1.
Francis E. Spinner
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Francis Elias Spinner was an American politician from New York. He was Treasurer of the United States from 1861 to 1875 and he was the first administrator in the federal government to employ women for clerical jobs. Francis Spinner was the eldest of nine children, six sons and his father instructed him in languages, and in the common schools of Herkimer County he learned English grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic. His father required Spinner to learn a trade, Francis elected to become a merchant, and for about a year was employed as a clerk in a store. The store failed, and Francis was apprenticed to a confectioner in Albany, in Albany, Spinner made the acquaintance of some educated men who took an interest in his welfare. Peter Gansevoort allowed him the use of his library, here Spinner became a shareholder in the circulating library, and studied its volumes when he wasnt busy learning his trade. In 1824, Spinner moved back to Herkimer County, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, in 1826, he married Caroline Caswell of Herkimer. He entered the militia, and by 1834 had risen to the rank of major general. He was appointed deputy sheriff in 1829, and was sheriff of the County from 1834 to 1837 and he was appointed one of the commissioners for the construction of the state lunatic asylum at Utica, New York in 1838. When he was removed from this post on political grounds, he engaged in banking, first as cashier and later as president and he was state inspector of turnpikes, and served as commissioner and supervisor of schools. He was appointed auditor and deputy naval officer in charge of the Port of New York in 1845, Spinner was elected as an anti-slavery Democrat to the 34th Congress. An active Republican from the formation of the party, he was re-elected as a Republican to the 35th and 36th United States Congresses, altogether serving from March 4,1855, during his last term, he was chairman of the Committee on Accounts. Within 60 days of his office, the expenditures of the federal government increased dramatically. He was the first to suggest the employment of women in government offices, during the Civil War, many of the clerks of the Treasury Department joined the army, and Spinner suggested to Secretary Chase the advisability of employing women. After much persuasion, his suggestion was taken up, and he carried it into effect successfully, the women were first employed to count money, and later took up various clerical duties. He eventually hired over 100 women, paid well. He signed the different series of money in a singular handwriting. His signature on the “greenbacks” of the United States was the most familiar autograph in the country and it was brought to its highest perfection when I was treasurer. ”He resigned his office because of a disagreement over staffing appointments
2.
Shinplaster
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Shinplaster was a common name for paper money of low denomination circulating widely in the frontier economies of the 19th century. These notes were in various places issued by banks, merchants, wealthy individuals and associations, either as banknotes and they were often a variety of token intended to alleviate a shortage of small change in growing frontier regions. They were sometimes used in company shop economies or peonages in place of legal tender, a book roughly contemporary with the term, John Russell Bartletts The Dictionary of Americanisms, defines a shinplaster as A cant term for a bank-note, or any paper money. It probably came into use in 1837, when the banks suspended specie payment, then the book quotes the New York Tribune of December 3,1845, The people may whistle for protection, and put up with what shinplaster rags they can get. According to Merriam-Webster, Shinplaster referred to a small, square piece of paper that could be used as plaster to treat sore legs, Shinplasters circulated in the United States from 1837 to 1863, during the period known as the Free Banking Period. In Canada, the term shinplaster was widely used for 25-cent paper monetary notes which circulated in the late 19th and these private IOUs circulated widely, at times making up the bulk of cash in circulation, especially in the 1840s and 50s. In some places they formed the core of a company shop economy and they were often of such low quality that they could not be hoarded, and shopkeepers off the property would not take them, as they would deteriorate into illegibility before they could be redeemed. Rolnick, Arthur J. & Warren E. Weber, Free Banking, Wildcat Banking and Shinplasters, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Quarterly Review, Vol.6, No
3.
Federal government of the United States
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The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D. C. and several territories. The federal government is composed of three branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U. S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the courts, including the Supreme Court. The powers and duties of these branches are defined by acts of Congress. The full name of the republic is United States of America, no other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party. The terms Government of the United States of America or United States Government are often used in documents to represent the federal government as distinct from the states collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term Federal Government is often used, the terms Federal and National in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the federal government. Because the seat of government is in Washington, D. C, Washington is commonly used as a metonym for the federal government. The outline of the government of the United States is laid out in the Constitution, the government was formed in 1789, making the United States one of the worlds first, if not the first, modern national constitutional republics. The United States government is based on the principles of federalism and republicanism, some make the case for expansive federal powers while others argue for a more limited role for the central government in relation to individuals, the states or other recognized entities. For example, while the legislative has the power to create law, the President nominates judges to the nations highest judiciary authority, but those nominees must be approved by Congress. The Supreme Court, in its turn, has the power to invalidate as unconstitutional any law passed by the Congress and these and other examples are examined in more detail in the text below. The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate, the House currently consists of 435 voting members, each of whom represents a congressional district. The number of each state has in the House is based on each states population as determined in the most recent United States Census. All 435 representatives serve a two-year term, each state receives a minimum of one representative in the House. There is no limit on the number of terms a representative may serve, in addition to the 435 voting members, there are six non-voting members, consisting of five delegates and one resident commissioner. In contrast, the Senate is made up of two senators from each state, regardless of population, there are currently 100 senators, who each serve six-year terms
4.
American Civil War
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The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
5.
Cent (currency)
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In many national currencies, the cent, commonly represented by the cent sign is a monetary unit that equals 1⁄100 of the basic monetary unit. Etymologically, the word cent derives from the Latin word centum meaning hundred, cent also refers to a coin worth one cent. In the United States and Canada, the 1¢ coin is known by the nickname penny, alluding to the British coin. In Ireland the 1c coin is sometimes known as a penny in reference to the Irish penny. A cent is commonly represented by the cent sign, a letter c crossed by a diagonal stroke or a vertical line, ¢, or a simple c. Cent amounts from 1 cent to 99 cents can be represented as one or two digits followed by the abbreviation, or as a subdivision of the base unit. The cent sign has not survived the changeover from typewriters to computer keyboards, for the US International keyboard, <Right Alt> <Shift> c. On Macintosh systems, hold ⌥ Option and press 4 on the number row, on Unix/Linux systems with a compose key, Compose+|+C is a typical sequence. The cent sign has Unicode code point, U+00A2 ¢ cent sign, usage of the cent symbol varies from one currency to another. In the United States, Canada and Mexico, the usage ¢ is more common, while in Australia, New Zealand and the eurozone, in South Africa and Ireland, only the c is used. When written in English, the cent sign follows the amount, in contrast with a currency symbol. For example, 2¢ and $0.02, or 2c, greek coins have ΛΕΠΤΟ on the obverse of the one-cent coin and ΛΕΠΤΑ on the obverse of the others. Actual usage varies depending on language, South Korean Won no fractional denomination in circulation, formerly divided into 100 jeon
6.
