B.) created a hard-money government. They intended the new government to recognize nothing for money but gold and silver; and every word admitted into the Constitution, upon the subject of money, defines and establishes that sacred intention. Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government underwent a change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United States, he brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the public credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the paper system and immediately developed the great political line between the federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan; and the original report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be receivable in all payments to the United States.” From the moment of the adoption of this policy, the moneyed character of the government stood changed and reversed. Federal bank notes took the place of hard-money; and the whole edifice of the government slid, at once, from the solid rock of gold and silver money, on which its framers had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous ocean of paper currency. The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr. James K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority over Mr. John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being supported by the administration party, and the latter having become identified with those who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from the democratic party. The chief subject of the President’s message was the relations of our country with France relative to the continued non-payment of the stipulated indemnity provided for in the treaty of 1831 for French spoliations of American shipping. The obligation to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but offense was taken at the President’s message, and payment refused until an apology should be made. The President commented on this in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.