st be respected. But there need be no sudden
change; there need be no hurtful interference with existing
interests. As yet the United States note circulation hardly fills
the vacuum caused by the temporary withdrawal of coin; it does not,
perhaps, fully meet the demand for increased circulation created by
the increased number, variety, and activity of payments in money.
There is opportunity, therefore, for the wise and beneficial
regulation of its substitution for other circulation. The mode of
substitution, also, may be judiciously adapted to actual
circumstances. The plan suggested consults both purposes. It
contemplates gradual withdrawal of bank note circulation, and
proposes a United States note circulation, furnished to banking
associations, in the advantages of which they may participate in
full proportion to the care and responsibility assumed and the
services performed by them. The promptitude and zeal with which
many of the existing institutions came to the financial support of
the Government in the dark days which followed the outbreak of the
rebellion is not forgotten. They ventured largely, and boldly, and
patriotically on the side of the Union and the constitutional
supremacy of the nation over States and citizens. It does not at
all detract from the merit of the act that the losses, which they
feared but unhesitatingly risked, were transmuted into unexpected
gains. It is a solid recommendation of the suggested plan that it
offers the opportunity to these and kindred institutions to
reorganize, continue their business under the proposed act, and
with little loss and much advantage, participate in maintaining the
new and uniform national currency.

'The proposed plan is recommended, finally, by the firm anchorage
it will supply to the union of the States. Every banking
association whose bonds are deposited in the treasury of the Union;
every individual who holds a dollar of the circulation secured by
such deposit; every merchant, every manufacturer, every farmer,
every mechanic, interested in transactions dependent for success
on the credit of that circulation, will feel as an injury every
attempt to rend the national unity, with the permanence and
stability of which all their interests are so closely and vitally
connected. Had th