Specie payments

“ The resumption of specie payments is the only rational one, for no other system will remove current values from the reach of the arbitrary power of Government; no other can give to current values that stability without which no safe business calculations can be made; no other can restore that confidence which is the first prerequisite of a new period of prosperity. But the resumption of specie payments is also the only possible solution. ”

“ Every man who paid to or received from the government, paid or received as much less than he ought to have done, as was the difference between the medium in which the payment was effected and specie. Taxes were no longer uniform. In New England, where specie payments had not been suspended, the people were called upon to pay larger contributions than where they were suspended. ”

“ Indeed, it was then entirely feasible for the Government to have resumed specie payments, as any demand upon the Treasury for gold could have been met with proceeds of bonds sold in Europe. It was my opinion, however, that it would be wiser to delay resumption until the balance of trade should be so much in our favor that specie payments could be maintained by our own resources. And this was accomplished in less than six years. It is with a state as it is with an individual. ”

“ Therefore it is that specie payments, or a specie standard, is pressed by the great body of intelligent men who study these questions, as an indispensable prerequisite for steady business and good times.
"Now, most of you will agree to all this, and will only differ as to the mode, or time, and manner; but there is a large class of people who believe that paper can be, and ought to be, made into money without any promise or hope of redemption; that a note should be printed: 'This is a dollar,' and be made a legal tender. ”

“ But I can not permit myself to doubt that, when with the actual resumption of specie payments, a better order of things and a revival of prosperity dawns upon us, the American people will be disposed to approach this question also with a more dispassionate and clearer judgment. ”

“ Now, Mr. president, that is all there is in regard to banking in this bill and also in regard to the retirement of the United States notes until the time for the resumption of specie payments comes, when this bill provides for actual redemption in coin of all notes presented. It has always been a question in the minds of many people as to whether it is wise to fix a day for specie payments. ”

“ Every citizen in this respect would be a law to himself. If he chose in his own business to resume specie payments, he could do so. There would be a voluntary resumption by the people, one by one. But this influence could not be confined to the immediate parties. Beyond the contagion of its example, there would be a positive necessity on the part of the banks that they should adapt themselves to the exigency by the substitution of proper commercial equivalents; and thus again we take another step in specie payments. ”

“ He would punish suspension of specie payments by a bank with a forfeiture of its charter and the imprisonment of its president and officers. A national bank, he said, was "the only practicable expedient for restoring and maintaining specie payments." In the extra session he showed that the deposit banks of the South already held [Pg 336] more money of the government than their States would receive, if the last installment of distribution should be paid, while the Northern banks held far less of that money than the Northern States were to receive. ”

“ The large amount of specie now in the United States, reaching a total of not less than two hundred and seventy-five millions of dollars, will easily support payments of duties in coin, while these payments and ordinary demands will aid in retaining this specie in the country as a solid basis both of circulation and loans. ”

“ The shock of this discovery to his financial principles was serious; much more serious than the shock of the Terebratula and Pteraspis to his principles of geology. A mistake about Evolution was not fatal; a mistake about specie payments would destroy forever the last hope of employment in State Street. ”

“ The hard-money men have made their record, and the soft-money men have got the repeal, and no longer any excuse for not carrying their States. I think that the matter is in the best possible shape. The party is committed to specie payments by the platform and your admirable letter, and by Hendricks' mushy acquiescence.
"Immediately afterwards we passed a concurrent resolution establishing a commission to consider the silver question and the resumption of specie payments. So that we can say that we have made provision for investigation and the elaboration of a practical scheme for resumption. ”

“ But it may be stated as the conviction of the writer that a mere return to specie payments, though beneficial, will not do all for the country that its advocates claim. Something more will be required—that is, economy, curtailment of expenses, national and individual—before we can reach bottom. ”

“ On the 21st of February, still aiming at the same end, they announced the resumption of specie payment. The State Banks, remembering the embarrassment of the public, which for two years had paid an exchange of 6 per cent., persuaded themselves that few people would dare to ask for large sums. They hoped to come to an understanding and to cause the acceptance of a promise to pay upon a designated day.
We say "a promise to pay," for this was not a serious proposition, inasmuch as foreign money and that of the United States had enjoyed a higher market value for a long time. ”

“ What is the use of fining a man a nominal sum, when he has a wealthy collector behind his back, ready and willing to pay all his expenses, with a substantial margin for himself to boot? Is this likely to prove any deterrent? I would have every bird that was not proved to be distinctly injurious to agricultural or horticultural produce properly protected for a certain season by a proper law, properly enforced; and should any bonâ fide collectors desire eggs or specimens of any particular species, they should, on payment of a fixed fee, receive a proper permit to acquire the same. ”

“ In one of the Year Books of the Department we read that the annual loss to the cotton crop of the United States by insects amounts to sixty million dollars. We learn, too, that grasshoppers and other insects annually destroy fifty-three million dollars' worth of hay and that two million dollars' worth of cereals are each year eaten by our insect population. In fact, we are told that one-tenth of all the cereals, hay, cotton, tobacco, forests, and general farm products is the yearly tax which insects levy and collect. ”