Denomination (currency)
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Denomination is a proper description of a currency amount, usually for coins or banknotes. Denominations may also be used other means of payment like gift cards. For example, five euros is the denomination of a five euro note, in a currency, there is usually a main unit, and a subunit that is a fraction of the main unit. In some countries, there are levels of subunits. In the former Ottoman Empire,1 lira =100 kuruş =4000 para =12000 akçe, today, only a few places have more than one subunit, notably Chinese speaking regions, the mainland China, the Hong Kong, and Republic of Chinas. In addition, the Jordanian dinar is divided into 10 dirham,100 qirsh/piastres, many countries where Western European languages are spoken currently have their main units divided into 100 subunits. Some currencies that previously had no longer do, because inflation has rendered the subunit useless. A prominent example is the Japanese yen, which was divided into 100 sen or 1000 rin. Both subunits were demonetized at the end of 1953, occasionally, a super unit is used as a multiple of the main unit. Examples include Korean won =5 yang in 1893, Iranian toman 10 rials, in the Ottoman Empire, lira and kuruş were super units at some point before becoming the main unit. A decimal currency is a currency where the ratio between the unit and the subunit is an integral power of 10. Non-decimal currencies are now rare but had advantages in daily life transactions. For example,1 South German Gulden =60 Kreuzer,60 can be divided into 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20 or 30 parts that are still integers, making pricing easy. This advantage and the lack of widespread accurate weighing apparatus coupled with tradition were the reasons why non-decimal currencies were used, in theory, two countries currently use non-decimal currency, Mauritania and Madagascar. In practice, however, the value of the unit in each case is so low that the sub-unit is not of any practical use and is rarely seen in circulation. The last major countries to use non-decimal currencies in practice were the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, the average number of coins needed to make change. It is common to name a unit with a unit of weight, such as pound, lira, in most cases, these currencies were originally defined as that amount of some precious metal. Another choice of name is some form of derivative of the political entity, the Afghan afghani and European euro fall into this category
7.
National Numismatic Collection
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The National Numismatic Collection is the national coin cabinet of the United States. The collection is part of the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of American History, the National Numismatic Collection is one of the worlds largest collections of coins, paper currency, exonumia and related items. In total the collection contains over 1.6 million objects, including 450,000 coins, medals, as of 2004, the exhibit housing the Collection was the last surviving exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum of American Historys original 1964 arrangement. In late 2004, the exhibit was closed, and the Collection returned to the Smithsonians vaults, only a few dozen of the Collections most notable specimens remain on display today. S
8.
National Museum of American History
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Among the items on display is the original Star-Spangled Banner. The museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution and located on the National Mall at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue NW in Washington, the museum opened in 1964 as the Museum of History and Technology. It was one of the last structures designed by the architectural firm McKim Mead & White. In May 2012, John Gray was announced as the new director, the museum underwent an $85 million renovation from September 5,2006 to November 21,2008, during which time it was closed. Skidmore, Owings and Merrill provided the architecture and interior design services for the renovation, major changes made during the renovation include, A new, five-story sky-lit atrium, which is surrounded by displays of artifacts that showcase the breadth of the museums collection. A new, grand staircase that links the museums first and second floors, a new welcome center, and the addition of six landmark objects to orient visitors. New galleries, such as the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Hall of Invention, an environmentally controlled chamber to protect the original Star-Spangled Banner. In 2012, the museum began a $37 million renovation of the west wing to add new spaces, public plazas. The renovation will also include panoramic windows overlooking the National Mall on all three floors and new features to the exhibits. The first floor of the west wing reopened on July 1,2015 with the second and third floors of the west wing reopening in 2016 and 2017, each wing of the museums three exhibition floors is anchored by a landmark object to highlight the theme of that wing. These include the John Bull locomotive, the Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter, landmarks from pre-existing exhibits include the 1865 Vassar Telescope, a George Washington Statue, a Red Cross ambulance, and a car from Disneylands Dumbo Flying Elephant ride. Artifact walls,275 feet of glass-fronted cases, line the first, the lower level of the museum displays Taking America to Lunch, which celebrates the history of American lunch boxes. The museums food court, the Stars and Stripes Café, the first floors East Wing has exhibits that feature transportation and technology, they include America on the Move and Lighting a Revolution. The John Bull locomotive is the signature artifact, the exhibits in the West Wing address science and innovation. They include Science in American Life featuring Robots on the Road, spark. Lab is a hands-on exhibit of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation. The Vassar Telescope is the signature artifact, a café and the main museum store are also located on the first floor. The first floor contains the Constitution Avenue lobby, as well as a space for a temporary exhibit. The exhibitions in 2 East, the east wing of the floor, consider American ideals
9.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
10.
John Gault
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John Gault was an American entrepreneur and inventor who created the encased postage stamp. Gault used these encased postage stamps as a means to solve a coin shortage during the Civil War as well as profit from their sale. In 1862, Gault and the American population were faced with a shortage of coins. The government reacted first to this problem by passing a law on July 17,1862 that allowed postage stamps to be used to pay off debts to the government as long as they were under $5. Stamps were accepted as having value across the US because they were evidence of having paid for postage and this remedial law was only a temporary solution due to the fragile nature of a thin, paper postage stamp. Postage stamps were torn and damaged when constantly handled. Gault proposed a solution to this problem in August of that year when he patented his idea of the postage stamp. He advertised his invention in the newspapers as “New Metallic Currency. ”His ingenuity was simple. As suggested by its name, the postage stamp consisted of a postage stamp encased. Gault constructed the original postage cases out of silver in order for them to closely resemble real coins. However, Gault found that silver encased postage stamps were too expensive for him to manufacture, in both the silver and more common brass versions, he cut a hole in the front cover and this acted as a frame around the stamp. Gault placed a layer of mica between the stamp and the front cover of brass, which allowed the stamp to be visible through the covering while maintaining the integrity of the stamp, mica is a colored or transparent silicate mineral that can be easily separated into thin layers. In order to construct the product, Gault used a button making machine to press the pieces together. However, Gault also produced his currency in all the other U. S. postal values then in production,1,2,3,12,24,30, and 90 cents. Gault was a business man and saw two ways that he could profit off the implementation of these new “coins. ”First, Gault sold his currency to businesses and stores with high demand for coins at 20% the face value of the stamp. He soon realized that the bare back covering of the provided space that could be used for advertising. Companies paid Gault a two-cent premium on top of the cost of the stamp in exchange for a case to the specifications of the companies advertising desires. One of Gault’s largest business partners was J. C. Ayer who took advantage of Gault’s advertising space during the months of the creation of the currency
11.
Bullion
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Bullion is gold bars, silver bars, and other bars or ingots of precious metal. The word bullion comes from the French Minister of Finance under Louis XIII, the value of bullion is typically determined by the value of its precious metals content, which is defined by its purity and mass. It is also weighed extremely accurately, retailers may sometimes market ingots and bars of base metals, such as copper, nickel, and aluminium as bullion, but this is not a widely accepted definition. The specifications of bullion are often regulated by market bodies or legislation, in the European Union, the minimum purity for gold bullion, which is treated as investment gold with regards to taxation, is 99. 5% for gold bullion bars and 90% for bullion coins. The London bullion market is a market for wholesale trading of gold. The London Bullion Market Association coordinates activities of its members and other participants in the London bullion market, the LBMA sets and promotes quality standards for gold and silver bullion bars. The minimum acceptable fineness of the Good Delivery Bars is 99. 5% for gold bars and 99. 9% for silver bars, Bullion coins describe contemporary precious metal coins minted by official agencies for investment purposes. Historically, most currency were in the form of coins, silver. Some bullion coins have been used as currency throughout the 20th century, like the Maria Theresa thaler, however, modern bullion coins generally do not enter common circulation despite having legal tender status and a nominal face value. Some modern bullion coins, such as the gold and silver American eagle, are produced as both business strike and collectible proof and uncirculated versions. Business strikes typically are sold at prices commensurate with their precious metal content, in some cases the grade and mintages of business strike coins can affect their value, so that they are considered numismatic rather than bullion items. A range of market participants is active in the bullion markets, banks, fabricators, refiners. They provide facilities for the refining, melting, assaying, transporting, trading and vaulting of gold, for example, shares of the world’s largest Gold exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Shares represent ownership in vaulted gold bullion. Private individuals use bullion primarily as an investment or potential store of value, Gold bullion and silver bullion are the most important forms of physical precious metals investments. Bullion investments can be considered as insurance against inflation or economic turmoil, compared to numismatic coins, bullion bars or bullion coins can typically be purchased and traded at lower margins and their trading prices are closer to the values of the contained precious metals
12.
