Eppes’s scheme lost the advantages of Jefferson’s without gaining any of its own. It abandoned the hope of abolishing bank paper; and in want of such a restraint on private issues, the proposed government paper would merely add one more element of confusion to the chaos already existing. Eppes further altered Jefferson’s plan by adding some ten millions instead of two millions to the burden of taxation; but even Jefferson protested that this part of the scheme was impracticable. “This is a dashing proposition,” he wrote to Monroe;[361] “but if Congress pass it, I shall consider it sufficient evidence that their constituents generally can pay the tax. No man has greater confidence than I have in the spirit of the people to a rational extent. Whatever they can, they will. But without either market or medium, I know not how it is to be done. All markets abroad and all at home are shut to us, so that we have been feeding our horses on wheat. Before the day of collection, bank-notes will be but as oak-leaves; and of specie there is not within all the United States one half of the proposed amount of the taxes.” This was the situation of the Virginia scheme when Dallas took the matter in hand. Immediately after entering into office, Dallas wrote to Eppes an official letter, dated October 17, expressing views wholly at variance with the Virginia plan. “Under favorable circumstances and to a limited extent,” he said,[362] “an emission of Treasury notes would probably afford relief; but Treasury notes are an expensive and precarious substitute either for coin or for bank-notes, charged as they are with a growing interest, productive of no countervailing profit or emolument, and exposed to every breath of popular prejudice or alarm. The establishment of a national institution operating upon credit combined with capital, and regulated by prudence and good faith, is after all the only efficient remedy for the disordered condition of our circulating medium. While accomplishing that object, too, there will be found under the auspices of such an institution a safe depository for the public treasure and a constant auxiliary to the public credit. But whether the issues of a paper currency proceed from the national Treasury or from a national Bank, the acceptance of the paper in a course of payments and receipts must be forever optional with the citizens. The extremity of that day cannot be anticipated when any honest and enlightened statesman will again venture upon the desperate expedient of a tender-law.”