This was the end of the McCulloch plan. It was the end of all serious debate upon resumption, for at least six years. It was also, and very logically, the beginning of the fiat-money party. The Republicans were forced into open defence of sound financial principles by the very recklessness of their opponents. Helped by the great personal prestige of its candidate, General Grant, the Republican party won a sweeping victory. President Johnson, who was then at open odds with his party, had produced in his Annual Message of December 7, 1868, the extraordinary suggestion that "the 6 per cent. interest now paid by the Government" on its debt "should be applied to the reduction of the principal in semi-annual instalments"; in other words, that the plan of repudiating interest obligations--since adopted, with no agreeable results, by Turkey and Greece--should be formally approved by the United States. This remarkable utterance was first condemned by an overwhelming vote in both House and Senate; next, by an almost equally decisive vote, on March 3, 1869, Congress adopted the Public Credit Act, promising coin redemption of both notes and bonds, solemnly pledging its faith "to make provision, at the earliest practicable period, for the redemption of the United States notes in coin." The promise was as easily made as the similar pledge of December, 1865; was still more easily broken. No such arrangement was made, nor any serious attempt in that direction, until the matter was forced on the party by the exigency of politics. Not only was no effort made to reduce outstanding legal tenders, but the supply in circulation was heavily increased; rising from $314,704,000 in the middle of 1869 to $346,168,000 in 1872, and two years later, as a result of the Treasury's weak experiments in the panic, to $371,421,000. This period was congenial to such juggling with public credit and legislative pledges. Socially, financially, and politically, it stands out quite apart from any other decade of the century. Moral sense for a time seemed to have deteriorated in the whole community; it was a sorry audience, at Washington or elsewhere, to which to address appeals for economy, retrenchment, and rigid preservation of the public faith. The Government's financial recklessness was readily imitated by the community at large; debt was the order of the day in the affairs of both. As the period approached its culmination, foreign trade reflected the nature of the situation. Merchandise imports in the fiscal year 1871 rose $84,000,000 over 1870; in 1872 they increased $106,000,000 over 1871. This movement was the familiar warning of an approaching crash; but the warning fell on deaf ears, as it usually does. In 1873 the house of cards collapsed.