e pledge of United States bonds and other needful regulations.

'The first of these plans was partially adopted at the last session
of Congress in the provision authorizing the Secretary to issue
United States notes, payable in coin, to an amount not exceeding
fifty millions of dollars. That provision may be so extended as to
reach the average circulation of the country, while a moderate tax,
gradually augmented, on bank notes, will relieve the national from
the competition of local circulation. It has been already suggested
that the substitution of a national for a State currency, upon this
plan, would be equivalent to a loan to the Government without
interest, except on the fund to be kept in coin, and without
expense, except the cost of preparation, issue, and redemption;
while the people would gain the additional advantage of a uniform
currency, and relief from a considerable burden in the form of
interest on debt. These advantages are, doubtless, considerable;
and if a scheme can be devised by which such a circulation will be
certainly and strictly confined to the real needs of the people,
and kept constantly equivalent to specie by prompt and certain
redemption in coin, it will hardly fail of legislative sanction.

'The plan, however, is not without serious inconveniences and
hazards. The temptation, especially great in times of pressure and
danger, to issue notes without adequate provision for redemption;
the ever-present liability to be called on for redemption beyond
means, however carefully provided and managed; the hazards of
panics, precipitating demands for coin, concentrated on a few
points and a single fund; the risk of a depreciated, depreciating,
and finally worthless paper money; the immeasurable evils of
dishonored public faith and national bankruptcy; all these are
possible consequence of the adoption of a system of government
circulation. It may be said, and perhaps truly, that they are less
deplorable than those of an irredeemable bank circulation. Without
entering into that comparison, the Secretary contents himself with
observing that, in his judgment, these possible disasters so far
outweigh the probable benefits of the plan that he feels himself
constrained to forbear recommending its adoption.

'The second plan suggested