Can it be supposed, that Congress ever intended, that if the time should come when the individual refused to accept and receive their bills at their nominal value, and demanded, and actually received them at a less value, that, in that case, the individual should be entitled to demand, and receive of the public, for those very bills, silver equal to their nominal value? The consideration is, in fact, made by the public at the very instant the individual receives the bills at a discount; and there is a tacit and implied agreement springing from the principles of natural justice or equity, between the public and the individual; that as the latter has not given to the former a consideration equal to the nominal value of the bills, so in fact, the public shall not be held to pay the nominal value in silver to the individual. Suppose it otherwise, and how will the matter stand? The public offers to an individual a bill, whose nominal value is, for example, forty dollars, in lieu of forty silver dollars; the individual says, I esteem it of no more value than one silver dollar, and the public pays it to him at that value; yet he comes the next day, when the bill may be payable, and demands of the public forty silver dollars in exchange for it. And why? Because the bill purports on the face of it, to be equal to forty silver dollars. The answer is equally obvious with the injustice of the demand. Upon the whole, as the depreciation crept in gradually, and was unavoidable, all reproaches of a breach of public faith ought to be laid aside; and the only proper inquiry now really is, what is paper honestly worth? What will it fetch at market? And this is the only just rule of redemption. It becomes me to express myself with deference, when I am obliged to differ in opinion from your Excellency; but this being a subject peculiar to America, no example entirely similar to it, that I know of, having been in Europe, I may be excused, therefore, in explaining my sentiments upon it. I have the misfortune to differ from your Excellency, so far as to think, that no general distinction can be made between natives and foreigners. For, not to mention that this would open a door to numberless frauds, I think, that foreigners when they come to trade with a nation, make themselves temporary citizens, and tacitly consent to be bound by the same laws. And it will be found, that foreigners have had quite as much to do, in depreciating this money, in proportion, as natives, and that they have been in proportion much less sufferers by it. I might go further and say, that they have been in proportion greater gainers by it, without suffering any considerable share of the loss.