Resumption and the Double Standard; or the impossibility of resuming specie payments in the United States without restoring the double standard of gold and silver

The question of whether gold or silver should be the basis of American currency, or whether both should be used (the Double Standard) was argued for decades. The "Resumption and the Double Standard"; or the Impossibility of Resuming Specie Payments in the United States Without Restoring the Double Standard of Gold and Silver. -- A Speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 24, 1876, by John P. Jones, Senator from Nevada was a major speech in favor of the Double Standard. In it Mr. Jones proposed to address the following eleven major points (somewhat abridged from his actual words on pages 6 to 8 of the speech):

1. Set forth the function and nature of money, the various substances which have been used for money…
2. Show that the use of money and the preference of the precious metals for both money were both natural and voluntary acts…
3. Trace the stock of the precious metals in the world from the earliest period…
4. Restore the double standard of gold and silver which existed from 1792 to 1873..
5. Review the relative value of gold and silver from the earliest times to the present...up to 1873 it scarcely varied from its pivotal point of 15 ½ to 1…
6. The principal and almost only cause of aberration in this relation...edicts and enactments...which have interfered with the freedom of money…
7. The impracticability of abolishing the double standard is greatly strengthened by reference to the annual supplies of gold and silver…
8. Show the impossibility of resuming specie payments in gold…
9. Endeavor to show that the effect of remonetizing silver, or rehabilitating the double standard, will be to equalize more nearly the value of the metals…
10. Endeavor to show that both gold and silver together at a relation fixed by law is the constitutional money of the country..
11. Finally, I will quote the authority of the most eminent legislators and publicists in favor of the double standard…

The speech is contained in a 128 page booklet, with detached front cover and missing rear cover, that measures approximately 5 ¾ x 8 ½ inches. The booklet is string bound, with pages that are only mildly tanned. The text is clear and easily read. The overall condition of the booklet is very good.

The pictures accompanying this description show the booklet's front cover, first page of text, and a typical 2-page spread of text and data.

John Percival Jones (January 27, 1829 – November 12, 1912) was an American politician who served for 30 years as a Republican United States Senator from Nevada. He made a fortune in silver mining and was a co-founder of the town of Santa Monica, CA. In 1873 he was elected by the Nevada state legislature to the United States Senate, in which he served five terms from 1873 to 1903. He served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Auditing the Contingent Expenses from 1877 to 1881 and from 1883 to 1893, and as chairman of the committee on epidemic diseases from 1893 to 1903. Jones was involved with the minting of the Twenty-cent piece silver coin. Like many Republicans from the western United States, Jones left the party in 1896 over the issue of bimetallism and joined the Silver Party. He caucused with the Silver Republicans and later rejoined the Republican Party, but decided not to run for re-election to the Senate in 1902. [Wikipedia]