This was debated in the Senate on the 1st of March; but you will search the “Globe” in vain for any protest. Then came other Acts, at different dates, by which the loan was further enlarged to its present extent, and all the time these representations were uncontradicted. Against them there was no Act of Congress, no protest, nothing. If this is not “acquiescence,” then I am at a loss to know how acquiescence can be shown. Therefore do I insist that these representations are a part of the contract by which the Nation is bound. It is said that in the five-twenty bonds there are words promising interest in coin, but nothing with regard to the principal. Forgetting the contemporary understanding and the official interpretation, and assuming that at maturity the bond is no better than a greenback, it becomes important to know the character of this obligation. On its face a greenback is a promise to pay a certain number of dollars. It is paper, and it promises to pay “dollars.” Here is an example, which I take from my pocket: “The United States promise to pay to the bearer _five dollars_”--not five dollars in paper, or in some other substituted promise, but “five dollars,” which can mean nothing else than the coin known over the world with the stamp of Spain, Mexico, and the United States, being a fixed value, which passes current in every zone and at the antipodes. The “dollar” is an established measure of value, like the five-franc piece of France, or the pound sterling of England. As well say, that, on a promise to pay so many francs in France, or so many pounds sterling in England, you could honestly acquit yourself by handing over a scrap of printed paper, inconvertible in value. This could not be done. The promise in our greenbacks carries with it an ultimate obligation to pay the silver dollar whose chink is so familiar in the commerce of the world. The convertibility of the greenback is for the present suspended; but when paid, it must be in coin. To pay with another promise is to renew, and not to discharge the debt. But the obligation in our bonds is to pay “dollars” also, _whenever the bonds are paid_; it may be after five years, or, in the discretion of the Nation, not till twenty years, but, _when paid_, it must be in “dollars.” Such is the stipulation; nor could the addition of “coin” or “gold” essentially change this obligation. _It is contrary to reason that a bond should be paid in an inferior obligation._ It is dishonest to force inconvertible paper without interest in payment of an interest-bearing obligation. The statement of the case is enough. Such an attempt disturbs the reason and shocks the moral sense.