Treasury Note (19th century)
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A Treasury Note is a type of short term debt instrument issued by the United States prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. While the Treasury Notes, as issued, were legal tender nor representative money. However the motivation behind their issuance was always funding federal expenditures rather than the provision of a circulating medium. Often they were receivable at face value by the government in payment of taxes and for purchases of publicly owned land, and thus might to some extent be regarded as paper money. On many issues the interest rate was chosen to make interest calculations particularly easy, paying either 1, 1½, today the Treasurys short term debt needs are fulfilled by Treasury bills. The early finances of the government of the United States were precarious. To help finance the American Revolution the Continental Congress had issued Continental Dollars between 1775 and 1779, as part of the Compromise of 1790, the Continental Dollars were redeemed at a loss of over 99% vs. As a result, Americas early creditors had reason to be wary of a paper currency, the Founding Fathers were divided over whether the United States needed a central bank similar to the Bank of England to issue currency and facilitate the governments use of credit. Having thus set the precedent, the Treasury would go on to issue such notes up through the Civil War. Several issues of Treasury Notes were made during the War of 1812 from 1812 to 1815, most of these notes paid 5 2⁄5% interest, matured in one year, and were receivable in payment for public dues. While $37 million were issued, no more than $17 million were outstanding at any one time, only about $6 million of the loan was placed in the form of 6% interest bonds, and thus $5 million of Notes were issued. The Notes were made receivable for all public dues owed the federal government, a further $5 million of similar Notes were authorized on February 25,1813 to supplement additional loans which had not been fully subscribed. Only Notes of $100 denomination and greater were issued under these first two acts, and they sold at close to par. The next two acts, those of March 4,1814 and Dec 26,1814, called for Note issues both to raise revenue as well as to substitute for unsubscribed loans. A total of $18,318,400 were emitted under these acts which included Notes of $20, during 1814 federal finances deteriorated as the war dragged on, and banks outside New England suspended specie payment on August 31,1814. The value of the Treasury Notes fell below that of specie and these developments led to changes in the final Treasury Note act of the era signed on February 24,1815. These last notes were divided into large and small denominations, the large notes paid interest as before, at 5 2⁄5% per annum, but could also be used to purchase 6 percent interest bonds at par as a way of supporting their value. The Act had been drafted during the financial disarray late in the War of 1812, the issued denominations were as low as $3, their size was typical of banknotes and, unlike the previously issued Notes, they were payable to bearer rather than to order
13.
Trent Affair
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The Trent Affair was a diplomatic incident in 1861 during the American Civil War that threatened a war between the United States and the United Kingdom. The U. S. Navy illegally captured two Confederate diplomats from a British ship, the UK protested vigorously, the United States closed the incident by releasing the diplomats. The envoys were bound for Britain and France to press the Confederacys case for recognition and to lobby for possible financial and military support. Public reaction in the United States was to celebrate the capture and rally against Britain, in the Confederate States, the hope was that the incident would lead to a permanent rupture in Anglo-American relations and possibly even war or at least diplomatic recognition by Britain. Confederates realized their independence potentially depended on intervention by Britain and France, in Britain, the public disapproved of this violation of neutral rights and insult to their national honor. The British government demanded an apology and the release of the prisoners, and took steps to strengthen its forces in Canada. President Abraham Lincoln and his top advisors did not want to risk war with Britain over this issue, after several tense weeks, the crisis was resolved when the Lincoln administration released the envoys and disavowed Captain Wilkess actions without a formal apology. Mason and Slidell resumed their voyage to Britain but failed in their goal of achieving diplomatic recognition, Relations with the United States were often strained, and even verged on war when Britain almost supported the Confederacy in the early part of the American Civil War. British leaders were constantly annoyed from the 1840s to the 1860s by what they saw as Washingtons pandering to the democratic mob, even stronger the Civil War was viewed upon in Britain as a slavery issue with the North opposing slavery and the South upholding the institution. This constituency rejected war and slavery, forcing London to appease the Americans. During the Trent affair of late 1861, London drew the line, historian Charles Hubbard, Davis left foreign policy to others in government and, rather than developing an aggressive diplomatic effort, tended to expect events to accomplish diplomatic objectives. The new president was committed to the notion that cotton would secure recognition, the men Davis selected as secretary of state and emissaries to Europe were chosen for political and personal reasons—not for their diplomatic potential. This was due, in part, to the belief that cotton could accomplish the Confederate objectives with little help from Confederate diplomats, the Unions main focus in foreign affairs was just the opposite, to prevent any British recognition of the Confederacy. Notwithstanding a relatively minor incident in the Pacific Northwest, Anglo-American relations had steadily improved throughout the 1850s. The issues of the Oregon territory, British involvement in Texas, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston urged a policy of neutrality. His international concerns were centered in Europe, where he had to watch both Napoleon IIIs ambitions in Europe and Bismarcks rise in Prussia, during the Civil War, British reactions to American events were shaped by past British policies and their own national interests, both strategically and economically. In the Western Hemisphere, as relations with the United States improved, as a naval power, Britain had a long record of insisting that neutral nations honor its blockades of hostile countries. From the earliest days of the war, this perspective would guide the British away from taking any action that might have been viewed in Washington as a challenge to the Union blockade
14.
United States Department of the Treasury
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The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue, the Department is administered by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is a member of the Cabinet. On February 13,2017, the Senate confirmed Steven Mnuchin as Secretary of the Treasury, the first Secretary of the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton, who was sworn into office on September 11,1789. Hamilton was asked by President George Washington to serve after first having asked Robert Morris, Hamilton almost single-handedly worked out the nations early financial system, and for several years was a major presence in Washingtons administration as well. His portrait is on the obverse of the U. S. ten-dollar bill while the Treasury Department building is shown on the reverse. Besides the Secretary, one of the best-known Treasury officials is the Treasurer of the United States whose signature, along with the Treasury Secretarys, the Treasury prints and mints all paper currency and coins in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint. The Department also collects all federal taxes through the Internal Revenue Service, the Congress had no power to levy and collect taxes, nor was there a tangible basis for securing funds from foreign investors or governments. The delegates resolved to issue paper money in the form of bills of credit, the Congress stipulated that each of the colonies contribute to the Continental governments funds. With the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776, despite the infusion of foreign and domestic loans to pay for a war of independence, the United Colonies were unable to establish a well-organized agency for financial administration. Michael Hillegas was first called Treasurer of the United States on May 14,1777, the Treasury Office was reorganized three times between 1778 and 1781. The $241.5 million of paper Continental Dollars devalued rapidly, by May 1781, the dollar collapsed at a rate of from 500 to 1000 to 1 against hard currency. Protests against the worthless money swept the colonies and angry Americans coined the expression not worth a Continental, Robert Morris was designated Superintendent of Finance in 1781 and restored stability to the nations finances. Morris, a colonial merchant, was nicknamed the Financier because of his reputation for procuring funds or goods on a moments notice. His staff included a Comptroller, a Treasurer, a Register, and auditors, who managed the finances through 1784. The Treasury Board of three Commissioners continued to oversee the finances of the confederation of former colonies until September 1789, the First Congress of the United States was called to convene in New York on March 4,1789, marking the beginning of government under the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton took the oath of office as the first Secretary of the Treasury on September 11,1789, Hamilton had served as George Washingtons aide-de-camp during the Revolution, and was of great importance in the ratification of the Constitution. Because of his financial and managerial acumen, Hamilton was a choice for solving the problem of the new nations heavy war debt. Hamiltons first official act was to submit a report to Congress in which he laid the foundation for the financial health
15.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
16.
