The Currency Question

Kev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Yale Divinity School, has written ra open letter to Cougressinan Phelps, of New Jersey, in which, atter complimpiiting Mr. Phelps on his speech ou the currency question, he says : Sooner or later bitter experience will make the people know that dishonored promises to pay money - promises issued with a delibérate intention to break tfaem - are not money but lies. Sinipletons in Cóngreas as well as elsewhere - or, if not simpletons, then knaves - are giving out that greenbaoks will circuíate as moDey so long as the people have confidence in the government ; but have those wiseaores inquired how long the people can be expected to have coufidenco in a goverument which, instead of redeoming its promises and dealing honestly with citizens who happen to have pecuniary claims against it issue fraudulent lies by the million, and is, always ready to redeein one lie with another 'i I do not write this because you need any encouragement from me, but tor the sake of a suggestion which I have thought of making privately to the Representative from my own district, Mr. Kellogg, or to one of the Senators from Connecticut, but which may as well be offered, through you, to all whom it may concern. My suggestion is that those merubers of Congress, or perhaps those Representatives, who believe that the Government of the United States ought to redeem its dishonored notes at the earliest possible day, be invited to meet, formally or informally, without distinction of party, for consultation on this grave question of national honor and national prosperity : and that, by a comparison of views and by such mutual oonoessiona as may be honestly made by patriotic men in such an exigency, they agree on sonie definite measure as the first step toward making every treasury note equal in value to the face of it - a measure which they will introduce into Congress, and will stand for and vote for in a compact body, and for which, if defeated, as probably they wiil be in this Congress, they will appeal to the people. Everybody knows that this currency question is not at all a .question between the Republican party and the Democratie. Both parties are pledged, by their latest platform, to the same policy on this subject - the policy of honestly pnying the debt represented by hishonored treasury notes, while in Congress the member of each party regard the pledges given in those platforms just as they regard the greenback promises issued in the name of the nation - promises that may be circulated among the people, but need not be redeomed. Neither party dares to hold a caucus for the purpose of deciding what shall be done on the most momentous question that has arisen in this country since the abclition of slavery. - To me the fact is proof that both parties are moribund. As parties they dare not face the question of the hour. In relation to that question they are just where the Whig party was in relation to slavery; and as the Whig party died because it dared not and could not grapple with the question which overshadowed all other questions, so both these parties may die when the question which they dare not meet shall grapple them. UYour own fidelity, therefore, to the Republican party is not compromised by the earnestness and force with which you have spoken on one side the currency question, while so many of your associates in the same party have spoken and voted on the other side. They, in connection with certain Democrats, are a majority ; you, and ceitain other niembers - some Democrats and souie Republicans - are a minority. Who can deny to such a ininority the right of meeting and consulting in order to ogree to that course which, in their united judginent, is best for them to take in this emergency 'i Let me say to that minority, .great national interests are dependent on your standing as a compact and firm minority against the policy to which a majority in the Senate and in the House of Representatives are so recklessly committing themselves and the country ; and if you are not mere partisans, to whom their party is more than their country - if you are free and patriotic men- you will not be afraid to do so, come what may to eitlier or both of the existing parties."