and show how completely the inferior
currency will supersede the better, forcing it from circulation among
the masses and causing it to be exported as a mere article of trade, to
add to the money capital of foreign lands. They show the necessity of
retiring our paper money, that the return of gold and silver to the
avenues of trade may be invited and a demand created which will cause
the retention at home of at least so much of the productions of our
rich and inexhaustible gold-bearing fields as may be sufficient for
purposes of circulation. It is unreasonable to expect a return to a
sound currency so long as the Government and banks, by continuing to
issue irredeemable notes, fill the channels of circulation with
depreciated paper. Notwithstanding a coinage by our mints since 1849 of
$874,000,000, the people are now strangers to the currency which was
designed for their use and benefit, and specimens of the precious metals
bearing the national device are seldom seen, except when produced to
gratify the interest excited by their novelty. If depreciated paper is
to be continued as the permanent currency of the country, and all our
coin is to become a mere article of traffic and speculation, to the
enhancement in price of all that is indispensable to the comfort of the
people, it would be wise economy to abolish our mints, thus saving the
nation the care and expense incident to such establishments, and let our
precious metals be exported in bullion. The time has come, however, when
the Government and national banks should be required to take the most
efficient steps and make all necessary arrangements for a resumption of
specie payments. Let specie payments once be earnestly inaugurated by
the Government and banks, and the value of the paper circulation would
directly approximate a specie standard.

Specie payments having been resumed by the Government and banks, all
notes or bills of paper issued by either of a less denomination than $20
should by law be excluded from circulation, so that the people may have
the benefit and convenience of a gold and silver currency which in all
their business transactions will be uniform in value at home and abroad.
Every man of property or industry, every man who desires to preserve
what he honestly possesses or to obtain what he can honestly earn, has a
direct interest in maintaining a safe circulating medium--such a medium
as shall be real and substantial, not liable to vibrate with op