3. “It contemptuously ignores the common understanding between borrower
and lender at the time the loan was negotiated (which was by Jay Cooke
& Co. in 1863, to the extent of five hundred million dollars), a large
proportion of which was purchased by foreign capitalists, and was very
successful. Nothing was said about payment in gold, but payment in
gold, both of principal and interest, had been the invariable rule from
the foundation of the government.”
“Our government,” said Nathaniel Mason, “is a hard-money government,
founded by hard-money men, and its debts are hard-money debts.”
Nothing was intimated to the contrary when the bill was passed and the
bonds issued, and the duties on imports pledged to their payment, were
to be paid in coin. The final point in his argument was:--
4. “It would prove disastrous to the financial interests of the
government, and the general prosperity of the country,” by, of course,
reducing the par value of the bonds and blockading their sale as they
floated through the markets of the world.
It should be with some pride and glory now, after the honorable history
of the national debt thus far, and which has given to the nation the
credit of the world, that Mr. Blaine remembers that so early in the
discussion, when the ideas of the many were crude, and only those of
the few were clear, that he closed his speech with these splendid
words,--words which embody the steady policy of the government from
that time to the present:--
“I am sure,” said Mr. Blaine, “that in the peace which our arms have
conquered, we shall not dishonor ourselves by withholding from any
public creditor a dollar that we promised to pay him; nor seek by
cunning construction and clever afterthought to evade or escape the
full responsibility of our national indebtedness. It will doubtless
cost us a vast sum to pay that indebtedness, but it will cost us
incalculably more not to pay it.”
It took Gen. Benj. F. Butler two days to reply to this speech of Mr.
Blaine’s, in which he bloomed forth as a greenbacker of fullest flower
and strongest fragrance. This led Mr. Blaine to say:--
“We have a loan distinctly defined, well known to the people,
that has a specific rate of interest, a certain time to run, and
express condition on which it is to be paid; but the gentleman from
Massachusetts is for brushing this all aside and placing before the
country a species of legal-tender notes which have no fixed time
to run, bear no interest, have no standard of value, and which the
government is under no obligation to pay at any particular time, and
which may indeed never be called in for redemption.”