Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[953] to save this great experiment of government, republican in form, and freedom for all, for them and for our posterity forever, and they owe us some debt of gratitude for that so great boon; and should we who bore all the suffering and agony bear also all the taxation consequent upon this great work?

But I do not desire that the greenback currency should be made to serve the country as it has done, vilified, insulted, depreciated by the act of the government itself; being refused not only to be received for all debts due the government, but not even paid for all demands due from the government.

The “American system of finance,” which will obtain in the near future,--and I hope at once,--which I desire is:

First. A dollar that shall have at all times a certain fixed and stable value below which it cannot go.

Second. I demand that that dollar shall be issued by the government alone, in the exercise of its high prerogative and constitutional power, and that that power shall not be delegated to any corporation or individual, any more than Charles the Second ought to have delegated his prerogative of stamping gold coin for the benefit of his paramours, as a monopoly.

Third. I want that dollar stamped upon some convenient and cheap material of the least possible intrinsic value, so that neither its wear nor its destruction will be any loss to the government issuing it.

Fourth. I also desire the dollar to be made of such material for the purpose that it shall never be exported or desirable to carry out of the country. Framing an American system of finance I do not propose to adapt it to the wants of any other nation and especially the Chinese, who are nearly one quarter of the world.

Fifth. I desire that the dollar so issued shall never be redeemed. I see no more reason why the unit of measure of value should be redeemed or redeemable, than that the yard-stick with which I measure my cloth or the quart with which I measure my milk should be redeemed.

Sixth. For convenience only, I propose that the dollar so issued shall be quite equal to or a little better than the present value of the average gold dollar of the world, not to be changed or changeable, if the gold dollar grows lower in value, or grows higher, or to be obliged to conform itself in value in any regard to the dollars of any other nation of the world, keeping itself always stable and fixed so that when all the property of the country adjusts itself to it as a measure of value it shall remain a fixed standard forever. But if it is ever changed, it shall change equally and alike for the creditor and the debtor; not as the dollar based upon supposed gold whose changes always have given the creditor the advantage.