to accept a single metal as the sole legal standard of value in
circulation, and this a standard of less value than it purports to be
worth in the recognized money of the world.

The Constitution of the United States, sound financial principles,
and our best interests all require that the country should have as its
legal-tender money both gold and silver coin of an intrinsic value,
as bullion, equivalent to that which upon its face it purports to
possess. The Constitution in express terms recognizes both gold and
silver as the only true legal-tender money. To banish either of these
metals from our currency is to narrow and limit the circulating medium
of exchange to the disparagement of important interests. The United
States produces more silver than any other country, and is directly
interested in maintaining it as one of the two precious metals which
furnish the coinage of the world. It will, in my judgment, contribute
to this result if Congress will repeal so much of existing legislation
as requires the coinage of silver dollars containing only 412-1/2
grains of silver, and in its stead will authorize the Secretary of the
Treasury to coin silver dollars of equivalent value, as bullion, with
gold dollars. This will defraud no man, and will be in accordance with
familiar precedents. Congress on several occasions has altered the
ratio of value between gold and silver, in order to establish it more
nearly in accordance with the actual ratio of value between the two
metals.

In financial legislation every measure in the direction of greater
fidelity in the discharge of pecuniary obligations has been found
by experience to diminish the rates of interest which debtors are
required to pay and to increase the facility with which money can
be obtained for every legitimate purpose. Our own recent financial
history shows how surely money becomes abundant whenever confidence
in the exact performance of moneyed obligations is established.

The Secretary of War reports that the expenditures of the
War Department for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1880, were
$39,924,773.03. The appropriations for this Department for the current
fiscal year amount to $41,993,630.40.

With respect to the Army, the Secretary invites attention to the fact
that its strength is limited by statute (U.S. Revised Statutes,
sec. 1115) to not more than 30,000 enlisted men, but that provisos
contained in appropriation bills have limited expenditures to the