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Suitable forms will be furnished on application at this office.

Sales of gold..

Proposals must be for sums not less than five thousand dollars.

Payment may be made in lawful money or three per cent. certificates.

Each proposal must contain a certified check for five per cent. of the amount bid for.

Proposals adverse to the interest of the Government will be rejected.

The proposals will be opened at 12 M. on the days announced for purchases and sales.

The right is reserved to accept more or less than the amount advertised for, either of bonds or gold.

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SIR: In accordance with the terms of your advertisement, and subjected to the annexed conditions, the following offer

is submitted.

Very respectfully.

Proposals when opened are immediately telegraphed to the Secretary of the Treasury at Washington, and the amount to be sold or purchased on each occasion is decided by him and telegraphed back to the Assistant Treasurer, who announces the same at once.

3.

PAYMENT AND REDEMPTION OF BONDS.

Secretary determines amount of chases on each

sales and pur

occasion.

tween "redeem

In the bonds of the United States a distinction is made Distinction bebetween "redeemable" and "payable." They are "re- able" an 1 "paydeemable" when the Government has the option to pay able." them or to let them remain outstanding with the interest running thereon, and "payable" when they are fully matured and payable on presentation at the Treasury, at which time they cease to bear interest. Some bonds are redeemable at the pleasure of the Government after a date fixed

Payınent of matured bonds.

Calling in 5-20 bonds for re

demption.

Payment or frac

on called bonds.

therein, and some between certain stated times at the expiration of which they become payable, and others are payable at a fixed day certain, as stated in the account of the several outstanding loans in Chapter I.

When the principal of any bonds becomes payable, either by maturity of the bonds or by reason of their being called in for redemption, they are paid only by the Treasurer of the United States at Washington, to whom they must be forwarded, and who pays the same in coin or in coin checks on the Assistant Treasurer at New York city, as the parties presenting the bonds desire.

The act of July 14, 1870, chapter 256, for refunding the national debt, makes the following provisions for calling in the five-twenty bonds for redemption:

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized, with any coin in the Treasury of the United States which he may lawfully apply to such purpose, or which may be derived from the sale of any of the bonds, the issue of which is provided for in this act, to pay at par and cancel any six per cent. bonds of the United States of the kind known as five-twenty bonds, which have become or shall hereafter become redeemable by the terms of their issue.

But the particular bonds so to be paid and canceled shall in all cases be indicated and specified by class, date, and number, in the order of their numbers and issues, beginning with the first numbered and issued, in public notice to be given by the Secretary of the Treasury, and in three months after the date of such public notice the interest on the bonds so selected and advertised to be paid shall cease.

By the first three calls under this law the three months. tions of coupons notice fixed for redemption of the bonds expired before the coupons thereon for the current six months became payable, so that to each bond there was one coupon upon which only a fraction of the nominal amount was due. These coupons are often detached by the holders of the bonds and purchased by dealers at their face value without either party noticing the fact of the bonds being called in for redemption. This must occur in like manner in future calls, and in order to prevent persons from being defrauded by such errors, and to save the rights and equities of all parties buy

ing and selling coupons, the Secretary of the Treasury has made the following regulations:

When coupons, detached from bonds that have been called in for redemption, are presented for payment, the Department will pay such portion of the interest specified in such coupons as had accrued at the day fixed in the call for the redemption of the bonds, and no more, unless the party presenting them claims payment of their nominal value, in which case the Department will retain the coupons until the bonds from which they were detached shall have been presented, and the conflicting claims adjusted.

When a called bond is presented for redemption, from which a coupon, maturing after the day fixed in the call for such redemption, shall have been detached, the nominal value of such coupon shall be deducted from the sum due upon the bond, unless the coupon shall have been paid as above; the sum thus deducted to be retained to await the presentation of the coupon and a settlement.

payment of bonds of Funded Loan

bonds last issued.

The bonds of the Funded Loan, all of which are redeem- Calling in and able at the pleasure of the United States after a fixed time, when called in for payment, are required by law to be called to begin with in reverse order to the five-twenty bonds; that is, beginning with those last issued and numbered, so that the bond first issued will be last paid. In other respects the same rules apply alike to each class of bonds. For the law see page 9.

4.

MONTHLY DEBT STATEMENT.

monthly debt

On the first day of each month the Secretary of the Treas- Contents of ury publishes a complete, carefully prepared, and thoroughly statement. accurate statement of the whole public debt, as it appears upon the books of the Department on that day, setting forth

First. DEBT BEARING INTEREST IN COIN, under which is given the title of each outstanding loan not matured, dates of acts of authorization, rate of interest, when the principal is redeemable and payable, times of payment of interest, amount of registered bonds, amount of coupon bonds, total, interest due and unpaid, and accrued interest.

P

Circulation of monthly debt statement.

Second. DEBT BEARING INTEREST IN LAWFUL MONEY, including the three per cent. certificates, navy pension fund, and certificates of indebtedness of 1870.

Third. DEBT ON WHICH INTEREST HAS CEASED SINCE MATURITY. Under this head are included the balances of all loans matured or called in for redemption and not presented for payment, specifying each by the title of the loan, except those matured prior to 1837, which are combined in one item.

Fourth. DEBT BEARING NO INTEREST, giving the amount of United States notes, fractional currency, coin certificates, certificates of deposit, and unclaimed interest.

To which is added a RECAPITULATION, with a statement of the amount of coin and currency in the Treasury, the amount of reduction of the debt during the preceding month and other periods of time, and an account of BONDS ISSUED TO THE PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANIES.

This monthly debt statement is printed on sheets and forwarded by mail to all journalists, bankers, brokers, and other persons in this country and Europe who request copies, or who are known to desire them, as well as to Government officials at home and abroad, for distribution, and is so extensively circulated throughout the United States that every citizen may easily know each month the exact condition of the national debt.

CHAPTER VI.

OBLIGATION TO PAY PRINCIPAL AND INTEREST IN COIN; SINK-
ING FUND AND TAXATION OF BONDS.

1. Payment in coin.

2. Sinking fund.

1.

3. Taxation of United States bonds and
other obligation

PAYMENT IN COIN.

bonds.

All the bonds of the United States, both coupon and Terms of the registered, of loans mentioned in Chapter I, as well as of other loans heretofore paid in coin, express on the face thereof the promise of the Government to pay a certain amount of dollars with interest at the rate stated, without in any case specifying what kind of dollars are intended thereby, or in what money, whether coin or currency, either the principal or interest is payable.

Of the loans created before the passage of the act of Loans before February 25, 1862, chapter 33, which first authorized the February 25, 1862. issue of legal-tender notes, payment could never have been contemplated at the time of negotiation in any dollars other than coin, as none other then formed the currency of the country which public or private creditors were obliged to accept. The language of the Supreme Court of the United States, in Bank v. Supervisors, (7 Wallace, 26,) is as applicable to these bonds as to the notes to which it refers:

"Every one of them expresses upon its face an engagement of the nation to pay to the bearer a certain sum. The dollar note is an engagement to pay a dollar, and the dollar intended is the coined dollar of the United States; a certain quantity in weight and fineness of gold or silver, authenticated as such by the stamp of the Government. No other dollars had before been recognized by the legislation of the national Government as lawful money.'

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