The contest was an exceedingly close one. The arguments
in support of the free coinage of silver were specious and
dangerous. Undoubtedly for a time, and more than once, they
converted a majority of the American people. The battle for
honest money would have been lost but for the wisdom of the
Republican statesmen who planted the party not only upon the
doctrine of theoretical bimetallism, but also upon the doctrine
that the question of the standard of value must be settled
by the concurrence of the commercial nations of the world
and that if there were to be one metal as a standard, gold,
the most valuable metal, was the fittest for the purpose.
That was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton. To have avowed
any other principle would have reinforced our opponents with
the powerful authority of Hamilton and all his disciples
down to the year 1873.
The war taxes have been abolished. The weight of the burden
which has been in that way lifted from the shoulders of the
people may perhaps be understood from the statement of a single
fact. The Worcester District, which I represented, paid in
the direct form of taxes to the National Treasury the enormous
sum of $3,662,727 for the year ending June 30, 1866.
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