Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. ManufacturerFowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
History
Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Manufacturer
Fowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
Banks and banking -- United States; Currency question -- United States
MR. FARMER: Oh, yes, we must find out about that. You remember we
investigated the cost of the greenbacks since the war, and that Mr.
Banker then demonstrated to our entire satisfaction that the United
States Government would have been better off by $339,984,222, if at the
close of the war we had issued bonds, bearing 4 per cent, and taken up
these United States Notes and paid them off. Now, it would be mighty
interesting to know just how much the war cost because we issued these
United States Notes, and went off the Gold Standard.
MR. LAWYER: I have something here right on that point. Let me read it:
In his work on Public Debts, Prof. H.C. Adams computes the extra cost
of the war to the tax payers in consequence of the depreciated currency
at $850,000,000. And Mr. Wesley Hill, in the "Journal of Political
Economy," March, 1897, computes the net cost of the war, due to this
cause at $528,000,000. Now to be fair and take the average of these
two estimates or $689,000,000, and add the cost of meeting greenback
redemption since the war, or $339,984,222, we have $1,028,984,222, or
about one-third of the cost of the war which, as I told you a while
ago, was three billion two hundred million dollars, proving everything
that was said by those who were opposed to issuing the greenbacks.
MR. MANUFACTURER: I beg your pardon, sir, except one thing, Mr. Lawyer.
According to the decisions of the Supreme Court, up-to-date, and that
is, that they are constitutional. You remember, of course, that the
question of the constitutionality of the Legal Tender quality of the
United States Notes has been before the United States Supreme Court
three different times.
This question came up in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold, December,
1869, and was held by five judges against three, the Court then
consisting of eight judges, the opinion of the Court being delivered
by Salmon P. Chase, himself, who was then Chief Justice, "that the
making of the Notes, or Bills of Credit, a legal tender in payment of
pre-existing debts, is not a means appropriate, plainly adapted, or
really calculated to carry into effect any power vested in Congress; is
inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution, and is prohibited by
the Constitution."
MR. FARMER: Well, this man Chase, who was then Chief Justice, was
Secretary of the Treasury, and favored the issuance of these same
United States Notes, didn't he?
MR. LAWYER: Yes, he is the same person. But you must remember that he
was a politician in the one case, and a Chief Justice in the other.
Possibly, I should have said a statesman in the first place, but Thomas
B. Reed said that a statesman was a dead politician, and probably, you
might say, according to his theory, that Chase is a statesman now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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