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 opinions,
not subject to be blown up or blown down by the breath of speculation,
but to be made stable and secure. A disordered currency is one of the
greatest political evils. It undermines the virtues necessary for the
support of the social system and encourages propensities destructive of
its happiness; it wars against industry, frugality, and economy, and it
fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation.

It has been asserted by one of our profound and most gifted statesmen
that--

Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind,
none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper
money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich
man's fields by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny,
oppression, excessive taxation--these bear lightly on the happiness of
the mass of the community compared with a fraudulent currency and the
robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded
for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing
tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression on the virtuous
and well disposed of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in
any way countenanced by government.

It is one of the most successful devices, in times of peace or war,
expansions or revulsions, to accomplish the transfer of all the precious
metals from the great mass of the people into the hands of the few,
where they are hoarded in secret places or deposited in strong boxes
under bolts and bars, while the people are left to ensure all the
inconvenience, sacrifice, and demoralization resulting from the use
of a depreciated and worthless paper money.

The condition of our finances and the operations of our revenue
system are set forth and fully explained in the able and instructive
report of the Secretary of the Treasury. On the 30th of June, 1866,
the public debt amounted to $2,783,425,879; on the 30th of June last
it was $2,692,199,215, showing a reduction during the fiscal year of
$91,226,664. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1867, t