Banknote
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A banknote is a type of negotiable instrument known as a promissory note, made by a bank, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by banks, who were legally required to redeem the notes for legal tender when presented to the chief cashier of the originating bank. These commercial banknotes only traded at face value in the served by the issuing bank. Commercial banknotes have primarily been replaced by national banknotes issued by central banks, national banknotes are generally legal tender, meaning that medium of payment is allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Historically, banks sought to ensure that they could always pay customers in coins when they presented banknotes for payment and this practice of backing notes with something of substance is the basis for the history of central banks backing their currencies in gold or silver. Today, most national currencies have no backing in precious metals or commodities and have value only by fiat, with the exception of non-circulating high-value or precious metal issues, coins are used for lower valued monetary units, while banknotes are used for higher values. The idea of using a durable light-weight substance as evidence of a promise to pay a bearer on demand originated in China during the Han Dynasty in 118 BC, the first known banknote was first developed in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, during the Yuan Dynasty, banknotes were adopted by the Mongol Empire. In Europe, the concept of banknotes was first introduced during the 13th century by such as Marco Polo. Counterfeiting, the forgery of banknotes, is an inherent challenge in issuing currency and it is countered by anticounterfeiting measures in the printing of banknotes. Fighting the counterfeiting of banknotes and cheques has been a driver of security printing methods development in recent centuries. Paper currency first developed in the Tang Dynasty China during the 7th century, although true paper money did not appear until the 11th century, the usage of paper currency later spread throughout the Mongol Empire. European explorers like Marco Polo introduced the concept in Europe during the 13th century, napoleon issued paper banknotes in the early 1800s. Paper money originated in two forms, drafts, which are receipts for value held on account, and bills, the perception of banknotes as money has evolved over time. Originally, money was based on precious metals, Banknotes were seen as essentially an I. O. U. or promissory note, a promise to pay someone in precious metal on presentation. With the gradual removal of precious metals from the system, banknotes evolved to represent credit money. Notes or bills were referred to in 18th century novels and were often a key part of the plot such as a note drawn by Lord X for £100 which becomes due in 3 months time. Its roots were in merchant receipts of deposit during the Tang Dynasty, as merchants, before the use of paper, the Chinese used coins that were circular, with a rectangular hole in the middle
17.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
18.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
19.
Coin
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A coin is a small, flat, round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government, Coins are usually metal or alloy, or sometimes made of synthetic materials. Coins made of metal are stored in large quantities as bullion coins. Other coins are used as money in transactions, circulating alongside banknotes. Usually the highest value coin in circulation is less than the lowest-value note. In the last hundred years, the value of circulation coins has occasionally been lower than the value of the metal they contain. Exceptions to the rule of face value being higher than content value also occur for some bullion coins made of copper, silver, or gold, while the Eagle, Maple Leaf, and Sovereign coins have nominal face values, the Krugerrand does not. The first coins were developed independently in Iron Age Anatolia and Archaic Greece, India, Coins spread rapidly in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, throughout Greece and Persia, and further to the Balkans. Standardized Roman currency was used throughout the Roman Empire, important Roman gold and silver coins were continued into the Middle Ages. Fiat money first arose in medieval China, with the paper money. Early paper money was introduced in Europe in the later Middle Ages, the penny was minted as a silver coin until the 17th century. The first circulating United States coins were cents, produced in 1793, Coins were an evolution of currency systems of the Late Bronze Age, where standard-sized ingots, and tokens such as knife money, were used to store and transfer value. In the late Chinese Bronze Age, standardized cast tokens were made and these were replicas in bronze of earlier Chinese currency, cowrie shells, so they were named Bronze Shell. According to Aristotle and Pollux, the first issuer of coins was Hermodike of Kyme The earliest coins are associated with Iron Age Anatolia. Early electrum coins were not standardized in weight, and in their earliest stage may have been ritual objects, such as badges or medals, issued by priests. The first Lydian coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of silver, most of the early Lydian coins include no writing, only an image of a symbolic animal. Anatolian Artemis was the Πὀτνια Θηρῶν, whose symbol was the stag, a small percentage of early Lydian/Greek coins have a legend
20.
Speculation
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Speculation is the purchase of an asset with the hope that it will become more valuable at a future date. Many speculators pay little attention to the value of a security. Speculation can in principle involve any tradable good or financial instrument, Speculators are particularly common in the markets for stocks, bonds, commodity futures, currencies, fine art, collectibles, real estate, and derivatives. The number of shareholders increased, perhaps, from 4.4 million in 1900 to 26 million in 1932, the view of what distinguishes investment from speculation and speculation from excessive speculation varies widely among pundits, legislators and academics. Some sources note that speculation is simply a higher form of investment. Others define speculation more narrowly as positions not characterized as hedging, the agency emphasizes that speculators serve important market functions, but defines excessive speculation as harmful to the proper functioning of futures markets. According to Ben Graham in The Intelligent Investor, the prototypical defensive investor is. one interested chiefly in safety plus freedom from bother, Speculation is condemned on ethical-moral grounds as creating money from money and thereby promoting the vices of avarice and gambling. When a harvest is too small to satisfy consumption at its rate, speculators come in. Their purchases raise the price, thereby checking consumption so that the supply will last longer. Producers encouraged by the price further lessen the shortage by growing or importing to reduce the shortage. On the other side, when the price is higher than the speculators think the facts warrant and this reduces prices, encouraging consumption and exports and helping to reduce the surplus. If any market, such as pork bellies, had no speculators, with fewer players in the market, there would be a larger spread between the current bid and ask price of pork bellies. By contrast, a commodity speculator may profit the difference in the spread and, in competition with other speculators, some schools of thought argue that speculators increase the liquidity in a market, and therefore promote an efficient market. This efficiency is difficult to achieve without speculators, a very beneficial by-product of speculation for the economy is price discovery. On the other hand, as more speculators participate in a market, underlying real demand and supply can diminish compared to trading volume, Speculators also perform a very important risk bearing role that is beneficial to society. For example, a farmer might be considering planting corn on some unused farmland, however, he might not want to do so because he is concerned that the price might fall too far by harvest time. By selling his crop in advance at a price to a speculator, he is now able to hedge the price risk. Thus, speculators can actually increase production through their willingness to take on risk, hence, they make the prices better reflect the true quality of operation of the firms
21.
