why the issue of a like
amount of notes by national banks cannot fill the place or perform
the functions of United States notes. The issue of bank notes
would be governed by the opinions and interest of the banks, and
the amount could be increased or diminished according to their
interests and without regard to the public good. As an auxiliary
and supplement to United States notes, bank notes may be issued as
now when amply secured by United States bonds, but it would be a
dangerous experiment to confine our paper money to bank notes alone,
the amount of which would depend upon the interest, hopes and fears
of corporations which would be guided alone by the supposed interests
of their stockholders.

There is another objection to a sole dependence on bank notes as
currency: They cannot be made a legal tender either by the states
or the United States, while it is settled by the Supreme Court that
notes of the United States may be made a legal tender, a function
that ought to belong to money.

I know that my views on this subject are not entertained by the
influential class of our citizens who manage our banks, but in this
I prefer the opinion and interest of the great body of our people,
who instinctively prefer the notes of the United States, supported
by coin reserves, to any form of bank paper that has yet been
devised. The only danger in our present currency is that the amount
may be increased to a sum that cannot be maintained at par with
coin, but the same or a greater danger would exist if the volume
of paper money should be left to the interested opinion of bankers
alone.

It is sometimes claimed that neither the government nor banks should
issue paper money, that coin only is money. It is sufficient to
say that all commercial nations have been constrained by necessity
to provide some form of paper money as a substitute for coin. The
experience of the United States has proven this necessity and for
many years our people were compelled to rely upon state bank notes
as a medium of exchange, with resulting loss and bankruptcy. For
the want of paper money at the commencement of the Civil War, the
United States was compelled to issue its notes and to make them a
legal tender. Without this the effort to preserve the Union would
have utterly failed. With such a lesson before us it is futile to
attempt to conduct the business of a great country like ours with
coin alone. Gold can only be a measure or stand