Of my own duties under the existing laws, when the banks suspended specie payments, I could not doubt.  Directions were immediately given to prevent the reception into the Treasury of anything but gold and silver, or its equivalent, and every practicable arrangement was made to preserve the public faith by similar or equivalent payments to the public creditors.  The revenue from lands had been for some time substantially so collected under the order issued by directions of my predecessor.  The effects of that order had been so salutary and its forecast in regard to the increasing insecurity of bank paper had become so apparent that even before the catastrophe I had resolved not to interfere with its operation.  Congress is now to decide whether the revenue shall continue to be so collected or not.

The receipt into the Treasury of bank notes not redeemed in specie on demand will not, I presume, be sanctioned.  It would destroy without the excuse of war or public distress that equality of imposts and identity of commercial regulation which lie at the foundation of our Confederacy, and would offer to each State a direct temptation to increase its foreign trade by depreciating the currency received for duties in its ports.  Such a proceeding would also in a great degree frustrate the policy so highly cherished of infusing into our circulation a larger proportion of the precious metals—­a policy the wisdom of which none can doubt, though there may be different opinions as to the extent to which it should be carried.  Its results have been already too auspicious and its success is too closely interwoven with the future prosperity of the country to permit us for a moment to contemplate its abandonment.  We have seen under its influence our specie augmented beyond eighty millions, our coinage increased so as to make that of gold amount, between August, 1834, and December, 1836, to $10,000,000, exceeding the whole coinage at the Mint during the thirty-one previous years.

The prospect of further improvement continued without abatement until the moment of the suspension of specie payments.  This policy has now, indeed, been suddenly checked, but is still far from being overthrown.  Amidst all conflicting theories, one position is undeniable—­the precious metals will invariably disappear when there ceases to be a necessity for their use as a circulating medium.  It was in strict accordance with this truth that whilst in the month of May last they were everywhere seen and were current for all ordinary purposes they disappeared from circulation the moment the payment of specie was refused by the banks and the community tacitly agreed to dispense with its employment.  Their place was supplied by a currency exclusively of paper, and in many cases of the worst description.  Already are the bank notes now in circulation greatly depreciated, and they fluctuate in value between one place and another, thus diminishing and making uncertain the worth of property and the price of labor, and failing