essity, however, and its eminent success will forever
stamp it as an expedient of great usefulness and value, especially as
the Secretary has most judiciously arrested the system at that point
where its unquestionable advantages still outweigh its acknowledged
dangers and inconveniences. He informs us that these issues 'were wanted
to fill the vacuum caused by the disappearance of coin, and to supply
the additional demands created by the increased number and variety of
payments;' and he adds: 'Congress believed that four hundred millions
would suffice for these purposes, and therefore limited issues to that
sum. The Secretary proposes no change of this limitation and places no
reliance therefore on any increase of resources from increase of
circulation. Additional loans in this mode would indeed almost certainly
prove illusory; for diminished value could hardly fail to neutralize
increased amount.'

In consequence of these issues, the average rate of interest on the
whole public debt on the 1st of July last, was only 3.77 per centum, and
on the 1st of October, 3.95 per centum.

It was to be expected that the banks, which have heretofore had an
entire monopoly of the paper circulation, and of the large profits
derived from its legitimate use, as well as from its disastrous and
sometimes dishonest irregularities, would not very cordially receive the
system which is destined to supersede their present organization
entirely. The Secretary justly exults in the advantages of the sound and
uniform circulation which he has afforded in all parts of the country.
And as to the depreciation of the Treasury notes in comparison with
gold, he reasons, with great force and truth, that the greater part of
it is attributable to 'the large amount of bank notes yet in
circulation,' remarking at the same time, that 'were these notes
withdrawn from use, that much of the now very considerable difference
between coin and United States notes would disappear.' Whether this
belief of the Secretary be well founded or not, nothing can be more
certain than the superiority of the Treasury notes to those of the mass
of suspended banks, as they would have been after three years of the
present war. It is frightful to think of the condition to which the
currency would have been reduced at this time, if the Government had
been guilty of the folly of conducting its immense operations in the
suspended paper of irresponsible local banks. No one can doubt th