3rd of February the secretary wrote to Mr. Spaulding as
follows:

"Mr. Seward said to me on yesterday that you observed to him that
my hesitation in coming up to the legal tender proposition embarrassed
you, and I am very sorry to observe it, for my anxious wish is to
support you in all respects.

"It is true that I came with reluctance to the conclusion that the
legal tender clause is a necessity, but I came to it decidedly,
and I support it earnestly. I do not hesitate when I have made up
my mind, however much regret I may feel over the necessity of the
conclusion to which I come."

On the 5th of February the secretary became more urgent, and wrote
to Mr. Spaulding the following brief note:

"My Dear Sir:--I make the above extract from a letter received from
the collector of New York this morning. It is very important the
bill should go through to-day, and through the Senate this week.
The public exigencies do not admit of delay.

"Yours truly,
"S. P. Chase.
"Hon. E. G. Spaulding."

It will thus be perceived that, whatever may have been the
constitutional scruples of Secretary Chase in respect to the legal
tender clause, he yielded to it under the pressure of necessity,
and expressed no dissent from it until, as chief justice, his
opinion was delivered in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold, in the
Supreme Court of the United States.

The bill, much modified from the original, passed the House of
Representatives by the decided vote of yeas 93, nays 59. As it
passed the House it contained authority to issue, on the credit of
the United States, United States notes to the amount of $150,000,000,
not bearing interest, payable to bearer at the treasury of the
United States, at Washington or New York. It provided that
$50,000,000 of said notes should be in lieu of the demand treasury
notes authorized by the act of July 17, 1861, and that said demand
notes should be taken up as rapidly as practicable. It provided
that the treasury notes should be receivable in payment of all
taxes, duties, imports, excise, debts and demands of all kinds due
to the United States, and all debts and demands owing by the United
States to individuals, corporations and associations within the
United States, and should be lawful money and a legal tender, in
payment of all debts, public and private, within the United States.

This bill came to the Senate on the 7th of February. It was followed
on the same day by a letter from Se