Spanish dollar
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Its purpose was to correspond to the German thaler. The Spanish dollar was used by many countries as the first international currency because of its uniformity in standard. Some countries countersigned the Spanish dollar so it could be used as their local currency, the Spanish dollar was the coin upon which the original United States dollar was based, and it remained legal tender in the United States until the Coinage Act of 1857. Because it was used in Europe, the Americas. Diverse theories link the origin of the $ symbol to the columns, millions of Spanish dollars were minted over the course of several centuries. They were among the most widely circulating coins of the period in the Americas. In the 16th century, Count Hieronymus Schlick of Bohemia began minting coins known as Joachimsthalers, named for Joachimsthal, the Joachimsthalers weighed 451 Troy grains of silver. So successful were these coins that similar thalers were minted in Burgundy, the Burgundian Cross Thaler depicted the Cross of Burgundy and was prevalent in the Burgundian Netherlands that were revolting against the Spanish king and Duke of Burgundy Philip II. After 1575, the Dutch revolting provinces replaced the currency with a daalder depicting a lion, specifically to facilitate export trade, the leeuwendaalder was authorized to contain 427.16 grains of.750 fine silver, lighter than the large denomination coins then in circulation. Clearly it was advantageous for a Dutch merchant to pay a foreign debt in leeuwendaalders rather than in other heavier. Thus, the leeuwendaalder or lion dollar became the coin of choice for foreign trade and it became popular in the Middle East, and colonies in the east and west. They also circulated throughout the English colonies during the Seventeenth and early Eighteenth centuries, from New Netherland the lion dollar spread to all thirteen colonies in the west. After the introduction of the Guldengroschen in Austria in 1486, the concept of a silver coin with high purity eventually spread throughout the rest of Europe. Monetary reform in Spain brought about the introduction of an 8-real coin in 1497, in 1537 the Spanish escudo gold coin was introduced, which was worth 16 reales. The later Gold Doubloon was worth 32 reales or 2 escudos and it is this divisibility into 8 which caused the silver coins to be named pieces of eight. In the following centuries, the coin was minted with different designs at various mints in Spain. In the 19th century, the denomination was changed to 20 reales. Spains adoption of the peseta in 1869 and its joining the Latin Monetary Union meant the end of the last vestiges of the Spanish dollar in Spain itself
22.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
23.
Treasurer of the United States
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Responsibility for oversight of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the United States Mint, and the United States Savings Bonds Division was assigned to the Treasurer in 1981. As of 2002 the Office of the Treasurer underwent a major reorganization, the Treasurers signature, as well as the Treasury Secretarys, appear on Federal Reserve Notes. President Harry S. Truman appointed Georgia Neese Clark as the first woman Treasurer in 1949, since then, every subsequent Treasurer has been a woman, and six of the past ten Treasurers have also been Hispanic. Since 1949, the length of time the office has been vacant totals 3,371 days, Treasurers of the United States United States Department of the Treasury
24.
United States Post Office Department
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The Post Office Department was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, in the form of a Cabinet department officially from 1872 to 1971. It was headed by the Postmaster General, the Postal Service Act signed by President George Washington on February 20,1792, established the Department. Postmaster General John McLean, in office from 1823 to 1829, was the first to call it the Post Office Department rather than just the Post Office. The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his Postmaster General, William T. Barry, the Post Office Act of 1872 elevated the Post Office Department to Cabinet status. The Postal Reorganization Act was signed by President Richard Nixon on August 12,1970 and it replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with the independent United States Postal Service on July 1,1971. The regulatory role of the services was then transferred to the Postal Regulatory Commission. Postage stamps and postal history of the United States
25.
United States Notes
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A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U. S. Having been current for more than 100 years, they were issued for longer than any form of U. S. paper money. They were known popularly as greenbacks, a name inherited from the earlier greenbacks, the Demand Notes, often termed Legal Tender Notes, they were named United States Notes by the First Legal Tender Act, which authorized them as a form of fiat currency. They were originally issued directly into circulation by the U. S. Treasury to pay expenses incurred by the Union during the American Civil War, during the next century, the legislation governing these notes was modified many times and numerous versions were issued by the Treasury. S. Treasury Seals and serial numbers in place of green ones, existing United States Notes remain valid currency in the United States, however, as no United States Notes have been issued since January 1971, they are increasingly rare in circulation. The Act of July 17,1861 authorized United States Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to raise money via the issuance of $50,000,000 in Treasury Notes payable on demand. These Demand Notes were paid to creditors directly and used to meet the payroll of soldiers in the field. While issued within the framework of Treasury Note Debt, the Demand Notes were intended to circulate as currency and were of the same size as banknotes. During December 1861, economic conditions deteriorated and a suspension of specie payment caused the government to cease redeeming the Demand Notes as coins, the beginning of 1862 found the Unions expenses increasing, and the government was having trouble funding the escalating war. Demand Notes—which were used, among other things, to pay Union soldiers—were unredeemable, congressman and Buffalo banker Elbridge G. Spaulding prepared a bill, based on the Free Banking Law of New York, that eventually became the National Banking Act of 1863. This caused tremendous controversy in Congress, as hitherto the Constitution had been interpreted as not granting the government the power to issue a paper currency. Spaulding justified the action as a means of carrying into execution the powers granted in the Constitution to raise and support armies. Initially, the emission was limited to $150,000,000 total face value between the new Legal Tender Notes and the existing Demand Notes, the Act also intended for the new notes to be used to replace the Demand Notes as soon as practical. The Demand Notes had been issued in denominations of $5, $10, and $20, in addition, notes of entirely new design were introduced in denominations of $50, $100, $500 and $1000. The Demand Notes printed promise of payment On Demand was removed, Legal tender status guaranteed that creditors would have to accept the notes despite the fact that they were not backed by gold, bank deposits, or government reserves, and had no interest. The Act did provide that the notes be receivable by the government for short term deposits at 5% interest, the rationale for these terms was that the Union government would preserve its credit-worthiness by supporting the value of its bonds by paying their interest in gold. Lastly, by making the bonds available for purchase at par in United States Notes, the limitations of the legal tender status were quite controversial. This controversy would continue until the removal of the exceptions during 1933, the largest amount of greenbacks outstanding at any one time was calculated as $447,300,203.10
26.
United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
27.
Mint (facility)
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A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins that can be used in currency. The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins, in the beginning, hammered coinage or cast coinage were the chief means of coin minting, with resulting production runs numbering as little as the hundreds or thousands. In modern mints, coin dies are manufactured in large numbers, with the mass production of currency, the production cost is weighed when minting coins. For example, it costs the United States Mint much less than 25 cents to make a quarter, metals were well suited to represent wealth, owing to their great intrinsic value and their durability, divisibility and rarity. The first mint was established in Lydia in the 7th century BC, for coining gold, silver. The Lydian innovation of manufacturing coins under the authority of the spread to neighboring Greece. Some of the earliest Greek mints were within city-states on Greek islands such as Crete, at about the same time, coins and mints appeared independently in China and spread to Korea and Japan. The manufacture of coins in the Roman Empire, dating from about the 4th century BC, the origin of the word mint is ascribed to the manufacture of silver coin at Rome in 269 BC at the temple of Juno Moneta. This goddess became the personification of money, and her name was applied both to money and to its place of manufacture, Roman mints were spread widely across the Empire, and were sometimes used for propaganda purposes. The populace often learned of a new Roman Emperor when coins appeared with the new Emperors portrait, Ancient coins were made by casting in moulds or by striking between engraved dies. The Romans cast their larger copper coins in clay moulds carrying distinctive markings, not because they knew nothing of striking, casting is now used only by counterfeiters. The most ancient coins were cast in bulletshaped or conical moulds, the blank or unmarked piece of metal was placed on a small anvil, and the die was held in position with tongs. The reverse or lower side of the received a rectangular mark made by the sharp edges of the little anvil. Subsequently the anvil was marked in ways, and decorated with letters and figures of beasts. The spherical blanks soon gave place to lenticular-shaped ones, the blank was made red-hot and struck between cold dies. One blow was usually insufficient, and the method was similar to that used in striking medals in high relief. With the substitution of iron for bronze as the material for dies, about 300 AD, in the Middle Ages bars of metal were cast and hammered out on an anvil. Portions of the sheets were then cut out with shears
28.
Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, Jefferson was primarily of English ancestry, born and educated in colonial Virginia. He graduated from the College of William & Mary and briefly practiced law and he became the United States Minister to France in May 1785, and subsequently the nations first Secretary of State in 1790–1793 under President George Washington. Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose the Federalist Party during the formation of the First Party System, as President, Jefferson pursued the nations shipping and trade interests against Barbary pirates and aggressive British trade policies. He also organized the Louisiana Purchase, almost doubling the countrys territory, as a result of peace negotiations with France, his administration reduced military forces. Jeffersons second term was beset with difficulties at home, including the trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr, American foreign trade was diminished when Jefferson implemented the Embargo Act of 1807, responding to British threats to U. S. shipping. In 1803, Jefferson began a process of Indian tribe removal to the newly organized Louisiana Territory. Jefferson mastered many disciplines, which ranged from surveying and mathematics to horticulture and he was a proven architect in the classical tradition. Jeffersons keen interest in religion and philosophy earned him the presidency of the American Philosophical Society and he shunned organized religion, but was influenced by both Christianity and deism. He was well versed in linguistics and spoke several languages and he founded the University of Virginia after retiring from public office. He was a letter writer and corresponded with many prominent and important people throughout his adult life. His only full-length book is Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson owned several plantations which were worked by hundreds of slaves. Most historians now believe that, after the death of his wife in 1782, he had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered at least one of her children. Various modern scholars are more critical of Jeffersons private life, pointing out the discrepancy between his ownership of slaves and his political principles, for example. Presidential scholars, however, consistently rank Jefferson among the greatest presidents, Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13,1743, at the family home in Shadwell in the Colony of Virginia, the third of ten children. He was of English and possibly Welsh descent and was born a British subject and his father Peter Jefferson was a planter and surveyor who died when Jefferson was fourteen, his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 upon the death of a friend who had named him guardian of his children, the Jeffersons returned to Shadwell in 1752, where Peter died in 1757, his estate was divided between his sons Thomas and Randolph. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres of land, including Monticello and he assumed full authority over his property at age 21
29.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine
30.
Spencer M. Clark
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Spencer M. Clark was the first Superintendent of the National Currency Bureau, today known as the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, from 1862 to 1868. C. S. On August 29,1862, Clark commenced work with one assistant and four female operatives. Clark is said to have developed the original Treasury Seal, a variation of which appears on U. S. notes. Prior to that, the signatures were penned by an army of clerks For the appropriate official, a firestorm ensued when it was discovered that Clarks image had been put on the 5-cent note. There are a couple of different versions of how this occurred, in one, the 5-cent note was supposed to bear a portrait of Clark, as in explorer William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame. But because no one had distinctly specified exactly which Clark, the currency superintendent took it himself to put his own portrait on the bills. In another version, Clark ordered that the portrait of Francis E. Spinner, treasurer of the United States, Spinner was pleased with it, and as he had authority to select portraits on new notes, approved it. Other designs were selected at random and when it came to issuing the 5-cent note, Clark is said to have replied, How would the likeness of Clark do. Excellent, said Spinner, thinking that reference was made to Freeman Clarke, the matter escaped further notice until the notes had been printed in enormous quantities. Whatever the story, Congress was outraged when the notes, which had already been mass-produced, Clark only kept his job because of the personal intervention of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Clark resigned from the National Currency Bureau in 1868 amidst a congressional investigation into record-keeping and he went on to work at the Department of Agriculture in the Statistical Division. He later headed the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the Agriculture Department until his death in 1890 and he is buried in Hartford, Connecticut
31.
William P. Fessenden
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William Pitt Fessenden was an American politician from the U. S. state of Maine. Fessenden was a Whig and member of the Fessenden political family and he served in the United States House of Representatives and Senate before becoming Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. A lawyer, he was a leading antislavery Whig in Maine, in Congress and he built an antislavery coalition in the state legislature that elected him to the U. S. Senate, it became Maines Republican organization. In the Senate, Fessenden played a role in the debates on Kansas. He led Radical Republicans in attacking Democrats Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, fessendens speeches were read widely, influencing Republicans such as Abraham Lincoln and building support for Lincolns 1860 Republican presidential nomination. During the war, Senator Fessenden helped shape the Unions taxation and he moderated his earlier radicalism, and supported Lincoln against the Radicals, becoming Lincolns Treasury Secretary. Later, Fessenden provided critical support that prevented Senate conviction of President Andrew Johnson and he was the first Republican Senator to ring out. not guilty followed by six other Republican Senators resulting in the acquittal of President Johnson. He is the person to have three streets in Portland named for him, William, Pitt and Fessenden streets in the citys Oakdale neighborhood. Fessenden was born in Boscawen, New Hampshire, on October 16,1806 and his father was attorney and legislator Samuel Fessenden. William was separated from his mother at his birth, and he was raised by his grandmother for seven years. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1823 and then studied law and he was a founding member of the Maine Temperance Society in 1827. That year he was admitted to the bar. He practiced with his father, who was also a prominent anti-slavery activist and he practiced law first in Bridgton, Maine, a year in Bangor, and afterward in Portland. He was a member of the Maine House of Representatives in 1832 and was its leading debater. He refused nominations to Congress in 1831 and in 1838, and served in the Maine legislature again in 1840 and he was elected for one term in the United States House of Representatives as a Whig in 1840. During this term, he moved to repeal the rule that excluded anti-slavery petitions, and spoke upon the loan and bankrupt bills, and the army. At the end of his term in Congress, he turned his attention wholly to his law business until he was again in the Maine legislature in 1845-46 and he was again in the Maine legislature in 1853 and 1854. Fessendens strong anti-slavery principles caused his election to the U. S. Senate in 1854, with the support of Whigs, upon taking office, he immediately began speaking against the Kansas-Nebraska Act
32.
Abraham Lincoln
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Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, in doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy. Born in Hodgenville, Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in Kentucky. Largely self-educated, he became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Reentering politics in 1854, he became a leader in building the new Republican Party, in 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination as a moderate from a swing state. Though he gained little support in the slaveholding states of the South. Subsequently, on April 12,1861, a Confederate attack on Fort Sumter inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage and his Gettysburg Address became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy. Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war and his primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus, leading to the ex parte Merryman decision. Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Lincoln tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, each time a general failed, Lincoln substituted another, until finally Grant succeeded. As the war progressed, his moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. On April 14,1865, five days after the surrender of Confederate commanding general Robert E. Lee, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton launched a manhunt for Booth, and 12 days later on April 26, Lincoln has been consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born February 12,1809, the child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville. He was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk to its namesake of Hingham, samuels grandson and great-grandson began the familys western migration, which passed through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Lincolns paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786. His children, including eight-year-old Thomas, the presidents father
33.
Edwin Stanton
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Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stantons management helped organize the military resources of the North. He also organized the manhunt for Lincolns killer, John Wilkes Booth, however, he was criticized by many Union generals for perceived over-cautiousness and micromanagement. After Lincolns assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new President Andrew Johnson during the first years of Reconstruction and he opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnsons attempt to dismiss Stanton ultimately led to President Johnson being impeached by the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives, before the American Revolution, Stantons paternal ancestors, the Stantons and the Macys, both of whom were Quakers, moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina. In 1774, Stantons grandfather, Benjamin Stanton, married Abigail Macy and that year, Benjamins widow moved to the Northwest Territory, accompanied by much of her family. Soon, Ohio was admitted to the Union, and Macy proved to be one of the developers of the new state. She bought a tract of land at Mount Pleasant, Ohio from the government, one of her sons, David, became a physician in Steubenville, and married Lucy Norman, the daughter of a Virginia planter. Their marriage was met with the ire of Ohios Quaker community, as Lucy was a Methodist and this forced David Stanton to abandon the Quaker sect. The first of David and Lucy Stantons four children, Edwin McMasters, was born to them on December 19,1814 in Steubenville, the Stantons later had two daughters, Oella and Pamphilia, and another son, Darwin. In his youth, Edwin was physically delicate, grave and studious, as well as frank, eloquent and empathetic, edwins early formal education consisted of a private school and a seminary behind the Stantons residence, called Old Academy. When he was ten, he was transferred to a school taught by a Presbyterian minister and it was also at ten that Edwin experienced his first asthma attack, a malady that would haunt him for life, making him convulse at times. His asthma assured him that he would be unable to partake in physical activities. Edwin was a reader of books and poetry. He even formed a library of sorts among him and his friends. Edwin attended Methodist church services and Sunday school regularly, at the age of thirteen, Stanton become a full member of the Methodist church. David Stantons medical practice afforded him and his family a decent, when David Stanton suddenly died in December 1827 at his residence, Edwin and family were left destitute. Edwins mother opened a store in the front room of their residence, selling the medical supplies her husband left her, along with books, stationery, the youthful Edwin was removed from school, and employed at the store of a local bookseller, James Turnbull
34.
