It will be observed that this anxiety to strengthen the public credit
was evinced by the bondholders _after_ and not before the bonds were in
their possession. No anxiety for the public credit was manifested by
them at a time when the Government might be able to reap advantage from
it. The Government having parted with the bonds at a heavy discount,
their selling price in the market became a matter of no direct pecuniary
importance to the people of the United States.
The "strengthening of the public credit" that was to be effected by the
act of March 16, 1869, consisted of a rise in the price of the bonds for
the benefit of the holder, at a time when they were no longer the
property of the Government but of private individuals. The real effect
of the act, therefore, was not in any way to benefit the Government but
greatly to enrich, by an increment unearned and unbargained for, a few
men who had already been greatly enriched by their dealings with the
United States. The title of the act should have read "An act to
strengthen the bank account and credit of the holders of United States
bonds."
The excuse and apology for the act was that by its passage the refunding
process then contemplated, and afterward provided for by the refunding
act of 1870 might be rendered more certain of success; but if any
advantage accrued from that cause, it was lost, and much more with it,
by the increase which the act of 1869 effected in the burden of the
bonded obligation, by pledging the nation to a payment in a medium much
more valuable than the medium provided for in the contract. And, again,
in 1873 when all the bonds provided for by the refunding act of 1870 had
been sold and had passed out of the hands of the Government, another act
was passed, intended by the money-lenders again to strengthen the public
credit, and again to the disadvantage of the people and to the exclusive
and enormous advantage of the bondholders. It bore the innocent title of
"An act revising and amending the laws relative to the mints, assay
offices, and coinage of the United States." This act, bearing on its
face no suggestion of any change more serious than that of regulating
the petty details of mint management, has proved to be an act of
momentous consequence to the people of this country. This is the act
that demonetized the silver dollar, which it did by merely omitting that
coin from the enumeration of the coins of the United States.