“ The accumulation of eighty millions in the brief space of five years, fifteen millions of it in gold, attest the sincerity of their design, and the facility of its execution. The country was going on at the rate of an average increase of twelve millions of specie per annum, when the general stoppages of the banks in May last, the exportation of specie, and the imposition of irredeemable paper upon the government and the people, seemed to announce the total failure of the plan. ”

“ Other measures governments could take to confront the crisis of disappearing species, recognizing that it constitutes a major resource and development challenge, include consideration of species conservation needs and opportunities in land use planning and the explicit incorporation of their genetic resource stocks into national accounting systems. This could entail establishing a natural-resource accounting system that directs particular attention to species as high-value yet little-appreciated resources. ”

“ Livestock– For each of fiscal years 2014 through 2018, at least 60 percent of the funds made available for payments under the program shall be targeted at practices relating to livestock production.
(2) Wildlife habitat– For each of fiscal years 2014 through 2018, 5 percent of the funds made available for payments under the program shall be targeted at practices benefitting wildlife habitat. ”

“ If it should be charged that the system supplies no specie for exportation; the answer is, that it is really no part of the legitimate business of a bank to furnish specie for exportation. Its legitimate business is simply to furnish credit and currency for home industry and trade. And it can never furnish these constantly, and in adequate amounts, unless it can be freed from the obligation to supply specie on demand for exportation. Specie should, therefore, always be merely an article of merchandise in the market, like any other ”

“ If, therefore, a country has a metallic circulation, there is an immediate financial resource at the disposal of the government, in case of war or other calamity,—a resource which is strictly limited, however, in its amount to the amount of this metallic circulation. It is not necessary that the specie should be drawn into the public treasury. It suffices to suspend specie payment and issue treasury notes which will displace the specie without depreciation, until the limit of the specie circulation is reached. ”

“ For the reasons now given, the system is practically the best specie paying system that was ever invented. That is to say, it would require less specie to work it; and also less to keep its bills always at par with specie. In proportion to the amount of currency it would furnish, it would not require so much as one dollar in specie, where the so called specie paying system would require a hundred. It would also, by immensely increasing our production and exports, do far more than any other system, towards bringing specie into the country, and preventing its exportation. ”

“ I do not mean our practical indebtedness to insects for honey and bees'-wax, silk and satin, cochineal and lacquer, or a hundred other such-like useful products: these, indeed, are many and valuable in their own way, though far less so than the tribute we draw from most of the other great classes of animal life. But there is one debt we owe them so out of all proportion to their size and relative importance in the world that it is strange it should so seldom meet with due recognition. ”

“ In no country is more harm done by insects than in the United States. The losses to live stock and to plants, both growing and stored, resulting from insects are greater than all the expenses of the National Government, including the pension roll and the yearly maintenance of the army and navy.
Immense as is the value of our farm products, it would be much greater if it were not for the work of these insects. Careful calculations indicate that this loss will amount to not less than the enormous sum of $1,100,000,000 annually and probably far more. The loss is usually estimated at ten per cent. ”

“ Economic Loss from Insects.—The money value of crops, forest trees, stored foods, and other material destroyed annually by insects is beyond belief. It is estimated that they get one tenth of the country's crops, at the lowest estimate a matter of some $300,000,000 yearly. ”

“ But even though public effort may be concentrated on a few species, all species are important and deserve some degree of attention: this might take the form of tax credits to farmers willing to maintain primitive cultivars, an end to incentives to clear virgin forest, the promotion of research attention from local universities, and the preparation of basic inventories of native flora and fauna by national institutions. ”

“ First, If the very useless prohibition of the exportation of specie, however it might be profitable to those who could export it, could have possibly been put in force, 60 millions of real cash added, in a country where 20 millions perhaps are sufficient for circulation, must have doubled at least the price of every thing ”

“ THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF BIRDS
To-day, from Halifax to Los Angeles, and from Key West to Victoria, a deadly contest is being waged. The fruit-growers, farmers, forest owners and "park people" are engaged in a struggle with the insect hordes for the possession of the trees, shrubs and crops. Go out into the open, with your eyes open, and you will see it for yourself. Millions of dollars are being expended in it. ”

“ A brief study of the question from an economic point of view, aside from the æsthetic, leads us to hope that the time is not far distant when the several States will afford a uniform protection to all of the native fowls of the air, regardless of whether they be game birds, song birds, or “other” birds, at least until such time as a long-continued investigation will prove beyond a doubt that the restriction of the numbers of any species is of substantive value from an economic standpoint. ”

“ To amend the Endangered Species Act to prevent a species that is not native to the United States from being listed as an endangered species or a threatened species, to prohibit certain types of financial assistance, and for other purposes. ”

“ The parties never contracted that the price to be paid for the wood was to be equivalent to any amount of specie. The price contracted for was one dollar per cord. Specie at that time was worth twenty-one dollars to one of Confederate currency. ”

“ The question presented in this case is whether taxpayers engaged in the livestock business who use an accrual method of accounting for animals raised for sale may employ a cash method of accounting for animals raised for breeding purposes, in order to take advantage of a federal income tax benefit available to cash-method taxpayers when breeding animals are sold.
The respondents are ranchers engaged in the business of raising livestock for sale. As an important element of their business, the respondents maintain herds of livestock used for breeding purposes. ”