ON THE REMONETIZATION OF SILVER,

UNITED STATES SENATE, FEBRUARY 7, 1878.


The discussion on the question of remonetizing silver, Mr. President,
has been prolonged, able, and exhaustive. I may not expect to add much
to its value, but I promise not to add much to its length. I shall
endeavor to consider facts rather than theories, to state conclusions
rather than arguments:

First. I believe gold and silver coin to be the money of the
Constitution--indeed, the money of the American people anterior to
the Constitution, which that great organic law recognized as quite
independent of its own existence. No power was conferred on Congress to
declare that either metal should not be money. Congress has therefore,
in my judgment, no power to demonetize silver any more than to
demonetize gold; no power to demonetize either any more than to
demonetize both. In this statement I am but repeating the weighty dictum
of the first of constitutional lawyers. "I am certainly of opinion,"
said Mr. Webster, "that gold and silver, at rates fixed by Congress,
constitute the legal standard of value in this country, and that neither
Congress nor any State has authority to establish any other standard or
to displace this standard." Few persons can be found, I apprehend, who
will maintain that Congress possesses the power to demonetize both
gold and silver, or that Congress could be justified in prohibiting the
coinage of both; and yet in logic and legal construction it would be
difficult to show where and why the power of Congress over silver is
greater than over gold--greater over either than over the two. If,