if made or proposed against the honest convictions of the public
creditors.

All the bonds that have been issued since February 12, 1873, when
gold became the only unlimited legal-tender metallic currency of the
country, are justly payable in gold coin or in coin of equal value.
During the time of these issues the only dollar that could be or was
received by the Government in exchange for bonds was the gold dollar.
To require the public creditors to take in repayment any dollar of
less commercial value would be regarded by them as a repudiation
of the full obligation assumed. The bonds issued prior to 1873 were
issued at a time when the gold dollar was the only coin in circulation
or contemplated by either the Government or the holders of the bonds
as the coin in which they were to be paid. It is far better to
pay these bonds in that coin than to seem to take advantage of the
unforeseen fall in silver bullion to pay in a new issue of silver coin
thus made so much less valuable. The power of the United States
to coin money and to regulate the value thereof ought never to be
exercised for the purpose of enabling the Government to pay its
obligations in a coin of less value than that contemplated by the
parties when the bonds were issued. Any attempt to pay the national
indebtedness in a coinage of less commercial value than the money
of the world would involve a violation of the public faith and work
irreparable injury to the public credit.

It was the great merit of the act of March, 1869, in strengthening
the public credit, that it removed all doubt as to the purpose of the
United States to pay their bonded debt in coin. That act was accepted
as a pledge of public faith. The Government has derived great benefit
from it in the progress thus far made in refunding the public debt at