ly against the tender-laws, made
specie-payments the condition of his acceptance of office; and on the
twenty-second of May, though not without a struggle, Congress resolved
"that the whole debts already due by the United States be liquidated as
soon as may be to their specie-value, and funded, if agreeable to the
creditors, as a loan upon interest; that the States be severally
informed that the calculations of the expenses of the present campaign
are made in solid coin, and therefore that the requisitions from them
respectively, being grounded on those calculations, must be complied
with in such manner as effectually to answer the purpose designed; that,
experience having evinced the inefficacy of all attempts to support the
credit of paper-money by compulsory acts, it is recommended to such
States, where laws making paper-bills a tender yet exist, to repeal the
same."

Another public body, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania,
dealt it another blow, fixing the ratio at which it was to be received
in public payments at one hundred and seventy-five for one. Circulation
ceased. In a short time the money that had been carted to and fro in
reams disappeared from the shop, the counting-room, the market. All
dealings were in hard money. Gold and silver resumed their legitimate
sway, and men began to look hopefully forward to a return of economy,
frugality, and an invigorating commerce.

The Superintendent of Finance set himself seriously to his task. One
great obstacle had been removed; one great and decisive step had been
made towards the restoration of that sense of security without which
industry and enterprise are powerless. As a merchant, he was familiar
with the resources of the country; as a Member of Congress, he was
familiar with the wants of Government. His resources were taxes and
loans; his obligations, an old debt and a daily expenditure. Opposed as
he was to the irresponsible currency which had brought the country to
the brink of ruin, he was a believer in banks and bills resting on a
secure basis. One of his earliest measures was to prepare, with the aid
of his Assistant-Superintendent, Gouverneur Morris, a plan of a bank,
which soon after, with the sanction of Congress, went into operation as
the Bank of North America. Small as the capital with which it started
was,--only four hundred thousand dollars,--its influence was immediately
felt throughout the country. It gave an impulse to legitimate enter