. It provides for
the immediate resumption of specie payments upon the fractional
currency, or at least as immediate as possible; that is, as soon
as the government of the United States can, in the mints of the
United States, coin the silver coin. That process may continue
one, two, or three years, how long we cannot tell, depending entirely
upon the force that may be employed in that direction. It takes
a much longer time to coin these small coins than gold coins, and
the operation will probably take more time than it would to coin
any considerable amount of gold coin."

Mr. Hamilton, of Maryland, inquired:

"I would ask the Senator if there is authority to reissue that
fractional currency?"

I said:

"I will come to that in a moment. The second section of this bill
simply removes an inducement that now exists to export our gold
bullion from the United States to Great Britain, where, by the long
established laws of that country, they coin money free of charge.
This section involves the surrender of about $85,000 a year of
revenue; that is, the government of the United States received last
year for coining gold coins, $85,000, or one-fifth of one per cent.
on forty-five millions of gold coined. The only sacrifice of
revenue, therefore, by the second section of the bill, is the
sacrifice or surrender of $85,000, which heretofore has been levied
upon those who produce gold bullion in order to convert it into
coin. In the opinion of many men, among them the Secretary of the
Treasury, the director of the mint, and perhaps a large number of
Senators heretofore, this will tend, in a slight degree at any
rate, to prevent the exportation of the gold of our own country
into foreign parts, because when the government of the United States
undertakes to put gold bullion in the form of gold coin without
additional charge the tendency will inevitably be for the gold
bullion to flow into the mints for coinage, and being put into the
form of American coin, it is thought by a great many people that
this will tend to prevent its exportation. To the extent it does
so it prepares us for specie payments. That is the whole of the
second section.

"The third section of the bill contains only two or three affirmative
propositions. The first is that after the passage of this act
banking shall be free. Perhaps there is no idea stronger in the
minds of the American people than a feeling of hostility against
a monopoly--a privil