’Another and very important advantage of the proposed plan has already been adverted to.  It will reconcile, as far as practicable, the interest of existing institutions with those of the whole people.

’All changes, however important, should be introduced with caution, and proceeded in with careful regard to every affected interest.  Rash innovation is not less dangerous than stupefied inaction.  The time has come when a circulation of United States notes, in some form, must be employed.  The people demand uniformity in currency, and claim, at least, part of the benefit of debt without interest, made into money, hitherto enjoyed exclusively by the banks.  These demands are just and must be respected.  But there need be no sudden change; there need be no hurtful interference with existing interests.  As yet the United States note circulation hardly fills the vacuum caused by the temporary withdrawal of coin; it does not, perhaps, fully meet the demand for increased circulation created by the increased number, variety, and activity of payments in money.  There is opportunity, therefore, for the wise and beneficial regulation of its substitution for other circulation.  The mode of substitution, also, may be judiciously adapted to actual circumstances.  The plan suggested consults both purposes.  It contemplates gradual withdrawal of bank note circulation, and proposes a United States note circulation, furnished to banking associations, in the advantages of which they may participate in full proportion to the care and responsibility assumed and the services performed by them.  The promptitude and zeal with which many of the existing institutions came to the financial support of the Government in the dark days which followed the outbreak of the rebellion is not forgotten.  They ventured largely, and boldly, and patriotically on the side of the Union and the constitutional supremacy of the nation over States and citizens.  It does not at all detract from the merit of the act that the losses, which they feared but unhesitatingly risked, were transmuted into unexpected gains.  It is a solid recommendation of the suggested plan that it offers the opportunity to these and kindred institutions to reorganize, continue their business under the proposed act, and with little loss and much advantage, participate in maintaining the new and uniform national currency.

’The proposed plan is recommended, finally, by the firm anchorage it will supply to the union of the States.  Every banking association whose bonds are deposited in the treasury of the Union; every individual who holds a dollar of the circulation secured by such deposit; every merchant, every manufacturer, every farmer, every mechanic, interested in transactions dependent for success on the credit of that circulation, will feel as an injury every attempt to rend the national unity, with