Samuel Dexter
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Samuel Dexter was an early American statesman who served both in Congress and in the Presidential Cabinet. After he passed the bar in 1784, he began practicing in Lunenburg and he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives and served from 1788 to 1790. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Federalist and he served in the United States Senate from March 4,1799, to May 30,1800. Dexter responded by questioning why Catholics were not required to denounce allegiance to the Pope, in December 1799, he delivered the Senate eulogy for George Washington. Dexter served in the Senate for less than a year, during his time at the War Department he urged congressional action to permit appointment and compensation of field officers for general staff duty. When Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott Jr. resigned in December 1800, Adams appointed Dexter as interim Secretary, in a letter to his wife on March 5,1801, Gallatin said that Dexter had behaved with great civility. He returned to Boston in 1805 and resumed the practice of law and he left the Federalists and became a Democratic-Republican because he supported the War of 1812. He was a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in 1814,1815 and 1816. Dexter was an ardent supporter of the movement and presided over its first formal organization in Massachusetts. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and he died on May 4,1816, shortly before his 55th birthday and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Simon Newton Dexter and Andrew Dexter, Jr. were his nephews, samuel W. Dexter, founder of Dexter, Michigan, was his son. Samuel Dexter is the namesake of Dexter, Maine, the USRC Dexter was named in his honor. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
35.
William M. Meredith
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For the Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, see William Morton Meredith. William Morris Meredith was an American lawyer and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury, during President Zachary Taylors Administration. During the year he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar,1795, William Tuckey Meredith married the writer and poet Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith. Gertrude was the niece of Lewis Morris, as well as of Gouverneur Morris, the couple ultimately had eleven children. William Tuckey Meredith served on the Philadelphia Common and Select Councils and his brother Jonathan Meredith was a leader of the Bar in Baltimore, Maryland. William M. Meredith graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1812, after assisting his father in the familys saddlery business, he read law, and was himself admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar. After his mothers death in 1828, William Moore Meredith helped raise his younger siblings, on June 17,1834, at the age of 35 and after a ten-year engagement, Meredith married the former Catherine Keppele. They had one son and four daughters, Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith, Euphemia Ogden Meredith, Elizabeth Caldwell Meredith, Catherine Meredith also helped care for her husbands siblings, and his father when he was disabled by a stroke in 1839. Meredith was admitted to the bar in 1817, and began practicing law and he drew considerable public attention, as did his slightly senior colleague James C. Biddle, by questioning the conduct of Judge Frank Hallowell in Commonwealth v. Cook, during the jurys deliberation, the American Daily Advertiser published an article which defense counsel thought highly biased. Upon their release, they secured release of two of the prisoners in an appeal on double jeopardy grounds and this gained Meredith a reputation for fearlessness and inflexible honesty, and he was elected President of the Philadelphia Bar Association the following year. A Federalist, Meredith was then elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, where he served in the minority for five years, from 1824 to 1828, the year of his mothers death. Meredith was president of the Philadelphia City Council from 1834 until 1849, Meredith also served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1841 to 1845. During that time, he prosecuted Alexander Holmes for manslaughter in the William Brown case, President Zachary Taylor, wanting a Pennsylvania Whig for his cabinet, appointed William M. Meredith to be the 19th Secretary of the Treasury. He began his term in office on March 8,1849, Meredith strongly opposed the free trade legislation passed the year before under his predecessor Robert J. Walker. He felt that there was a need to protect the American workman, merediths principal contribution in office was his Annual Report of 1849 in which he set forth an elaborate argument for a protective tariff. He also recommended a revision of the Coast Survey Code, which had not been changed since its implementation in 1806, the Coast Survey had seen great expansion and improvement with the introduction of steam powered ships and was in need of revision. Meredith resigned from his office as Secretary of the Treasury, upon President Zachary Taylors death in 1850, Meredith was elected Pennsylvanias attorney general in the 1860 election, and served for two terms
36.
Robert J. Walker
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Robert John Walker was an American economist and statesman. As a senator, Walker vigorously supported the annexation of Texas, as Secretary of the Treasury, he held responsibility for the management of funds relating to the Mexican-American War, and in this capacity was accused of misappropriation. He resigned shortly following his appointment by President James Buchanan as Governor of Kansas in 1857 due to his opposition to the administration-sponsored pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution, after his retirement from politics, Walker supported the United States during the American Civil War and practiced law. Born in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, he was the son of a judge and he lived in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania from 1806 to 1814, where his father was presiding judge of the judicial district. Walker was educated at the Bellefonte Academy and he graduated in 1819 at the top of his class at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the Philomathean Society, and was admitted to the bar in Pittsburgh in 1821. He practiced law in Pittsburgh from 1822 until 1826 when he moved to Mississippi, there he joined his brother, Duncan Walker, in a lucrative law practice. Walker became a speculator in cotton, land and slaves and he became politically prominent during the Nullification Crisis, and from 1835 to 1845 he sat in the United States Senate as a Unionist Democrat. He also opposed the Bank of the United States and he claimed that independent Texas had to be annexed to prevent it from falling into the hands of Great Britain, which would use it to spread subversion throughout the South. He was U. S. Secretary of the Treasury throughout the Polk administration, from March 8,1845 until March 5,1849, vice President George M. Dallas convinced Polk to appoint Walker to the position. As Treasury Secretary, Walker financed the Mexican-American War and drafted the 1849 bill to establish the United States Department of the Interior, one example of financing the Mexican-American war can be seen in correspondence, he wrote to Major General William Orlando Butler, February 23,1848. He also supported the independent Treasury system, pushed for a tariff for revenue, Walker was involved in a prominent Treasury report of December 3,1845. It is regarded as the most powerful attack upon the system that has ever been made in an American state paper. The Walker Tariff of 1846 was based upon the principles of paper and was in fact largely the secretarys own work. It was during the Mexican-American War that the US treasury seemed to be running out of money, an astonishingly large amount of funds had been withdrawn from the armys quartermaster and commissary departments. It turned out that $1.1 million had been deposited in the bank of Corcoran and Riggs, Polk, who had run on an anti-bank platform, wrote in his diary that it was the most troubling moment of his presidency. Confronting Walker yielded only casual, vague replies, Polk ordered an investigation, but Walker still couldnt give Polk the answers he needed. Eventually Walker told Polk that the $600,000 remaining in the hands would be distributed to the army. It was never proved whether any chicanery had been going on, after leaving Treasury in 1849, Walker became a lawyer in Washington, DC, devoted himself to business and land speculation and became involved in mining interests
37.
