in the space of eight years, bearing a heavy 
 interest, of which the bondholder bore no share ? (See Spaulding's 
 " History of the Currency/') The Government seemed to administer 
 this vast currency as if there were but one interest in the nation 
 to be promoted, and that the profit of those who desired to fund 
 their money with the greatest security, and to make money scarce 
 and of high rate of interest ! This is the issue of the hour ; this 
 is the battle of the people, and for the people, in which the present 
 administration is called upon to declare which side it will take. If- this 
 policy was unjust and ruinous at the first, it is unjust and ruinous 
 now. If it has led us from prosperity into adversity, the only course 
 is to retrace our steps, to stop this funding any longer, and give the 
 people back their money, justly earned, and hardly won by the toils, 
 perils, and sacrifices of the people. But as this vast and life-giving cur- 
 rency has now gone irretrievably into bonds, and the bonds have gone 
 largely abroad for importations, that have still further depressed the 
 industry of our people by buying abroad what we could and should 
 have manufactured at home, I would respectfully suggest the following 
 policy for your administration in the present emergency and for the fu- 
 ture prosperity of the people of this country : 
 
 First. Let the Government give immediate relief to unemployed 
 labor, either through definite methods of help, given to settlers of unoc- 
 cupied lands in the West, or by great and obvious public improvements 
 which are seen to be necessary to the prosperity and safety of the coun- 
 try such as a North-western and a South-western Railroad. Both 
 these methods might be used, in view of the great distress, now, of the 
 laboring classes. The railroads will invite settlements, protect the 
 country from Indian wars, more costly than the railroads themselves, 
 and give employment and the money which will enable the poor man 
 to settle the lands. Even State and municipal help might be evoked to 
 
100 
 
 fcbis end of employing labor, by issuing currency, for the bonds of 
 States and Municipalities that could employ labor profitably in any local 
 improvements. 
 
 Secondly. Restore the silver coinage as a legal tender ; and while it 
 swells the currency, it may be made as light as paper, for transportation, 
 by "Bills of Exchange," or by a currency that represents silver. The 
 demonetization of silver was a trick of the enemies of the poor man's 
 currency. The remonetization of silver will be a great relief now, in the 
 depression of all business, if not the final and best measure. 
 
 Thirdly. Let us adopt a permanent policy of public finance that shall 
 hereafter control both the volume and the value of the national currency, 
 in the interest of the whole people, and not of a class. Let us have a 
 national currency fully honored by the Government, and not as now, 
 partially demonetized the sole currency and legal tender of the coun- 
 try, taken for all duties and taxes., and interconvertible with the bonds, 
 at a low but equitable rate of interest. This will forever take the crea- 
 tion of currency, and its extinction, out of the hands of banks and those 
 interested in making it scarce and high, and put it completely under 
 the control of law and the interests of the people. 
 
 Fourthly. Let us promote and instruct industry, all over the land, by 
 founding, under National, State and municipal encouragement, INDUSTRI- 
 AL SCHOOLS of every kind that can advance skill in labor. The rich need 
 the literary and professional school and colleges, and they should have 
 them ; but the poor need the industrial school of art and science ; and 
 it should be made the duty of the local governments to provide a prac- 
 tical education for the mass of the people, as the best method of " guar- 
 anteeing to every State a republican form of government." 
 
 Fifthly. The Government can do much towards promoting the indus- 
 try of this people, and encouraging capital to enter upon works of mami" 
 facture, by a judicious tariff upon all importations of which we have the 
 raw material in abundance, and the labor ready to be employed in the 
 production. It is no answer to this to say, " Buy where you can 
 cheapest." I have said before, f< We cannot, as a nation, buy anything 
 cheap that leaves our own good raw materials unused, and our own labor 
 unemployed." 
 
 Sixthly. Let us -have a civil service as well organized and specific as 
 the military or naval service. Let us take the civil service out of mere 
 political partisanship, and put such appointments upon the ground of 
 honesty, capacity, and educational fitness, so that no man can hold his 
 office and receive its emoluments without a faithful discharge of the 
 duties prescribed by the law. The noble and efficient recognition that 
 you have already given to this pricciple, in divorcing politics from 
 the ordinary clerical and civil service of the country, entitles you to the 
 thanks of every citizen. 
 
 By these methods of immediate relief and future administration, we 
 may pass safely, I think, the great crisis through which our beloved 
 country is now laboring. 
 
 " The producing cause of all prosperity," says Daniel Webster, " is 
 labor, labor, labor." * * * 
 
 "The Government was made to protect this industry to give it both 
 
101 
 
 encouragement and security. To this very end, with this precise object 
 in view, power was given to Congress over the currency, and over the 
 money of the country." 
 
 Though the influences that are now working against the rights o,f labor 
 and the true interests of a republican government, are insidious and 
 concealed under plausible reasons, yet the clanger to our free institu- 
 tions now, is no less than in the inception of the rebellion that shook our 
 republic to its centre. It is only another oligarchy, another enslaving 
 power that is asserting itself against the interest of the whole people. 
 There is, fast forming in this country, an aristocracy of wealth the worst 
 form of aristocracy that can curse the prosperity of any country. For such 
 an aristocracy has no country " absenteeism," living abroad, while they 
 draw their income from the country, is one of its common characteristics. 
 Such an aristocracy is without soul and without patriotism. Let us 
 save our country from this, its most potent, and, as I hope, its last 
 enemy. Let your fellow-citizens beseech you, Mr. President, to con- 
 sider well what the crisis of the country demands of you and your polit- 
 ical advisers, not losing sight of the fact that there are great wrongs 
 that must be righted in the administration of the finances of this coun- 
 try for the last twelve years. Old issues of North and South are, in a 
 great measure, passing away, and that patriotism and far-sightedness 
 that has so far guided your administration, we hope and trust, will find 
 a way to relieve the present distress of the country. There is no sec- 
 tion of our common country that needs so much the reviving influence 
 of an abundant and a sound currency, as the South. The Southern peo- 
 ple have the finest natural resources that our country affords ; every 
 facility for manufacture the material, labor, and water-power indefi- 
 nite. They need only money, wisely distributed among its working and 
 enterprising population ; and it was well said, lately, by one of the 
 Southern statesmen, that the " Government had impoverished, discom- 
 fited, and crushed the South more by its financial policy ', since peace was 
 declared, than by its arms during the whole war of rebellion " / 
 
 If the people can look for no relief from the present Congress and 
 Administration if those who now sway the financial interests of the 
 country cannot see their great opportunity then new men must be 
 chosen by the people whom they can trust to make laws, and execute 
 measures that " shall secure the bleisings of liberty to themselves and 
 their posterity." 
 
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