e of this, my
convictions have grown stronger with time that it is the imperative
duty of the national government to protect the election of all
federal officers, including Members of Congress, by wise conservative
laws.

On the 27th of October I spoke in Cooper Institute, confining myself
mainly to an exposition and defense of the financial policy of the
administration. This was hardly needed in the city of New York
though, as Evarts said of his speech, I knew what I said would be
printed, and people who were not familiar with financial topics
could read it. The commercial papers, while approving the general
tenor of the speech, complained that I did not advocate the retirement
of the legal tender notes of the government. They seemed then, as
they do now, to favor a policy that would withdraw the government
from all participation in furnishing a currency. I have always
honestly entertained the opinion that the United States should
furnish the body of circulating notes required for the convenience
of the people, and I do yet entertain it, but the notes should
always be maintained at parity with coin. In the cities generally,
where banks have great influence and where circulating notes are
superseded in a great measure by checks, drafts and clearing house
certificates, the wants of the people for paper money secured by
the highest sanction of law and by the promise and credit of the
government are not appreciated. In this speech I referred to the
banks as follows:

"They [the banks] are interwoven with all the commercial business
of the country, and their loans and discounts form our most active
and useful capital. . . . The abolition of the national banks would
inevitably lead to the incorporation of state banks, especially in
bankrupt states, where any expedient to make paper money cheap will
be quickly resorted to. . . . It will open the question of the
repeal of the provisions of the loan laws fixing a limit to the
amount of United States notes, and thus will shock the public credit
and raise new questions of authority which the Supreme Court would
probably declare to be unconstitutional. Free banking open to all,
with prompt and easy redemption, supplies a currency to meet the
varying wants of different periods and seasons. Who would risk
such a question to the changing votes of Congress?"

I must add, however, that I do not believe the banking system would
be sustained by popular opinion unless the gre