cations were that the committee had agreed upon a time when a
final vote should be taken upon this bill and that it would be
favorably reported by a majority of one. It depended upon the vote
of Mr. Ferry, who was strongly in sympathy with the sentiment in
the House. It appeared quite certain that with a favorable report
the bill would pass. If passed it would no doubt have been vetoed,
but the moral effect of its passage would have been to greatly
weaken all measures for redemption. I had frequent conversations
with Mr. Ferry and appealed to him as strongly as I could to stand
by his political friends, and for the success of the negotiation.
He voted against reporting the bill. I wrote him the following
letter while the matter was still pending:

"Washington, D. C., May 1, 1878.
"Dear Sir:--The deep interest I feel in the pending legislation in
Congress, endangering as it does my hope of success in the great
object of resumption, will be my excuse for appealing to you again,
in the strongest manner, against the mandatory provision that,
under all circumstances, United States notes shall be receivable
in payment of customs duties.

"This provision may defeat the whole of our policy for which we
have been struggling so long and to which our party is so firmly
committed. Resumption on United States notes can be easily maintained
with a reasonable reserve and with a certainty that any considerable
run will be stopped by increased demand for United States notes,
but there is one essential prerequisite to our ability to resume,
and that is that we must have coin income enough to pay the interest
of the public debt and other current coin demands. To throw upon
the treasury the possibility of the necessity of buying coin to
pay the interest of the public debt, in addition to buying that
which is necessary to maintain resumption on United States notes,
is simply to overload the wagon and break it down at the very start.
Ordinarily the secretary would receive greenbacks for duties (and,
therefore, I have no objection to the discretionary authority being
conferred upon him), if he can use them also in payment of interest,
but as we must pay the interest in coin, and the slightest difference
in favor of coin making it certain that demand would be made for
it for interest, we cannot undertake to buy sufficient coin to pay
the interest in addition to what we would naturally, under like
circumstances, be required to pay s