l known that
the market value of that number of grains of standard silver during
the past year has been from 90 to 92 cents as compared with the
standard gold dollar. Thus the silver dollar authorized by this bill
is worth 8 to 10 per cent less than it purports to be worth, and
is made a legal tender for debts contracted when the law did not
recognize such coins as lawful money.

The right to pay duties in silver or in certificates for silver
deposits will, when they are issued in sufficient amount to circulate,
put an end to the receipt of revenue in gold, and thus compel the
payment of silver for both the principal and interest of the public
debt. One billion one hundred and forty-three million four hundred
and ninety-three thousand four hundred dollars of the bonded debt now
outstanding was issued prior to February, 1873, when the silver dollar
was unknown in circulation in this country, and was only a convenient
form of silver bullion for exportation; $583,440,350 of the funded
debt has been issued since February, 1873, when gold alone was the
coin for which the bonds were sold, and gold alone was the coin in
which both parties to the contract understood that the bonds would
be paid. These bonds entered into the markets of the world. They were
paid for in gold when silver had greatly depreciated, and when no one
would have bought them if it had been understood that they would be
paid in silver. The sum of $225,000,000 of these bonds has been sold
during my Administration for gold coin, and the United States received
the benefit of these sales by a reduction of the rate of interest to
4 per cent. During the progress of these sales a doubt was suggested
as to the coin in which payment of these bonds would be made. The
public announcement was thereupon authorized that it was "not to be
anticipated that any future legislation of Congress or any action
of any department of the Government would sanction or tolerate the
redemption of the principal of these bonds or the payment of the
interest thereon in coin of less value than the coin authorized by law
at the time of the issue of the bonds, being the coin exacted by the
Government in exchange for the same." In view of these facts it will
be justly regarded as a grave breach of the public faith to undertake
to pay these bonds, principal or interest, in silver coin worth in the
market less than the coin received for them.

It is said that the silver dollar made a legal te