ught they
had,--and, as they marched in review before their commander-in-chief,
had been paid off in crisp notes of the government--legal tender to
the soldier, but not to the bondholder; the time for government to pay
the soldiers had ceased; the national banks had been allowed to show
their patriotism and their willingness to aid the government overthrow
a rebellion already conquered, by the issuance of their notes to add
to an inflated and depreciated currency; the soldiers had returned to
the arts of peace, and had taken their places as producers of the
nation's wealth and taxpayers to the national Treasury. Then Mr.
Sherman, with his brother patriots and statesmen, discovered that the
country (meaning, of course, the bondholders) was suffering under the
evils of a depreciated currency. Their tender consciences had never
suffered a twinge while the soldiers were receiving from the
government a currency depreciated in value as the result of its own
acts. But when the soldier became the taxpayer, and from his toil was
to be obliged to pay the bondholder, then the patriotic hearts of Mr.
Sherman and his co-conspirators in the dominant political party
trembled at the thought of a soldier being allowed to discharge his
obligations in the same kind of money he had received for his
services. As a recipient of the government dole, paper money,
purposely depreciated, was quite sufficient. From the citizen by the
product of whose toil a bonded interest-bearing debt was to be paid,
"honest money" was to be demanded. It required no argument to convince
the government creditor that this was a step in his interest, and
public clamor was hushed with the catchwords of "honest money" and
"national honor," while driblets of pensions were allowed to trickle
from rivers of revenue. The Nero of Rome had been excelled by his
Christian successor, and the dumb submission of ancient slaves became
manly independence in contrast with modern stupidity.

By the passage of the so-called "Credit-strengthening Act," in March,
1869, it was provided that all bonds of the government, except in
cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such obligation has
expressly provided that the same may be paid in lawful money, or other
currency than gold and silver, should be payable in coin. This act was
denounced by both Morton and Stevens, as a fraud upon the people, in
that it made a new contract for the benefit of the bondholder. The
injustice of th