Such was the theory and purpose of the public men through whom the Legal-Tender Act was constructed and applied. Nor is the general position of our statesmen, at the close of the Civil War, any more obscure than their original position. The first financial resolution adopted by Congress, in December, 1865, was an explicit promise to retire the legal tenders. The first legislation of that Congress gave discretionary powers to the Secretary of the Treasury for continuous contraction. Very few legislative victories are won without at least a temporary popular endorsement, and the votes of December, 1865, and of March, 1866, were no exceptions. But the popular approval of contraction in that year, exception as it was to all our subsequent legislation, is readily enough explained. Public opinion, when the war ended, was governed by impatience with inflated prices; inflation far beyond the European level, and properly ascribed to the condition of the currency. The cost of living reached during 1865 the highest point recorded in this country's history. From 1860 to 1865, inclusive, the average of European prices rose only 4 to 6 per cent.; average prices in the United States advanced, in the same period, no less than 116 per cent. With flour at $16 a barrel, butter at 55 cents a pound, coal at $10 a ton, and wages and salaries advanced since 1860 hardly one-third as far as prices, the demand for currency reform obtained ready endorsement from the people. This popular sentiment was further strengthened by the Administration's attitude at the opening of Lincoln's second term. Mr. McCulloch's first official Treasury report, dated December 4, 1865, took positive ground for the reduction of the legal-tender debt. He asked authority to issue bonds in his discretion, at 6 per cent. or less, "for the purpose of retiring not only the compound interest notes, but the United States notes." Two weeks after the publication of this report, on December 18, 1865, the House of Representatives resolved, by a vote of 144 to 6, that this house cordially concurs in the view of the Secretary of the Treasury in relation to the necessity of a contraction of the currency, with a view to as early a resumption of specie payments as the business interests of this country will permit; and we hereby pledge co-operative action to this end as speedily as practicable.