t the bill. The latter stated that "with the present volume of
currency it is impossible to resume and maintain redemption," and he
sought unsuccessfully to secure the cancellation of legal-tender notes
at the rate of $2,000,000 per month. Mr. Bayard charged that the bill
was rather adverse than favorable to resumption. The Senate passed the
bill on the same day by a vote of 32 to 14. Not a single Democratic
member of the Senate supported it. The negative vote was Democratic,
with the exception of Sprague of Rhode Island and Tipton of Nebraska.

The House did not consider the bill until the 7th of January, directly
after the holidays. It was then passed by 125 _ayes_ to 106 _noes_,
a much closer vote than had been anticipated. The Democrats were
unanimous against it, and were strengthened by the accession of some
twenty Republicans. These were of two classes. Judge Kelley stood as
the representative of one, deeming it unwise and premature to force
specie payment at that time; the other class was represented by Mr.
Dawes and the Messrs. Hoar of Massachusetts, General Hawley of
Connecticut, and some others from New England, who thought the measure
that came from the Senate was incomplete, in that it did not provide
for specie payment soon enough, or take means sufficiently energetic
to secure it at the date named. With these exceptions the Act was a
Republican measure, unanimously opposed by the Democratic party.

In approving the Act President Grant took the somewhat unusual step
of sending to the Senate a special message. While declaring the
measure a subject of congratulation, he suggested further legislation
to make it more effective. His recommendations included first an
increase of the revenue; second the redemption of legal-tender notes
in coin, reckoned at a premium of ten per cent in the beginning and
gradually diminishing until the date named in the Act for resumption;
third an addition to the facilities for coinage, in one or more of the
Western cities, so as to save to the miner the cost of transporting
bullion to the principal mint at Philadelphia. Congress responded only
to the first of the President's recommendations.

The policy of increasing the revenue became the subject of earnest
discussion for the remainder of the Forty-third Congress. The rapid
repeal of taxes, in which each session of Congress had vied with the
one preceding it for a series of years, had produced its legitimate
resul