MR. THOMAS, of Massachusetts-"I suggest to the gentleman to modify his motion, so as to make it read two hours."

MR. SPAULDING "The exigencies of the country are such that I cannot consent to do so unless the House so order it."

MR. VALLANDIGHAM-"I move to amend the motion by striking out 'one hour' and inserting 'two hours.'”

The amendment was adopted, and the motion as amended was agreed to.

PASSAGE OF THE BILL IN THE HOUSE.

Thursday, February 6, 1862, was an exciting and important day in the House. The final vote on the legal tender note bill was to be taken, and in anticipation of the vote there was a very full house. In pursuance of the order passed last night, general debate was to be closed in two hours after the bill should be taken

up in Committee of the Whole. The House on meeting and disposing of a little preliminary business, immediately resolved itself into Committee of the Whole, and resumed the consideration of the bill. The Chairman announced that general debate on the bill would close at ten minutes past two o'clock P. M. While debate was continued, Mr. Frank and Mr. Colfax, who were friendly to the bill, passed around the House with a list, making a canvass of how the different members would vote on the legal tender clause. Upon footing up the list, it was ascertained that there was a large majority in favor of making the notes a legal tender.

MR. KELLOGG, of Illinois, being entitled to the floor, spoke for over half an hour in favor of the bill, not as a peace measure, but as a war measure. He said:

"I intend to detain the Committee but a little while. I should not have sought the floor for the purpose of offering any remarks, but for the consideration that, in my judgment, this bill was being considered and discussed as it might with propriety have been discussed and considered in time of peace, and when there was no pressing necessity for the action of Congress in placing the Government in possession of all the means and powers that can be safely gathered and exercised under the Constitution. If this question came up in ordinary times, I am frank to confess, that I might, perhaps, have had some doubt of its constitutionality sufficient to induce me to oppose it. I mean by that only to say that in time of peace, when the integrity of the Government is not threatened, I would be more careful and cautious; and if I doubted the constitutionality of the measure I would not vote for it. But, sir, in this our extremity, while we are struggling to perpetuate our Government, I am willing to go to the very verge of the Constitution. I will go as far as I feel that the Constitution will permit me, to gather up the power and means to carry on the Government to that great consum

mation which the fathers contemplated when they established it. But while I might have some doubt in time of peace, when the monetary affairs of the country might safely be left to work out their own level and settlement, of the policy of this measure, I have none now. What may

be policy in the one case may be vastly different in the other.

I treat this, Mr. Chairman, as emphatically and clearly a war measure. It may appear strange that a money bill should be considered a war measure, and yet it is; for it is necessary in order to raise means to carry on the Government in a war direction-a direction in which all our measures are or should be tending. Sir, we should not disguise the fact of our complications. We should not deceive ourselves. The worst deception that men ever practice is that practiced on themselves. We should not allow ourselves to be deluded, now that we have a mighty rebellion-nay, revolution-before us, and that the Powers of the Old World, who have looked with a jealous eye on the mighty progress of the Western Continent, are seeking occasion to cripple our onward and upward career. Talk not of their sympathy for us. Our Government antagonizes theirs. The principles are different. We must gird up our loins; we must take all the power we have; we must throw every energy, all the means of our Government, in the direction of the war power, for the purpose of self-preservation and perpetuation.

Mr. Chairman, we must look this matter in the face, not only of this continent, but in the face of surrounding nations. We must come to the conclusion that although the world shall rise against us, this Republic must and shall be preserved. All the energy of the country, all the blood and treasure of the country, if need be, must be summoned in from every part of the land to accomplish that object. Sir, we must give to this Government arms of iron and muscles of steel. We must think as with fire and strike as with spears. It is necessary, sir, it must be; and if we now meet this emergency as trne men should meet it, we shall succeed. The money of the country must come to its aid, the powers of the Government must come to the aid of the Administration, as well as the strong hands and warm hearts of our people.

Mr. Chairman, I am pained when I sit in my place in the House and hear members talk about the sacredness of capital; that the interests of money must not be touched. Yes, sir, they will vote six hundred thousand of the flower of the American youth for the Army, to be sacrificed, without a blush; but the great interests of capital, of currency, must not be touched. We have summoned the youth; they have come. I would summon the capital; and if it does not come voluntarily, before this Republic shall go down, or one star be lost, I would take every cent from the treasury of the States, from the treasury of capitalists, from the treasury of individuals, and press it into the use of the Government.

