rd section authorized the issue of $400,000,000 of bonds,
redeemable at any time after twenty years, and bearing interest at
the rate of four per cent.

The proceeds of all these bonds were to be applied to the redemption
of 5-20 and 10-40 bonds, and other obligations of the United States
then outstanding.

It will be perceived that this bill provided for the issue of
securities, all of which were redeemable within twenty years, and
two-thirds of which were redeemable within fifteen years, so that
if the bill, as reported by the committee on finance, had become
the law, no such difficulty as we labored under eighteen years
later, when we had a large surplus revenue, would have existed.

The bill passed the Senate, in substantially the form reported from
the committee on finance, by the large vote of 33 to 10, and was,
perhaps, the most carefully prepared of any of the financial measures
of the government.

In opening the debate, I called the attention of the Senate to the
great advantage the government had derived from making its bonds
redeemable at brief periods, like the 5-20 bonds, the 10-40 bonds,
and the treasury notes. I also called attention to the fact that
the same principle of maintaining the right to redeem had been
ingrafted in the bill then before the Senate, that the duration of
the bonds was divided into three periods of ten, fifteen, and twenty
years, during which time, by the gradual application of the surplus
revenue, the whole debt might be paid. This was the bill sent by
the Senate to the House of Representatives, and if it had been
adopted by the House, there would have been no trouble about the
application of the surplus revenue, but by common consent it would
have been used in the speedy extinction of the public debt.

The bill was sent to the House of Representatives on the 11th of
March, and there seems to have slept for nearly three months without
any action on the part of the House.

On the 6th of June the committee on ways and means reported House
bill 2167, covering the same subject-matters as were contained in
the Senate bill. The consideration of this bill was commenced, by
sections, on the 30th of June. The material part of the first
section of this bill is as follows:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to issue,
in a sum or sums not exceeding in the aggregate $1,000,000,000,
coupon or registered bonds of the United States, in such form as
he may presc