Anticipating these enormous expenditures I introduced a bill which became a law on the 31st of July, 1861, which provided for a commission to examine and report as to the compensation of all offices for the government, the commission to be composed of two Members of the Senate, three Members of the House of Representatives, one officer of the navy, and one officer of the army, who were directed to examine and report, as soon as practicable, a fair and just compensation for each officer of the government, and such regulations as would secure a more economical collection of the revenue. When this bill was pending I stated its purpose and my hope to accomplish a reduction of the expenditures of the government, or, at least, an equalization of the salaries then paid to the different officers. We sought economy by the reduction of expenses. I was chairman of this commission, and Senator Clark, of New Hampshire, was my associate. The commission collected a mass of information, and upon it based several bills introduced in the second session of the 37th Congress. Some of these were made nugatory by the rise of prices, measured in most cases by the fall in value of our currency, but many of their provisions were ingrafted into other bills that became laws. The organization of national banks, authorized to issue circulating notes, is so intimately connected with legal tender United States notes that I think it proper to consider them in connection, though the banking law did not pass until 1863. The two forms of currency, one issued directly by the government as lawful money of the United States and a legal tender, and the other issued by private corporations, but secured by bonds of the United States, constitute a system of national currency which, organized in the midst of war, was an important aid to the government in its great struggle, and when placed at par with coin by the resumption act has proven to be the best paper money created by legislation in this or any other country.