The Philadelphia Ledger (a democratic paper) published a sensation rumour
on the 10th inst., that Mr. Johnson had sub- mitted a series of constitutional questions,—very leading questions indeed,—to the Attorney-General, Stansberry, pointing to a very clear wish to be advised that he could not recognize the present Congress as constitutional, and that he should not be justified in sending his annual message to it. The President and Attorney- General have, however, both, explicitly and absolutely denied all foundation for the rumour, and as the Philadelphia Ledger is said to have apologized, and to have submitted all the facts which misled it to the President, we suppose the report was forged as a mode of acting on the price of gold. This it certainly effected to a surprising extent. On the day of the statement gold, which had opened at 151, rose to 153t, and on its positive contradiction sank again to 1501, closing at 1514. The New York papers assert that a stockholder in the Philadelphia Ledger had been a very large buyer in gold at a much lower price, but this appears to be of the nature of an explanatory rumour.
