r little. There ought to
be a limit, and no man ought to have the power at pleasure to
enlarge or contract that limit. . . .

"Then there is the further power to reduce the currency, a power
that has not heretofore been granted to any Secretary of the
Treasury. The amount heretofore has been fixed and limited by law.
By the first clause of this bill the secretary is authorized to
receive treasury notes, or United States notes of any form or
description, and there is no limitation to this power, except the
clause which I have read to you. That limits his power to retire
and cancel the United States notes, but not to accumulate the
enormous balances on hand. My own impression has been, and when
this bill was before the committee on finance I believed, it would
be better for that committee to report to the Senate a financial
project to fund the debt of the United States. I believe that now
is the favorable time to do it. If a five per cent. bond, a long
bond of proper description and proper guarantee, was now placed
upon the market, with such ample powers to negotiate it as ought
to be given to the Secretary of the Treasury, such a loan as was
authorized two years ago, at a reduced rate of interest, to be
exempt from taxation, I have no doubt whatever, the Secretary of
the Treasury could fund every portion of the debt of the United
States as it matured. . . .

"I do not like to embarrass a bill of this kind with amendments,
because I know it is difficult to consider amendments of this sort,
requiring an examination of figures and tables. I have prepared
a bill very carefully, with a view to meet my idea, but I will not
present it now in antagonism to this bill passed by the House of
Representatives and the view taken by the finance committee, because
I know, in the present condition of the Senate, it would not probably
be fully considered. My only purpose now is to point out the fact
that is perfectly clear to the mind of every sensible man who has
examined this bill, that the bill as it stands does not carry out
the manifest intention of the House of Representatives when they
passed it, and that the proviso, limiting the power of the secretary
over the legal tender currency, does not accomplish the purpose
which they designed, and without which I know the bill never could
have passed the House of Representatives."

Mr. Fessenden: "If the House of Representatives did not understand
what they were doing when t