"I  regard  this  as  a  mild  form  of  lunacy,  and  have  no  disposition  to
debate  with  men  who  indulge  in  such  delusions,  which  have  prevailed  to
some  extent,  at  different  times,  in  all  countries,  but  whose  life  has  been  brief,
and  which  have  ever  shared  the  fate  of  other  popular  delusions.  Congress
will  never  entertain  such  a  proposition,  and,  if  it  should,  we  know  that  the
scheme  would  not  stand  a  moment  before  the  Supreme  Court.  That  court
only  maintained  the  constitutionality  of  the  legal  tender  promise  to  pay  a
dollar  by  a  divided  court,  and  on  the  ground  that  it  was  issued  during  the
war,  as  in  the  nature  of  a  forced  loan,  to  be  redeemed  upon  the  payment  of
a  real  dollar ;  that  is,  so  many  grains  of  silver  or  gold.
"  I  therefore  dismiss  such  wild  theories,  and  speak  only  to  those  who  are
willing  to  assume,  as  an  axiom,  that  gold  and  silver,  or  coined  money,  have
been  proven  by  all  human  experience  to  be  the  best  possible  standards  of
value,  and  that  paper  money  is  simply  a  promise  to  pay  such  coined  money,
and  should  be  made  and  kept  equal  to  coined  money,  by  being  convertible
on  demand.
"Now,  the  question  is  as  to  the  time  and  mode  by  which  this  may  be
brought  about,  and  on  this  subject  no  man  should  be  dogmatic,  or  stand,
without  yielding,  upon  a  plan  of  his  own,  but  should  be  willing  to  give  and
take,  securing  the  best  expedient  that  public  opinion  will  allow  to  be  adopted.
