The letter addressed by Secretary Chase, of the Treasury Department, to the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, and to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, under date June 7th, 1862, suggested the power by Congress to the treasury to issue $150,000,000 in treasury notes, in addition to this sum, authorized by the act of February 25th, 1862; also, authority to receive fifty millions of dollars on deposit, in addition to fifty millions previously authorized by Congress.  These suggestions were favorably considered in both Houses, and the recommendations of the Secretary were adopted fully, leading to the adoption of a national system of finance, which will eventually reestablish and preserve national credit.  Fears have been expressed in some quarters that this increased volume of paper money would be a public evil, and serve to disturb the value of property and the price of labor.  This might be reasonably anticipated if the country were at peace, and the Government expenditures were upon a peace footing.

But a state of things exists now in this country hitherto unknown.  The contracts of the Government involve the expenditure of larger sums than were ever paid before in the same space of time by this or any other Government.  In the disbursements of these large sums it is an obvious duty of Congress to provide a national circulation of uniform value throughout the whole country—­a circulation of a perfectly reliable character, not subject in the least to the ordinary vicissitudes of trade or to the revulsions which have frequently marked our history.  These revulsions have been witnessed, and their results seen by the leading public men of the century.  Mr. Madison saw at an early day the importance of creating and sustaining a government circulation.  His language was:  ’It is essential to every modification of the finances that the benefits of an uniform national currency should be restored to the community.’

Mr. Calhoun, in 1816, said:  ’By a sort of undercurrent, the power of Congress to regulate the money of the country has caved in, and upon its ruin have sprung up those institutions which now exercise the right of making money in and for the United States.’

‘It is the duty of government,’ says a well known writer, ’to interfere to regulate every business or pursuit that might otherwise become publicly injurious.  On this principle it interferes to prevent the circulation of spurious coin.’  Counterfeit coin is more readily detected than a fictitious paper currency, yet no sane man would advocate the repeal of the laws which prohibit it.  Why, then, permit the unlimited manufacture of paper money of an unreliable character?

In the consideration of this subject we should divest ourselves of all selfish views of private profit and advantage.  We should look only to the public good, to stability in trade and commerce, and to the general interests of the people at large as distinguished from those of a few individuals.  It is clearly then the province of government to establish and to regulate the paper money of the nation, so that it shall possess the following attributes: