The withdrawal of the legal tenders had not been long under way before protests began to come in upon the Treasury and Congress from the West. Bad as the depreciated currency was, it was the only currency available for the active business of the country. If the greenbacks should go there would be nothing to take their place until coin should finally emerge from hiding. The reduction of the volume of money in a time of increasing business would enforce upon each dollar an enlarged activity and a greater market value. The price of money rising, the price of all commodities measured in money would necessarily fall, and in a period of falling prices the West thought it saw financial catastrophe. There was enough real truth in the contention that resumption meant a fall in prices for the Treasury to be compelled to make the difficult choice between this evil and the other evil of a depreciated currency forced upon the people. The creditor East regarded the possible increase in the purchasing value of the dollar with entire complacency. Its selfish interests harmonized with sound theories of finance. But in the debtor West the process had so different an aspect that the financial obligations of the United States were obscured by the local interest. The great "boom" of the West began after the depreciation had commenced. Most of the Western debts, whether on the farm of the settler, the stock of the merchant, or the bonds of the industrial corporation, had been created in legal-tender dollars of the value of the depreciated greenbacks. Any appreciation which might come to the greenbacks must increase the content-value of the debt. If "dollars," borrowed when they were worth sixty cents in gold, were to be repaid in "dollars" worth eighty or more cents in gold, the debtor was repaying one third more than he had received, and no appeal to the importance of public credit could make him forget his loss. He resented not only the decrease in the actual amount of money, but the appreciated value of the remainder. McCulloch, trained in finance, was ready to sacrifice the debtor for the sake of national solvency,--and, indeed, one or the other had to yield. But Congress felt the pressure, which was strong from all the West, and most strong from the Northwest, between Pittsburg and Chicago, whose industry had been reorganized during the years of war. In February, 1868, the retirement of more greenbacks was forbidden by law, the amount then in circulation being $356,000,000. The inflation which war had brought about was legalized in time of peace, and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled[1] that the issue of legal tenders, in either war or peace, is at the free discretion of Congress.