The President of the United States has given directions, and you are hereby
instructed, after the 15th day of August next, to receive in payment of the
public lands nothing except what is directed by the existing laws, viz.:
gold and silver. . . .
The principal objects of the President, in adopting this measure, being to
repress alleged frauds, and to withhold any countenance or facilities in
the power of the government from the monopoly of the public lands in the
hands of speculators and capitalists, to the injury of the actual settlers
in the new States, and of emigrants in search of new homes, as well as to
discourage the ruinous extension of bank issues and bank credits, by which
those results are generally supposed to be promoted, your utmost vigilance
is required, and relied on, to carry this order into complete execution.