doubtless, suggest, may impart such value and stability to Government securities that it will not be difficult to obtain the additional loans required for the service of the current and the succeeding year at fair and reasonable rates; especially if the public credit be supported by sufficient and certain provision for the payment of interest and ultimate redemption of the principal.’

Congress adjourned after a session of eight months, and failed to adopt Mr. Chase’s recommendation.  Indeed, it had then but few advocates in Congress or the country.  Events rolled on, and our debt, as anticipated by Mr. Chase, became of vast dimensions.  In his Report of December, 1861, the public debt on the 30th June, 1862 (the close of the fiscal year), was estimated by the Secretary at $517,372,800; and it was $514,211,371, or more than $3,000,000 less than the estimate.  In his Report of December 4, 1862, our debt, on the 30th June, 1863, was estimated by Mr. Chase at $1,122,297,403, and it was $1,097,274,000, being $25,023,403 less than the estimate.  The average rate of interest on this debt was 3.89, being $41,927,980, of which $30,141,080 was payable in gold, and $11,786,900 payable in Federal currency.  It will thus be seen that the whole truth, as to our heavy debt, was always distinctly stated in advance by Mr. Chase, and that the debt has not now quite reached his estimate.  Long before the date of the second annual Report of the Secretary, the banks had suspended specie payments, and the Secretary renewed his former recommendation on that subject in these words:—­

’While the Secretary thus repeats the preference he has heretofore expressed for a United States note circulation, even when issued direct by the Government, and dependent on the action of the Government for regulation and final redemption, over the note circulation of the numerous and variously organized and variously responsible banks now existing in the country; and while he now sets forth, more fully than heretofore, the grounds of that preference, he still adheres to the opinion expressed in his last Report, that a circulation furnished by the Government, but issued by banking associations, organized under a general act of Congress, is to be preferred to either.  Such a circulation, uniform in general characteristics, and amply secured as to prompt convertibility by national bonds deposited in the treasury, by the associations receiving it, would unite, in his judgment, more elements of soundness and utility than can be combined in any other.

’A circulation composed exclusively of notes issued directly by the Government, or of such notes and coin, is recommended mainly by two considerations:—­the first derived from the facility with which it may be provided in emergencies, and the second, from its cheapness.

’The principal objections to such a circulation as a permanent system are, 1st, the facility of excessive expansion when expenditures