at the earliest period compatible
with due regard to all interests concerned should ever be kept in view.
Fluctuations in the value of currency are always injurious, and to reduce
these fluctuations to the lowest possible point will always be a
leading purpose in wise legislation. Convertibility, prompt and certain
convertibility, into coin is generally acknowledged to be the best and
surest safeguard against them; and it is extremely doubtful whether a
circulation of United States notes payable in coin and sufficiently large
for the wants of the people can be permanently, usefully, and safely
maintained.

Is there, then, any other mode in which the necessary provision for the
public wants can be made and the great advantages of a safe and uniform
currency secured?

I know of none which promises so certain results and is at the same time
so unobjectionable as the organization of banking associations, under
a general act of Congress, well guarded in its provisions. To such
associations the government might furnish circulating notes, on the
security of United States bonds deposited in the treasury. These notes,
prepared under the supervision of proper officers, being uniform in
appearance and security and convertible always into coin, would at once
protect labor against the evils of a vicious currency and facilitate
commerce by cheap and safe exchanges.

A moderate reservation from the interest on the bonds would compensate
the United States for the preparation and distribution of the notes and
a general supervision of the system, and would lighten the burden of
that part of the public debt employed as securities. The public credit,
moreover, would be greatly improved and the negotiation of new loans
greatly facilitated by the steady market demand for government bonds which
the adoption of the proposed system would create.

It is an additional recommendation of the measure, of considerable weight,
in my judgment, that it would reconcile as far as possible all existing
interests by the opportunity offered to existing institutions to
reorganize under the act, substituting only the secured uniform national
circulation for the local and various circulation, secured and unsecured,
now issued by them.

The receipts into the treasury from all sources, including loans and
balance from the preceding year, for the fiscal year ending on the 30th
June, 1862, were $583,885,247.06, of which sum $49,056,397.62 were derived
from c