inciple that the only thing to do with a
debt is to pay it. The National credit is the best in the
world, and the National debt has ceased to be an object either
of anxiety or consideration.

Specie payments have been resumed. Every dollar issued by
the Government, or by national banks under government authority,
passes current like gold. Indeed the ease with which it can
be transported and the certainty of its redemption makes the
paper money of the United States better than gold.

The United States has joined the commercial nations of the
first rank in making gold the world's standard of value.
In doing this we have never departed from the theoretical
principle of bimetallism as announced by Hamilton and Washington
and Webster and all our statesmen without exception down to
1869. The contest was an exceedingly close one. The arguments
in support of the free coinage of silver were specious and
dangerous. Undoubtedly for a time, and more than once, they
converted a majority of the American people. The battle for
honest money would have been lost but for the wisdom of the
Republican statesmen who planted the party not only upon the
doctrine of theoretical bimetallism, but also upon the doctrine
that the question of the standard of value must be settled
by the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world
and that if there were to be one metal as a standard, gold,
the most valuable metal, was the fittest for the purpose.
That was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton. To have avowed
any other principle would have reinforced our opponents with
the powerful authority of Hamilton and all his disciples
down to the year 1873.

The war taxes have been abolished. The weight of the burden
which has been in that way lifted from the shoulders of the
people may perhaps be understood from the statement of a single
fact. The Worcester District, which I represented, paid in
the direct form of taxes to the National Treasury the enormous
sum of $3,662,727 for the year ending June 30, 1866. For
the year ending June 30, 1871, the taxes so paid amounted
in all to $225,000, and for the year ending June 30, 1872,
they amounted to about $100,000.

The policy of protection to American industry, which, like
the question of honest elections, has been always in contest
between the Republican Party and its Democratic antagonist
has, unless during the two Administrations of President Cleveland,
been successfully maintained. As