has proven that it may be impossible in periods of great emergency.
In such events the public faith demands that the customs duties
shall be collected in coin and paid to the public creditors, and
this pledge should never be violated or our ability to perform it
endangered.

"Heretofore, the treasury, in the disbursement of currency, has
paid out bills of any denomination desired. In this way the number
of bills of a less denomination than five dollars is determined by
the demand for them. Such would appear to be the true policy after
the 1st of January. It has been urged that, with a view to place
in circulation silver coins, no bills of less than five dollars
should be issued. It would seem to be more just and expedient not
to force any form of money upon a public creditor, but to give him
the option of the kind and denomination. The convenience of the
public, in this respect, should be consulted. The only way by
which moneys of different kinds and intrinsic values can be maintained
in circulation at par with each other is by the ability, when one
kind is in excess, to readily exchange it for the other. This
principle is applicable to coin as well as to paper money. In this
way the largest amount of money of different kinds can be maintained
at par, the different purposes for which each is issued making a
demand for it. The refusal or neglect to maintain this species of
redemption inevitably effects the exclusion from circulation of
the most valuable, which, thereafter, becomes a commodity, bought
and sold at a premium. . . .

"When the resumption act passed, gold was the only coin which by
law was a legal tender in payment of all debts. That act contemplated
resumption in gold coin only. No silver coin of full legal tender
could then be lawfully issued. The only silver coin provided was
fractional coin, which was a legal tender for five dollars only.
The act approved February 28, 1878, made a very important change
in our coinage system. The silver dollar provided for was made a
legal tender for all debts, public and private, except where
otherwise expressly stipulated in the contract.

"The law itself clearly shows that the silver dollar was not to
supersede the gold dollar; nor did Congress propose to adopt the
single standard of silver, but only to create a bimetallic standard
of silver and gold, of equal value and equal purchasing power.
Congress, therefore, limited the amount of silver dollars t