Three distinct problems confronted the national administration: the refunding of the national debt at lower rates of interest, the final determination of the place and basis of the paper money in the currency system, and the comparative treatment of gold and silver coinage. The first of these tasks was undertaken by Congress during Grant's administration, when, by the refunding acts of 1870 and 1871, the Treasury was empowered to substitute four, four and one-half, and five per cent bonds for the war issues at the high rates of five, six, and even seven per cent. The two remaining problems were by no means so easy of solution, because they went to the root of the financial system of the country. Most of the financial interests of the East were anxious to return to a specie basis for the currency by retiring the legal tender notes or by placing them on a metallic foundation. The Treasury under President Johnson began to withdraw the greenbacks from circulation under authority of an act of Congress passed in 1866; but it soon met the determined resistance of the paper money party, which looked upon contraction as a banker's device to appreciate the value of gold and reduce the amount of money in circulation, thus bringing low prices for labor and commodities. Within two years Congress peremptorily stopped the withdrawal of additional Treasury notes.[28] Shortly after forbidding the further retirement of legal tender notes, Congress reassured the hard money party by passing, on March 18, 1869, an act promising, on the faith of the United States, to pay in coin "all obligations not otherwise redeemable," and to redeem the legal tender notes in specie "as soon as practicable." A further gain for hard money was made in 1875 by the passage of the Resumption Act, providing that on and after January 1, 1879, "the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem in coin the United States legal tender notes then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in the City of New York, in sums of not less than fifty dollars." When the day set for redemption arrived, the Secretary of the Treasury was prepared with a large hoard of gold, and public confidence in the government was so high that comparatively little paper was presented in exchange for specie.