100 Act of 28th Jany, 1847. Receivable in payment of all Public Dues. pay One Hundred Dollars, to the order of... with interest at six per cent. per annum. 100 Washington, & Dec'r, 1847. Register of the U. S. Treasury. Principal fundable at the option of the holder in United States six per cent. stock, bearing semi-annual interest, redeemable after 1867. TREASURY NOTES OF THE MEXICAN WAR. 69 in the midst of the war the honor of the country must. be sustained. Finally, with some slight amendments, the bill passed on January 27, 1847, by a vote of 43 to 2, and became a law on the following day. Notes issued under this act were not to be of a less denomination than $50, and were receivable in payment of public dues, including duties on imports, and were redeemable at the expiration of one or two years, and the interest was to cease at the expiration of sixty days' notice. On page 67 is the form of a 6 per cent. $100 note issued under this act. (A photo-lithograph of this note is given at end of the volume.) The principal of the notes was fundable into 6 per cent. bonds, redeemable after December 30, 1867, and this privilege was extended to the holders of notes issued under previous acts. Reissues were authorized, but the amount of stock and notes, at any one time, was not to exceed twenty-three millions. The right to issue treasury notes, under the act of July 22, 1846, was extended by the fifteenth section to the period fixed by these acts, and on the same terms, but the issue, under this section, was not to exceed five millions. $12,371,150 of these notes were issued previous to July 1, 1847, and $11,956,950 additional notes were issued during the next fiscal year. The whole amount of issues and reissues under the act was $26,122,100, all of which were either sold or paid to public creditors at par. The rate of interest of the notes was 5 and 6 per cent., and United States 6 per cent. bonds, chiefly for the purpose of redeeming these notes, were issued under the same act, amounting to $28,230,350. CHAPTER VIII. TREASURY NOTES OF THE BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION. THE treasury notes issued under the act of January 28, 1847, were all retired, with the exception of about $200,000, previous to July 1, 1850, and no additional treasury notes were authorized, until the passage of the act of December 23, 1857. Secretary Cobb, in his report for that year, estimated that the receipts would exceed the expenditures, but said that the financial revulsion which had caused the banks to suspend specie payment in October of that year, had also caused a large part of the dutiable merchandise to be stored without payment of duty, where it could remain under the law for three years, although it was probable that a considerable portion would be withdrawn and the duties paid previous to that date. Meanwhile, means should be provided for meeting the demands upon the treasury, and he recommended that authority should be given to issue treasury notes "for an amount not exceeding twenty millions of dollars, and payable within a limited time, and carry a specified rate of interest." A bill, in accordance with the suggestion of the Secretary, was introduced into both Houses of Congress on December 18, 1857. It passed the Senate on the following day, by a vote of 31 to 18, and the House on the 22d by a vote of 118 to 86, and was approved on the following day and became a law. The bill provided for the issue of notes payable in one year |