Hundred-dollar bill

“ On its way through the presses the bills are counted and checked many times to make sure that none go astray or are pocketed by employees. So carefully is this done that only once in the last twenty years has a single bill been unaccounted for. When a paper note is permanently lost or destroyed after being issued Uncle Sam is very much the gainer, for it costs him, on the average, only about one cent to print a dollar bill. If the bill is only torn or partly destroyed, the government will redeem it. ”

“ He next selected a bright silver dollar, but, true to his better nature, he acknowledged its insufficiency, and swept it after the five-dollar bill. His third move was a compromise. He took twenty-four two-dollar bills, looked at them for a moment regretfully, then gathered them in his hand and walked toward where the clerks were just finishing and locking up for the night. ”

“ The capitalists and banks on both sides of the Atlantic will not buy a bond at par in gold, when it is almost certain, from the overwhelming vote in the House, and the known attitude of the Senate, that a silver bill, making the old silver dollar a legal tender for all private and public obligations, will pass both Houses this winter. ”

“ Mason said, bitterly, "but the fact is that the twenty dollar bill Frank took from the strange man is no good. It is bad money, and no one but a child would take it. It's a bill that was gotten out by the Confederate states during the Civil War, and of course their money isn't any better than waste-paper now. I don't see how Frank was fooled that way. ”

“ What they want is a cheaper dollar that would pay debts easier. Others do not want either silver or gold, but want numbers, numerals, the fruit of the printing-press, to be fixed every year by Congress as we do an appropriation bill. ”

“ If we just stay with the same trends of the last 4 years, by the end of the decade the deficit will be $635 billion a year, almost 80 percent of our gross domestic product. And paying interest on that debt will be the costliest Government program of all. We'll still be the world's largest debtor. And when Members of Congress come here, they'll be devoting over 20 cents on the dollar to interest payments, more than half of the budget to health care and to other entitlements. And you'll come here and deliberate and argue over 6 or 7 cents on the dollar, no matter what America's problems are. ”

“ These are circumstances that impose the necessity of rigid economy and require its prompt and constant exercise. With the Legislature rest the power and duty of so adjusting the public expenditure as to promote this end. By the provisions of the Constitution it is only in consequence of appropriations made by law that money can be drawn from the Treasury. No instance has occurred since the establishment of the Government in which the Executive, though a component part of the legislative power, has interposed an objection to an appropriation bill on the sole ground of its extravagance. ”

“ Another suggestion has been made; that paper currency, which has a fund assigned for its redemption by the state, which authorizes its issue, does not constitutionally fall within the description of "bills of credit." The latter words (it is said) appropriately import bills drawn on credit merely, and not bottomed upon any real or substantial fund for their redemption; and there is a material, and well known distinction between a bill drawn upon a fund, and one drawn upon credit only. ”

“ Different persons, doubtless, will devise different schemes of relief. One would be to suppress instantly the currency of all paper not issued under the authority of our own State or of the General Government; to interdict after a few months the circulation of all bills of five dollars and under; after a few months more, all of ten dollars and under; after other terms, those of twenty, fifty, and so on to one hundred dollars, which last, if any must be left in circulation, should be the lowest denomination. ”

“ Well, if congress has power to alter men’s contracts, after they are made, by altering the meaning of the word dollar, and thus reducing the value of the debt, it has a precisely equal power to increase the value of the dollar, and thus compel the debtor to pay more than he agreed to pay. ”

“ As soon as the banks suspended, gold and silver ceased to circulate as money. You cannot sell your bonds for gold and silver, which is the only money that can now be received under the sub-treasury law. This currency made a legal tender was necessary to aid in making further loans. I insisted that the bill was constitutional. The Senator from Vermont has read extracts from the debates in the national convention, and from Story's 'Commentaries,' tending to show that Congress cannot authorize the issue of bills of credit. ”

“ If Congress will appropriate $750,000 for the purpose the President names in his message, and sees to it that the money is judiciously and intelligently disbursed, it is the opinion of The Man on the Ladder that not less than $100,000,000 annually would be saved in government expenditures, or one hundred millions more of service, material, equipment, etc., delivered for the money now expended. ”

“ When a man did occasionally get a dollar he was not sure it would be worth its face value when the next boat would arrive with a new Bank Note Reporter. Married men considered themselves very fortunate when they could get, on Saturday night, an order on a grocery or dry goods store for four or five dollars, and the single men seldom received more than $2 or $3 cash. That was not more than half enough to pay their board bill. This state of affairs continued until the Press was started in 1861, when Gov. ”

“ It will be asked, how will the two masses of Continental and of State money have cost the people of the United States seventy-two millions of dollars, when they are to be redeemed, now, with about six millions? I answer, that the difference, being sixty-six millions, has been lost on the paper bills, separately, by the successive holders of them. Every one, through whose hands a bill passed, lost on that bill what it lost in value, during the time it was in his hands. ”

“ A real debate at that stage occurs only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the House want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first effective debate upon its merits opens. The procedure upon money bills, which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. There can be no doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill. ”

