By the curtailment
of paper issues, by curbing the sanguine and adventurous spirit of
speculation, and by the honorable application of all available means to
the fulfillment of obligations, confidence has been restored both at
home and abroad, and ease and facility secured to all the operations
of trade.
The agency of the Government in producing these results has been as
efficient as its powers and means permitted. By withholding from the
States the deposit of the fourth installment, and leaving several
millions at long credits with the banks, principally in one section of
the country, and more immediately beneficial to it, and at the same
time aiding the banks and commercial communities in other sections by
postponing the payment of bonds for duties to the amount of between four
and five millions of dollars; by an issue of Treasury notes as a means
to enable the Government to meet the consequences of their indulgences,
but affording at the same time facilities for remittance and exchange;
and by steadily declining to employ as general depositories of the
public revenues, or receive the notes of, all banks which refused to
redeem them with specie--by these measures, aided by the favorable
action of some of the banks and by the support and cooperation of a
large portion of the community, we have witnessed an early resumption
of specie payments in our great commercial capital, promptly followed
in almost every part of the United States.
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