And yet, in the face of this plain commandment, on which hangs so much of all that is most prized in national existence, we are called to break faith. It is proposed to tax the national bonds, in violation of the original bargain on which the money was lent. Sometimes the tax is to be by the Nation, and sometimes by the States. The power to do this wrong you may possess, but the right never. Do what you will, there is one thing you cannot do: you cannot make wrong right. It is in vain that you undertake to set aside the perpetual obligation which you have assumed. Against every such pretension, whether by speech or vote, there is this living duty, which will survive Congress and politician alike. Puny as the hand of a child is the effort to undo this original bargain. The Nation has promised six per cent. interest, payable semiannually in coin, nor more nor less, without any abatement; and then, having bound itself, it proceeds to guard against the States by declaring specifically that the bonds shall be “exempt from taxation by or under State authority.” Such is the bargain. There it is; and it must continue unchanged, except by the consent of the parties, until the laws of the universe tumble into chaos. The rogue in Shakespeare exclaims, “What a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman!” In equal levity it is said, “Tax the bonds,” although, by the original bargain on which the money was obtained, amid the trials of war for the safety of the Nation, it was expressly stipulated that these bonds should not be taxed. Nevertheless, tax the bonds! Of course, by taxing the bonds the bargain is brutally broken,--and this, too, after the Nation has used the money. Such a transaction in common life, except where bankruptcy had supervened, would be intolerable. A proud Nation, justly sensitive to national honor, as the great Republic through whose example liberal institutions are commended to mankind, cannot do this thing. The proposition to tax the bonds, in open violation of the original bargain, is similar in spirit to that other enterprise, which, under various discordant ensigns, proposes to pay the national bonds with inconvertible paper. Here at once, and on the threshold, Public Faith interposes a summary protest. On such a question debate even is dangerous; the man who doubts is lost. The money was borrowed and lent on the undoubting faith that it was to be paid in coin. Nothing to the contrary was suggested, imagined, or dreamed, at the time. Behind all forms of language, and even all omissions, this obligation stands forth, in the nature of the case, explained and confirmed by the history of our national loans, and by the official acts of successive Secretaries of the Treasury interpreting the obligations of the Nation. * * * * *