g is entitled
to rank as the author of the measure. It is difficult to assign
absolute originality in any case where so many minds are at work
in the same field of investigation, and where, with an approximate
identity of date, there is a general similarity of conclusion.
But the formal proposition and the public advocacy belong to Mr.
Spaulding. He had been all his life engaged in financial affairs,
was a banker of recognized ability in the city of Buffalo, and
enjoyed a high reputation throughout the State of New York for
intelligence and probity. He had not waited for advice or even
for consultation, but on the thirtieth day of December, 1861,--the
day on which the banks of New York suspended specie payment,--he
introduced the original legal-tender bill in the House of
Representatives.

The first provision of the bill now reported, was for the issue of
$150,000,000 of Treasury notes, differing from those previously
authorized by being declared a legal-tender for all obligations,
public and private, except duties on imports and interest on the
public debt. The notes were also to be exchangeable into six per
cent. bonds, redeemable at the pleasure of the United States after
five years. In reporting the bill, Mr. Spaulding called it "a war
measure, a measure of necessity not of choice, to meet the most
pressing demands upon the Treasury, to sustain the army and navy
until they can make a vigorous advance upon the traitors and crush
out the Rebellion." He argued, "These notes will find their way
into all the channels of trade among the people; and as they
accumulate in the hands of capitalists, they will exchange them
for the six per cent. twenty years' bonds:" the notes will "be
equally as good, and in many cases better, than the present
irredeemable circulation issued by the banks." Mr. Spaulding argued
that the Constitution justified such legislation in the emergency,
and he declared that by this plan "the government will be able to
get along with its immediate and pressing necessities without being
obliged to force its bonds on the market at ruinous rates of
discount: the people under heavy taxation will be shielded against
high rates of interest, and capitalists will be afforded fair
compensation for the use of their money during the pending struggle
for national existence."

Mr. Spaulding admitted that "a suspension of specie payment is
greatly to be deplored," but he contended that "it is not a fatal
s