A RESOURCE OF WAR-THE CREDIT OF THE GOVERNMENT
MADE IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE.

HISTORY

OF THE

LEGAL TENDER PAPER MONEY

ISSUED DURING THE

GREAT REBELLION.

BEING A

Loan without Interest and a Rational Currency.

PREPARED BY

Hon. E. G. SPAULDING, Chairman,

OF

THE SUB-COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS, AT THE TIME
THE ACT WAS PASSED.

In such a nation as this, there is one and only one RESOURCE for loans sufficient to carry
hrough the expenses of a GREAT WAR, namely, fundable Treasury Notes fitted for circulation
as money, and based upon adequate taxation.

"That in the interval between war and war, all the outstanding paper should be called in
coin permitted to flow in again, and hold the field of circulation, until another war should re
quire its yielding place again to the NATIONAL MEDIUM."-JEFFERSON.

BUFFALO:

EXPRESS PRINTING COMPANY, 14 EAST SWAN STREET,
1869.

Br Cadmues Book Shop $2.50

RHODES

HOUSE

5 MAR 1936

IBRARY

INDEX TO THE NEW INTRODUCTION-1875.

PAGE

Secretary Chase's first mistake in rejecting the bank check in 1861, -

Antagonism of the Sub-Treasury act and its suspension-Mr. Chase

refuses to recognize its suspension,

[See also historical letters of Geo. S. Coe and J. E. Williams, Appendix,

pages 89 to 99.]

The Banks and Sub-Treasury suspend specie payments-Mr. Chase in

breaking the banks, at the same time broke the Sub-Treasury, and

both were discredited together,

Legal tender act introduced by Mr. Spaulding, Dec. 30, 1861,

The primary object of the act was to fund the debt,

Title of the act was to " fund the greenbacks and floating debt" into 6

per cent. gold bonds-First legal tender notes issued March 10,

1862, with endorsement on the back to fund in 6 per cent. gold

bonds,

Second $150,000,000 legal tenders authorized,

Second great mistake of Secretary Chase-Abrogation of the right to

fund the greenbacks in 6 per cent. gold bonds,

$900,000,000 loan act,

Secretary Chase resigns-Gold, 2.85,

Mr. Chase to Mr. Spaulding, July 15, 1869,

1

2

3-4

4

5

5

77

8

8-9

11

-

11

11

New engraved plates and new issue of greenbacks, four years after the

close of the war,

13

Wm. A. Richardson, Secretary of Treasury, March 17, 1873-$26.000,-

000 inflation of the currency,

14

W. P. Fessenden, Secretary of Treasury, July 5, 1864, -

Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of Treasury, March 4, 1865,

Secretary McCulloch not supported by Congress,

$830,000,000 of 7-30 Treasury notes issued to pay the army, and which

were funded in three years into 6 per cent. gold bonds,

Geo. S. Boutwell, Secretary of Treasury, March 11, 1869,

Third mistake of Treasury Department,