and became a
law on the 25th of February. Its leading provisions were for the
issue of legal-tender notes, on which the debate chiefly turned,
and of coupon or registered bonds not to exceed $500,000,000 in
the aggregate, bearing six per cent. interest, redeemable at the
pleasure of the United States after five years, and payable twenty
years after date. The bonds were to be sold at their market value
for coin or Treasury notes, and the notes to be exchangeable into
them in sums of fifty dollars, or any multiple of fifty. These
securities became widely known and popular as the five-twenties of
1862. The fourth section allowed deposits of United-States notes
with designated depositories to draw interest at five per cent.,
and to be paid after ten days' notice, but the total of such deposits
was not to exceed $25,000,000 at any time. By the fifth section,
duties on imported goods were required to be paid in coin, and the
proceeds were pledged, first, to the payment in coin of the interest
on the bonds of the United States; and second, to a sinking-fund
of one per cent. of the entire debt for its ultimate payment.

Certificates of indebtedness were authorized by Act of Congress
passed without debate and approved on the first day of March.
These could be granted to any creditor whose claim had been audited,
and they drew six per cent. interest, payable at first in coin,
but by Act of March 3, 1863, lawful money was substituted for
interest. By Act of March 17, 1862, these certificates could be
given in discharge of checks drawn by disbursing officers, if the
holders of the latter chose to accept them. The secretary was
clothed with power by the Act of March 17, 1862, to buy coin with
any bonds or notes on such terms as he might deem advantageous.
The same Act gave legal-tender value to the demand notes previously
authorized. The limitation upon temporary deposits was also raised
to $50,000,000.

Mr. Chase, by a communication of June 7 (1862), asked for a further
issue of legal-tender notes to the amount of $150,000,000, and he
urged that the limit of five dollars be removed, and denominations
as low as a single dollar be permitted. He declared that it was
impossible to obtain coin necessary to pay the soldiers, and that
the plan proposed would remove from disbursing officers the temptation
to exchange coin for small bank notes. A reserve of one-third of
the temporary deposits would take $34,000,000, and the re