The United States Government’s attempt to regulate or restrict speculation is confined to a single instance, the Gold Speculation Act of 1864, a law which enjoyed a brief existence of but fifteen days.[89] In 1864 there were large issues of paper currency that drove gold out of circulation and caused it to be bought and sold as any other commodity. Thus a large supply of gold fell into the hands of speculators, and as its price rose more than 100 per cent., the public jumped to the conclusion that this portentous increase was due to the operations of speculators, and that the rise could be stopped by prohibiting such practices, hence all gold speculation was forbidden by statute. As a fallacy this was monumental. Professor Hadley tells the story in this way: The effect was precisely the opposite of what had been anticipated. Every man who was engaged in foreign trade had to provide security for being able to make gold payments in the immediate future, if called upon to do so. Being prevented from dealing with speculators, he now had to accumulate a reserve of his own. This caused an increased demand for gold at a time when it was unusually difficult to maintain an adequate supply. Under two weeks’ operation of the act the price of a hundred gold dollars rose from about two hundred paper dollars to very nearly three hundred. So obvious was its evil effect that it was hurriedly repealed as a means of preventing further commercial disasters. Again, in the early part of 1866, there was a rise in the price of gold, which was attributed by public opinion to the speculators. Their machinations were defeated, not by legislation, but by the issue to the market of a part of the gold lying in the Treasury of the United States. For the moment the price of gold fell and people rejoiced that the plans of the speculators had been defeated. But a short time later, when the war between Prussia and Austria caused a demand for gold in Europe, there were large exports of the metal, and its price arose by natural causes. The United States was obliged to buy back, at a decided loss, a part of the gold which the Treasury had so unwisely issued. It turned out in the end that the operations of the speculators in anticipating the wants of the future would have prevented a loss to the country, and that the attempt of the Treasury to defeat those operations was attended with expense both to the government and to the mercantile community.[90] Mr. Horace White deals with the gold speculation of the ’60’s as follows: