In conclusion let me draw your attention to the lesson of this history in regard to resumption. There was no resumption, you see, until the currency had been reduced to the limits of the actual specie necessity of the country or even below it. Either voluntarily or by bankruptcy the redundant paper had to be withdrawn. Such has been the case in every other instance of resumption that I know of, which has been real and permanent. Applying this to our own present circumstances I ask myself whether the amount of paper now in circulation is in excess of the requirement of the country, and there seems to me every reason to believe that it is. If that is so, resumption cannot be real and permanent until a portion of it has been redeemed and withdrawn. The interest in resumption of the great body of industrious, sober, and thrifty citizens cannot be exaggerated. Renewed prosperity on a solid basis is impossible until after a complete return to specie value. There are those, however, who want to live by anything but honest labor, who find their best chance when prices are fluctuating and currency is continually changing in value. They have schemes and interests which resumption must destroy. They have done all they could to make it fail and they are watchful and eager to see it fail. If it does fail it will be a great national calamity, on account of the authority which it will offer to these prophets of evil if for no other reason. Resumption with us now stands at just that point where the lightest preponderance of force may turn it one way or the other--may insure its success or cause its failure. It is a great gain to get our faces set in the right direction. It arouses the national pride in the success of resumption. It silences opposition and malevolent efforts against it. It makes it very much easier to take the requisite steps to insure success, for they involve no pain at all, nothing but economy and prudence in the national finances; the avoidance of unnecessary expenditure and the postponement for a time of certain expenditures proper in themselves. If the country needs six hundred million dollars to do its business with, then the withdrawal of a portion of the paper would simply bring gold into circulation, and resumption would be placed beyond a doubt. If the country does not want six hundred million dollars to do its business with, then we cannot sustain specie payments with that amount afloat, and we have still before us more of the experience of 1842 and 1843. THE SCIENCE OF SOCIOLOGY[58]