“Was any merchant in the history of the world ever known to go into the market and buy wheat or corn or oats, or any marketable property, and to continue to buy it day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, upon a rising market created by himself! We have all heard of corners in stock in New York, and corners in wheat in Chicago, where speculators not infrequently raise the price of stocks or of wheat to a high and false value by a trick, and then oblige other people to buy their accumulation at fictitious value in order to fulfil their contracts! But no man ever before heard of an individual or a nation making a corner upon himself or itself and obliging himself or the nation to buy other people’s commodities at high and false values created by the purchaser! Gentlemen, do you propose to do this foolish thing? I hope not. This Convention of Bankers has from the beginning shown itself to be a conservative body on all these questions. I beg you to remain conservative. Let the Congress of the United States consider these subjects and take the responsibility. I know of no question that has ever been introduced here and sent to Congress for consideration of which I would be ashamed. But it is not for us to say that we can comprehend in an hour these great questions of legal tender which the Supreme Court has taken years to consider. And I hope their last decision will not long hence be again reversed by a new court that may arise. I believe with George Bancroft,[C] that some day or other it will be reversed, and that it will be held that legal tender is a thing to be issued in time of war only. Kings and crowns have clipped the dollar; they have cut it down one half and two thirds and three fourths. Nobody but tyrants can force a poor man to take 70 cents for 100 cents in gold, or 30 cents, or any sum less than 100 cents exactly. Gentlemen, I entreat you to go slow on this subject. Nothing is lost by a little time. You might not decide in a day a transaction involving but $10,000 in your own banks. You would not decide in an hour unless you knew every thing about the subject. Let us consider these four great propositions wisely and diligently, and then be able to give an intelligent reason for our decision.”