Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/341

Rh Mr. Chase’s three great measures were the Abolition of State Banks and the substitution of the National Banking System, the issue of the United States legal tender notes, and the issue of the Five-Twenty Bonds. In combination, as a financial system, they enabled the country to carry a debt of three thousand million dollars, and it is probable that a debt of six thousand million would not have paralyzed the public credit. It is an instance of the frailty of human nature, when men are in the presence of great temptations, that when he became Chief Justice of the United States, he announced the opinion that the issue of United States legal tender notes was unconstitutional. That measure was the key to his financial system, and a measure indispensable to the prosecution of the war. It was a forced loan, but in an exigency a government has as good a right to force capital into the public service as to force men. If in 1862 Mr. Chase had acted upon the doctrine set forth in his judicial opinion in the Hepburn and Griswold case, the probability is that the government of Mr. Lincoln would have been reduced financially to an equality with the government of the Confederate States. The ultimate reversal of that opinion is the most important act of the Supreme Court. It gives to the political department of the Government, the power to convert all the resources of the country into the means of defence in time of war, foreign or domestic.

While I held the office of commissioner of internal revenue, I had occasion to consult Mr. Bates, then Attorney-General. He was a kind hearted gentleman, but lacking in vigor and official independence.

There was no provision in the statute for a cashier. The law contemplated that the money would be paid to the commissioner. As it was impossible for me to perform that duty personally, I asked Mr. Chase for authority to appoint Mr. Marshall Conant, who had been and perhaps then was