masses and from so many prolific sources as to be governed by the inexorable laws of demand and supply. Its magic as coin, if it has not hopelessly departed, has been, like the retreating soldier, fearfully "demoralized," and is passing to the rear.

It cannot be for the interest or the honor of the United States, while possessed of any healthy national pride, to resort to any expedient of bankrupt governments to lower the money standard of the country. That standard should keep us "four square" to the world and give us equal rank in the advanced civilization and industrial enterprise of all the great commercial nations.

I have failed of my purpose if I have not shown that there has been so large an increase of the stock of silver as of itself to effect a positive reduction of its value; and that this result has been confirmed and made irreversible by the new and extensive European disuse of silver coinage. I have indicated the advisability of obtaining the co-operation of other leading nations, in fixing upon a common ratio of value between gold and silver, before embarking upon a course of independent action from

which there could be no retreat. I have also attempted to show that, even in the lowest pecuniary sense of profit, the Government of the United States could not be the gainer by proposing to pay either the public debt or the United States notes in silver; that such a payment would violate public pledges as to the whole, and violates existing statutes as to all that part of the debt contracted since 1870, and for which gold has been received; that the remonetization of silver means the banishment of gold and our degradation among nations to the second or third rank; that it would be a sweeping 10 per cent. reduction of all duties upon imports, requiring the imposition of new taxes to that extent; that it would prevent the further funding of the public debt at a lower rate of interest and give to the present holders of our 6 per cent. bonds a great advantage; that, instead of aiding resumption, it would only inflate a currency already too long depreciated, and consign it to a still lower deep; that, instead of being a tonic to spur idle capital once more into activity, it would be its bane, destructive of all vitality; and that as a permanent silver standard it would not only be void of ali stability, and the dearest

and clumsiest in its introduction and maintenance, but that it would reduce the wages of labor to the full extent of the difference there might be between its purchasing power and that of gold.

JAMES G. BLAINE,*

OF MAINE.'

(BORN 1830, DIED 1893.)

ON THE

REMONETIZATION OF SILVER, UNITED STATES SENATE, FEBRUARY 7, 1878.3

THE discussion on the question of remcnetizing silver, Mr. President, has been prolonged, able, and exhaustive. I may not expect to add much to its value, but I promise not to add much to its length. I shall endeavor to consider facts rather than theories, to state conclusions rather than arguments:

First. I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of the Constitution-indeed, the money of the American people anterior to the Constitution, which that great organic law recognized as quite independent of its own existence. No power was conferred on Congress to declare that either metal should not be *For notes on Blaine, see Appendix, p. 473.

money. Congress has therefore, in my judgment, no power to demonetize silver any more than to demonetize gold; no power to demonetize either any more than to demonetize both. In this statement I am but repeating the weighty dictum of the first of constitutional lawyers. "I am certainly of opinion," said Mr. Webster, "that gold and silver, at rates fixed by Congress, constitute the legal standard of value in this country, and that neither Congress nor any State has authority to establish any other standard or to displace this standard." Few persons can be found, I apprehend, who will maintain that Congress possesses the power to demonetize both gold and silver, or that Congress could be justified in prohibiting the coinage of both; and yet in logic and legal construction it would be difficult to show where and why the power of Congress over silver is greater than over gold-greater over either than over the two. If, therefore, silver has been demonetized, I am in favor of remonetizing it. If its coinage has been prohibited, I am in favor of ordering it to be resumed. If it has been restricted, I am in favor of having it enlarged.

Second. What power, then, has Congress