d up for action until the next session of
Congress, when Mr. Ewing, on February 22, 1879, reported it from
the committee on banking and currency, and moved to concur in the
Senate amendments, with amendments changing the date on which the
act should take effect, and also adding, "that the money hereafter
received from any sale of bonds of the United States shall be
applied only to the redemption of other bonds bearing a higher rate
of interest, and subject to call."

This motion came too late, as the whole subject-matter had been
disposed of by the resumption of specie payments on the 1st of
January previous. It led, however, to a considerable debate in
which Mr. Garfield participated. He made a humorous allusion to
the revival of controversies that were past and gone since the 1st
of January, and moved to lay the bill and the amendments upon the
table. That was adopted by a vote of yeas 141, nays 118.

I have given the official history of the efforts to repeal the
resumption act, but it would be beyond the limits of this book to
quote, or even state, the copious speeches for and against resumption.
I felt secure, for if such a bill should pass, the executive veto
would prevent any action by Congress that would interfere with the
execution of the law. My principal effort was to convince Congress
that it ought not to interfere with what the House called a
destructive experiment, but what I regarded as an easy and beneficial
execution of existing law. A large part of the opposition was
purely political. The resumption act was a Republican measure,
voted for only by Republicans. The Democratic party had, by the
elections just previous to its taking effect, secured a majority
in the House, and, with the aid of a few Republican Senators, with
strong "greenback" proclivities, had the control of the Senate on
the financial question.

This political condition in the fall of 1877 tended to prevent the
sale of four per cent. bonds after the close of the popular loan.
My official correspondence with members of the syndicate, and with
Mr. Conant, published by order of the House of Representatives in
the volume "Specie Resumption and Refunding of the National Debt,"
shows fully the earnest effort made by me to sell the four per
cent. bonds. This was successful to a slight degree in August and
September, but sales were substantially suspended after that date,
until it became manifest that the two Houses could not agree up