n meeting
their engagements induced them to apply to me previously to the actual
suspension of specie payments for indulgence upon their bonds for
duties, and all the relief authorized by law was promptly and cheerfully
granted. The dependence of the Treasury upon the avails of these bonds
to enable it to make the deposits with the States required by law led me
in the outset to limit this indulgence to the 1st of September, but it
has since been extended to the 1st of October, that the matter might be
submitted to your further direction.

Questions were also expected to arise in the recess in respect to the
October installment of those deposits requiring the interposition of
Congress.

A provision of another act, passed about the same time, and intended to
secure a faithful compliance with the obligation of the United States to
satisfy all demands upon them in specie or its equivalent, prohibited
the offer of any bank note not convertible on the spot into gold or
silver at the will of the holder; and the ability of the Government,
with millions on deposit, to meet its engagements in the manner thus
required by law was rendered very doubtful by the event to which I have
referred.

Sensible that adequate provisions for these unexpected exigencies
could only be made by Congress; convinced that some of them would be
indispensably necessary to the public service before the regular period
of your meeting, and desirous also to enable you to exercise at the
earliest moment your full constitutional powers for the relief of
the country, I could not with propriety avoid subjecting you to the
inconvenience of assembling at as early a day as the state of the
popular representation would permit. I am sure that I have done but
justice to your feelings in believing that this inconvenience will be
cheerfully encountered in the hope of rendering your meeting conducive
to the good of the country.

During the earlier stages of the revulsion through which we have just
passed much acrimonious discussion arose and great diversity of opinion
existed as to its real causes. This was not surprising. The operations
of credit are so diversified and the influences which affect them so
numerous, and often so subtle, that even impartial and well-informed
persons are seldom found to agree in respect to them. To inherent
difficulties were also added other tendencies which were by no means
favorable to the discovery of truth. It was hardly to be exp