What is capital worth without a Government? Gentlemen must understand me, when I indulge in this strain and speak in this strain and speak of this talk and quibble about capital, that I do not charge it upon the real capitalists of the country, for they do not hold back. The true capitalists of the country are patriotic; they have furnished their means liberally; but there is a class of huckstering capitalists, there is a class of bankers proper, there is a class of brokers, who would make merchandise of the hopes and fears of the Republic.

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It is said there is no power to make these notes a legal tender, and that

that is not a legitimate way of expressing their value. If gentlemen are sure upon that subject, they would do well to run back a little further and ascertain whether there is any power under the Constitution vested in Congress to issue the notes at all. And I confess the argument of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Pendleton) ran back legitimately to that proposition. At least it carried my mind back to that proposition so fairly and certainly, that if I found no power to issue these notes, I would have voted against this bill. To that my mind has turned with every argument that has been made. I may have been obtuse, but I confess that I have come to the conclusion that we have the constitutional power to issue these notes; and having that constitutional power we have, as an incident to that power, the power also to make them of value by making them a legal tender. The gentleman has voted more than once for the issue of Treasury notes to pay debts owing by the Government, which were payable in coin. If we have power to issue Treasury notes, we have the power to fix the value of the issue. It is an incident to the power of issuance. Let them be issued as money, to take the place of money. Let there be no deception; let the creditors of the Government know whether we are to palm off a spurious depreciated currency under the guise of money. If we have the right to issue it, and impress with the denomination of five dollars, why not stamp upon its face that it is five dollars everywhere?"

MR. THOMAS, of Massachusetts, made a speech against the legal tender clause in the bill.

"He regarded this clause as unconstitutional, unjust, and inexpedient. The question had never been settled by judicial authority, but the weight of reasoning by Webster, Madison, and others, was strongly against the validity of this clause in the bill. He argued that nothing but coined money could be made a legal tender in payments of debts; that a matured debt could not be paid by another promise. He regarded this clause in the bill in the nature of a forced loan, in itself a confession of weakness. The friends of this feature of the bill admit the reluctance with which they assent to it. The only ground of defence is its necessity, that no alternative is left to us. He deeply respected their motives, but could not himself see the necessity."

MR. EDWARDS, of New Hampshire, made a speech in favor of the bill.

"We find ourselves confronted by an exhausted Treasury, and without the means of meeting its existing, or its constantly accruing liabilities. The amount of floating liability now due is $100,000,000. The figures presented in the opening speech of this debate are immense-almost appalling. Funded and floating it is now $400,000,000; on the first of July next it will be $650,000,000, and if the war continues $1,200,000,000 in one year from that time. He was in favor of taxation to pay ordinary expenses and interest, and ultimately a sinking fund, but he was in favor of the issue of Treasury notes for the purpose of meeting immediate expenditures, and all parties seemed to concede that Treasury notes in some form must be issued. The bill reported by the Committee of Ways and Means, and the substitute offered by Mr. Morrill, may be regarded as the only propositions now before the House. It is understood that the other propositions will be withdrawn, and that the dissenters from the bill will concentrate on

this substitute.

They agree in the main features of the plan, and differ only in details. He thought the notes proposed by Mr. Morrill's plan would not pass current among the people or the banks, but would necessarily depreciate. The army and navy might be compelled to receive them at par, because the Government had nothing else to give them, but they could not afterwards pass them without a large discount, which would be unjust to the men fighting our battles. He thought that would be a lack of faith of the most flagrant description-more objectionable by far than the legal tender clause. He also objected to the high rates of interest proposed for the bonds to be issued in funding the notes.

The substitute provides for a depreciated currency and a high rate of interest He thought the currency proposed by the substitute would demoralize the country as much, or more, than the legal tender notes, and would not possess as many advantages to the Government.

The legal tender notes would give instant means to the Treasury, so much needed at this time, without looking to intermediate negotiation to furnish them. The original bill was the one in all material respects to be preferred to the substitute, one of which it is distinctly understood will be adopted."

MR. RIDDLE, of Ohio, made a speech against the propriety and expediency of issuing the legal tender notes.