“ To avoid the folly of locking up large amounts of money received for taxes each year on the one hand, or permitting stock-gamblers and money-sharks, on the other hand, to use it, each district was allowed by law to issue district banknotes of one dollar denomination, guaranteed by the Government, drawing two per cent. a year interest up to eighty per cent. ”

“ Every one of them expresses upon its face an engagement of the nation to pay to the bearer a certain sum. The dollar note is an engagement to pay a dollar, and the dollar intended is the coined dollar of the United States; a certain quantity in weight and fineness of gold or silver, authenticated as such by the stamp of the government. No other dollars had before been recognized by the legislation of the national government as lawful money.
Would, then, their usefulness and value as means to the exercise of the functions of government, be injuriously affected by State taxation? ”

“ The inflationists, as all those who favored United States notes as part of our permanent currency were called, refused to vote for the bill if any such provision was inserted, while those who favored coin payments were equally positive that they would vote for no bill that permitted notes once redeemed to be reissued. ”

“ Now, suppose we add to that danger a hundred millions of dollars that the Secretary of the Treasury can put in this community or that, in this bank or that, at his pleasure; is not the power of the executive perilously increased? Is it right that the use of this vast sum should be a matter of mere favoritism, that the Secretary should be allowed to put $10,000,000 of this surplus in Indianapolis and none of it in Kansas City, or $75,000,000 in New York and none in Indianapolis? If the money is used in buying bonds it finds its natural place—goes where it belongs. ”

“ It was indeed an absurdity to call a body a legislature, and at the same time deny them a control over the public purse. If it were not so, where would be the use of going through the forms of that house with a money bill? The executive might as well draw upon the treasury at once for whatever sums he might stand in need of. ”

“ In order to raise money by way of loans most easily and cheaply, it is clearly necessary to give every possible support to the public credit. To that end a uniform currency, in which taxes, subscriptions to loans, and all other ordinary public dues, as well as all private dues, may be paid, is almost, if not quite, indispensable. Such a currency can be furnished by banking associations, organized under a general act of Congress, as suggested in my message at the beginning of the present session. ”

“ But, nevertheless, Congress should later pass a permanent currency bill, a bill which will settle every question as to the finances of the nation, at once and for a century to come. Such a bill is possible, and in fact it would be the simplest kind of measure for the Government to adopt—one to provide for just the kind of currency, and the amount of currency the business of the nation, the banks, and the people should have; one to provide for a perfectly elastic currency without creating the slightest depreciation of money or danger of loss to banks or Government. ”

“ The whole of it is pledged to the bills which are piled upon our tables, and which we cannot get passed; for the opposition is strong enough to arrest the appropriations, to dam up the money in the treasury; and then call that a surplus which would now be in a course of expenditure, if the necessary appropriation bills could be passed.
"The public defences will require near one hundred millions of dollars; the annual amount required for these defences alone amount to thirteen or fourteen millions. ”

“ A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills 67 miles high. The interest on the public debt this year we know will be over $90 billion, and unless we change the proposed spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, we'll add another almost $80 billion to the debt. ”

“ The banks of New York and Boston endeavored to force upon the government a fiscal policy more acceptable to them, and a strong element in Congress, of which more will be heard in the next chapter, not only entertained a similar desire, but seemed willing to impair the credit of the administration. At length, on the nineteenth of January, 1848, a bill was introduced, and after a further delay another long debate opened. "How is the loan bill getting on, Sir?"' inquired a newspaper correspondent of a Representative of the People after it had been on the tapis for about a month. ”

“ Still more preposterous is the fabulous notion that we can issue paper money enough to secure to everybody who wants it a loan, or to discount every man's note at as low a rate of interest as he desires. It is indeed incredible that such propositions should be seriously advanced and advocated on the floor of the Senate of the United States. Why, we might as well in the shortest way solve the problem by saying: Let every man issue his note for all his debts, past, present and prospective; and then let us enact a law making that note legal-tender. ”

“ Make a loan payable in irredeemable currency, and pay that in its depreciated condition to our contractors, soldiers, and creditors generally! The banks would issue unlimited amounts of what would become trash, and buy good hard-money bonds of the nation. Was there ever such a temptation to swindle? The gentleman from New York further proposes to issue $200,000,000 United-States notes, redeemable in coin in one year. Does he not know that such notes must be dishonored, and the plighted faith of the government be broken? If we are to use suspended notes to pay our expenses, why not use our own? ”

“ We are just in the midst of loans, and taxes, and new and extravagant expenditures, and scraping high and low to find money to support the government. Congress was called together to provide revenue; and we begin with throwing away what we have. We have just passed a bill to borrow twelve millions, which will cost the people sixteen millions to pay. We have a bill on the calendar—the next one in order—to tax every thing now free, and to raise every tax now low, to raise eight or ten millions for the government, at the cost of eighteen or twenty to the people. ”

“ We are now without any medium; and necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence, will make us all eager to receive Treasury notes if founded on specific taxes. Congress may now borrow of the public, and without interest, all the money they may want, to the amount of a competent circulation, by merely issuing their own promissory notes of proper denominations for the larger purposes of circulation, but not for the small. Leave that door open for the entrance of metallic money.... The State legislatures should be immediately urged to relinquish the right of establishing banks of discount. ”