"MY DEAR SIR,--I am indebted to some kind friend for a copy of your Message for 1876 (secluded among my books, I do not know whom); but recollecting your conversations with Mr. Bennett and myself some years since at Delmonico's, I am fain to believe that I am one of a number to whom you may have directed it to be sent; but in the uncertainty deem it more decorous to address you _personally_ in my recognition of the favor. I read the Message at the time of its appearance with much interest, and was particularly struck with the strong clearness and distinctness of that portion of it pertaining to financial affairs, which perhaps is the 'part of the schooner' I am (or rather ought to be) more particularly conversant with. We are much indebted to Mr. Chase for the present state of things--his refusal to recognize the banks as government depositors, and have a clearing-house for the daily settlement of its debt, with _enormous_ resulting economy of its _physical_ features (for instance, the issue of legal-tender notes under such circumstances need not have exceeded one hundred million)--but mainly for setting loose under his national bank system a thousand _new_ inflating-machines, called banks, practically unmuzzling the old banks which he cowed in under its flag. Admitting other causes, in my opinion it is mainly[1] the bank inflation which has caused the state of things _culminating_ in 1873; and which crisis, opening the eyes of the community to its truths on the one side, shows them the terrors of contraction on the other, and the natural apprehension of a sudden contraction to a specie basis produces thus, of course, almost paralysis in all business movement beyond the _immediate_ present. I do not think that the plan for _arbitrary_ resumption in 1879 will be attended with happy effect. 'There is no royal road to learning,' and assuredly none to specie resumption. We have slid down the hill with intense velocity; we have got _slowly_ to trudge up the hill again through the snow if we would have another slide. I think that if ten years ago we had commenced destroying the legal tender at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum we would have avoided _1873_, and have been paying specie now; and I think if we commence[2] now in that ratio we shall in ten years arrive at the desired result, relieving the business community from the bugbear of rapid contraction. The destruction of _20_ million legal-tender would carry with it _80_ million bank credit--say, an annual contraction of _100_ million. This, if the country is let alone, with a decent attention to the economy you suggest, it could have from the increasing receipts of its industry. In _1873_, as a matter of _curiosity_, I examined into the statistics of finance for the periods stated, and it is from them I draw my conclusions above expressed. I annex a copy, as perhaps your experienced eye will take in at a glance the gravity of the record. Now, my dear sir, I