"He doubted the constitutionality of the measure. He thought there was no real money, except the metals coined in pursuance of law and a fixed standard. Can money be made of paper? Clearly not, by calling it money or by stamping it as money by the Government. It would not stand the commercial test. Paper has no appreciable intrinsic value, and its exchangeable value is of the lowest possible grade. The only high degree of value it can ever attain is that which may be imparted to it by that which is written or printed upon it. It is apparent that the whole quantity of the circulating medium must be materially increased, for obviously that which was only equal to the demands of commerce and the ordinary wants of the Government, is wholly inadequate now to the same demands and the extraordinary wants of the Government. He was opposed to the legal tender clause, and would vote to strike it out; if that fails, I will choose between the bill and its defeat." (He voted for the bill on its final passage.)

MR. BLAKE, of Ohio, spoke in favor of the bill.

"At no time in the history of our country was the peril to our free institutions greater than now. The bill is brought forward as a war measure, to meet the pressing demands now on the Treasury. He argued that it was constitutional to issue Treasury notes and make them a legal tender. He insisted that it was a necessary and proper means of carrying into effect the war powers-to raise and support armies and to provide and maintain a navy. We are now in the midst of a great National exigency, and one, too, that we must provide for; and one that in the application of the means there must of necessity be great latitude of discretion, and denied that legal tender paper money was prohibited." (He read from the debates on the formation of the Constitution, Vol. 5, page 435.)

MR. MASON-"He was unwilling to tie the hands of the Legislature. He observed that the late war could not have been carried on had such a prohibition existed."

MR. BUTLER—"That paper was a legal tender in no country in Europe." MR. MASON—" "Was still averse to tying the hands of the Legislature altogether. If there was no example in Europe, as just remarked, it might be observed, on the other side, that there was none in which the Government was restrained on this head."

MR. BLAKE continued his argument, insisting "that the Convention which framed the Constitution did not attempt any prohibition, but left it to Congress to make Treasury notes a legal tender whenever the exigency should arise to make it necessary. It was denied in express terms to the States, and permitted in implied terms to Congress. It being constitutional, is it necessary to make Treasury notes a legal tender? By these notes we are enabled to pay our soldiers, and it is the only means we have to pay them. Does not every gentleman know that if these notes were paid to our soldiers without making them a legal tender, they will immediately be sold at a loss to the soldiers of from four to twenty per cent.? This is not conjecture: this very thing was done here only last month; soldiers were shaved by the money-shavers of this District from four to twenty per cext. on the demand Treasury notes they had received from the Government. We are not legislating for the money-shavers, who oppose this bill, but for the people, the soldiers, and laboring classes."

MR. CAMPBELL, of Pennsylvania, spoke in favor of the bill.

"He said, it is proper that each member of this House should, however briefly, express his views on the pending bill-one of the most, if not the most, important bills of this season. To support our armies in the field and navies on the seas is a plain, patriotic and necessary duty; to do this with prudence, economy and foresight, is the highest evidence of statesmanship. That we have vast National resources, all admit; that the public debt has for its security the whole property of the nation, is equally plain. The powers of the Government are ample-they extend to life and property. He would fall short of his duty in this tremendous issue, in which free government is on its final trial, who would not, if necessary, vote the last man and the last dollar to defend and perpetuate the priceless inheritance of our fathers.

I humbly conceive my duty to be a plain one. The path I have marked out for myself I will follow, let it lead where it may. Whatever measure is now or hereafter may become necessary to adopt in order to maintain the Union and perpetuate free Government, that will I support. Speak not to me of "objections" and "scruples" and "dangers," of "Constitutional objections" and "conservative influences." Sophistry is ever plausible, and opposition to a just and necessary measure generally wears the mask of a "Constitutional objection." The highest duty of every member is to maintain the Union-to sustain the Constitution against this causeless and wicked rebellion; and in doing this, let us bear in mind that the Constitution was made for the people-to secure to them and their posterity the blessings of free government. Therefore, with me the primary inquiry is, is this measure necessary to suppress the rebellion? If it is, here am I ready to sustain it. It will be found the Constitution gives ample power

to sustain this view.

The bill now before the Committee is necessary to sustain the credit of the country, and to carry on the war. It is with reluctance that I have come to this conclusion. I do not like the necessity which exists for the legal tender clause; still less do I like to place the issues of the Govern