MR. LAWYER: I will gladly do so. "Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no legal tender, in this country, under the authority of this Government or any other, but gold and silver, either the coinage of our own mints, or foreign coins, at rates regulated by Congress. This is a constitutional principle, perfectly plain, and of the very highest importance. The states are expressly prohibited from making anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts; and although no such express prohibition is applied to Congress, yet as Congress has no power granted to it, in this respect, but to coin money and to regulate the value of foreign coins, it clearly has no power to substitute paper, or anything else, for coin, as a tender in payment of debts and in discharge of contracts. Congress has exercised this power, fully, in both its branches. It has coined money, and still coins it; it has regulated the value of foreign coins, and still regulates their value. The legal tender, therefore, the constitutional standard of value is established and cannot be overthrown. To overthrow it would shake the whole system. The constitutional tender is the thing to be preserved, and it ought to be preserved sacredly, under all circumstances."
MR. MERCHANT: Well, Mr. Lawyer, what do you really think about the constitutional question now?
MR. LAWYER: In the light of the facts preceding the Constitutional Convention, the personal opinions of those who framed it, and what they actually did in the convention, I will admit I have not a leg to stand on. The story of our experience so well told by you gentlemen demonstrating the utter unwisdom of government issues of money, and the overwhelming evidence on the constitutional question has completely converted me to your contention. But I was relying in a sort of a blind way upon the fact that our Supreme Court has held that the United States notes were lawfully issued. How about that? Have you investigated it?
MR. BANKER: I have, but the story of the Greenback will take the best part of another night. Therefore, I move we adjourn. It is enough glory for one night to have a layman knock out a lawyer upon a constitutional question.