William H. Crawford
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William Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War from 1815 to 1816 and United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 to 1825 and he moved with his family to Edgefield County, South Carolina in 1779, and to Columbia County, Georgia in 1783. Crawford was educated at schools in Georgia and at Richmond Academy in Augusta. After his fathers death, Crawford became the main financial provider. He later studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1799, also in 1799, Crawford was appointed by the state legislature to prepare a digest of Georgias statutes. William H. Crawford influenced Georgia politics for decades, in 1803, Crawford was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and he served until 1807. He allied himself with senator James Jackson and their enemies were the Clarkites, led by John Clark. In 1802, he shot and killed Peter Lawrence Van Alen, four years later on December 16,1806, Crawford faced Clark himself in a duel, resulting in Crawfords left wrist being shattered by a shot from Clark, but he eventually recovered. In 1807, Crawford joined the 10th United States Congress mid-term as the junior U. S, senator from Georgia when the Georgia legislature elected him to replace George Jones, an appointee who had held the office for a few months after the death of Abraham Baldwin. Crawford was elected President pro tempore in 1811, when Vice President George Clinton died on April 20,1812, Crawford, as President pro tempore, became the first Acting Vice President until March 4,1813. In 1811, Crawford declined to serve as Secretary of War in the Madison administration, in the Senate, he voted for several acts leading up to the War of 1812, and he supported the United States entry into the war, but was ready for peace. Crawford said, Let it then be the wisdom of this nation to remain at peace, upon Crawfords return, Madison appointed him as Secretary of War. After slightly more than a year of service in that post. He remained in position through the rest of Madisons term and Monroes entire administration. Crawford was again a candidate for the Democratic-Republican presidential nomination in 1824. However, Crawford was put out of the running because of a stroke he suffered in 1823 that was brought on by a prescription given to him by his physician. The Democratic-Republican Party split around this time and one of the splinter groups nominated Crawford, despite Crawfords improved health, he finished third in the electoral vote, behind New Orleans war hero Andrew Jackson and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Refusing Adamss request that he remain at the Treasury, Crawford then returned to Georgia, Crawford remained an active judge until his death a decade later
38.
United States Senate
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The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the Senate are established by Article One of the United States Constitution. S. From 1789 until 1913, Senators were appointed by the legislatures of the states represented, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913. The Senate chamber is located in the wing of the Capitol, in Washington. It further has the responsibility of conducting trials of those impeached by the House, in the early 20th century, the practice of majority and minority parties electing their floor leaders began, although they are not constitutional officers. This idea of having one chamber represent people equally, while the other gives equal representation to states regardless of population, was known as the Connecticut Compromise, there was also a desire to have two Houses that could act as an internal check on each other. One was intended to be a Peoples House directly elected by the people, the other was intended to represent the states to such extent as they retained their sovereignty except for the powers expressly delegated to the national government. The Senate was thus not designed to serve the people of the United States equally, the Constitution provides that the approval of both chambers is necessary for the passage of legislation. First convened in 1789, the Senate of the United States was formed on the example of the ancient Roman Senate, the name is derived from the senatus, Latin for council of elders. James Madison made the comment about the Senate, In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people. An agrarian law would take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation, landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority, the senate, therefore, ought to be this body, and to answer these purposes, the people ought to have permanency and stability. The Constitution stipulates that no constitutional amendment may be created to deprive a state of its equal suffrage in the Senate without that states consent, the District of Columbia and all other territories are not entitled to representation in either House of the Congress. The District of Columbia elects two senators, but they are officials of the D. C. city government. The United States has had 50 states since 1959, thus the Senate has had 100 senators since 1959. In 1787, Virginia had roughly ten times the population of Rhode Island, whereas today California has roughly 70 times the population of Wyoming and this means some citizens are effectively two orders of magnitude better represented in the Senate than those in other states. Seats in the House of Representatives are approximately proportionate to the population of each state, before the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, Senators were elected by the individual state legislatures
39.
United States Secretary of the Treasury
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This position in the Federal Government of the United States is analogous to the Minister of Finance in many other countries. The Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the Presidents Cabinet, nominees for The Secretary of the Treasury undergo a confirmation hearing before the United States Senate Committee on Finance before being confirmed by the United States Senate. The Secretary of the Treasury is a member of the U. S. National Security Council. The Secretary along with the Treasurer must sign Federal Reserve notes before they can become legal tender, the Secretary also manages the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund. Most of the Departments law enforcement agencies such as the U. S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, secret Service were reassigned to other Departments in 2003 in conjunction with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The Secretary of the Treasury salary is $205,700 annually,2 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury M. Peter McPherson served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from August 17,1988, to September 15,1988. 4 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Kenneth W. Dam served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from December 31,2002,5 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert M. Kimmitt served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from June 30,2006, to July 9,2006. 7 Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Neal Wolin served as Acting Secretary of the Treasury from January 25,2013, as of April 2017, there are eleven living former Secretaries of the Treasury, the oldest being George P. Shultz. The most recent Secretary of the Treasury to die was Lloyd M. Bentsen, United States Department of the Treasury
40.
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
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The BEP does not produce coins, all coinage is produced by the United States Mint. With production facilities in Washington, DC, and Fort Worth, Texas, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has its origins in legislation enacted to help fund the Civil War. In July 1861, Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to issue currency in lieu of coins due to the lack of funds needed to support the conflict. The paper notes were essentially government IOUs and were called Demand Notes because they were payable on demand in coin at certain Treasury facilities, at this time the government had no facility for the production of paper money so a private firm produced the Demand Notes in sheets of four. These sheets were then sent to the Treasury Department where dozens of clerks signed the notes and scores of workers cut the sheets, initially, the currency processing operations in the Treasury were not formally organized. For years, however, the operations were known by various semi-official labels, such as the Printing Bureau, Small Note Bureau, Currency Department. It was not until 1874 that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was officially recognized in legislation with a specific allocation of operating funds for fiscal year 1875. From almost the beginning of its operations, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing designed and printed a variety of products in addition to currency. As early as 1864, the offices which would become the BEP made passports for the State Department. Passports are now produced by the Government Publishing Office, other early items produced by the BEP included various government debt instruments, such as interest-bearing notes, refunding certificates, compound interest Treasury notes, and bonds. The production of stamps began in 1894, and for almost the next century the BEP was the sole producer of postage stamps in the country. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing officially took over production of stamps for the United States government in July 1894. Paper currency was produced on hand presses around 1918, utilizing plates capable of printing four notes per sheet. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing officially took over production of stamps for the United States government in July 1894. The first of the works printed by the BEP was placed on sale on July 18,1894, and by the end of the first year of stamp production, the BEP had printed and delivered more than 2.1 billion stamps. The United States Postal Service switched purely to private postage stamp printers in 2005, starting in 2011 the United States Postal Service in housed all postage stamp printing services. Plate capacity on power presses increased from four to eight notes per sheet in 1918 in order to greatly expanded production requirements related to World War I. Due to this reduction in size, the Bureau was able to convert from eight-note printing plates to twelve-note plates, the redesign effort came about for several reasons, chief among them a reduction in paper costs and improved counterfeit deterrence through better public recognition of currency features
41.
Martin Thayer
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Martin Russell Thayer was a Republican member of the U. S. House of Representatives from the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. His Grandnephew was John Borland Thayer, who died on the Sinking of the RMS Titanic, Martin Russell Thayer was born in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, near the city limits of Petersburg, Virginia. He attended the Mount Pleasant Classical Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts and he moved with his father to Philadelphia in 1837. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1840 and he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1842 and commenced practice in Philadelphia. Thayer was a commissioner to revise the laws of Pennsylvania in 1862. He declined to be a candidate for re-election in 1866, Thayer was judge of the district court of Philadelphia from 1867 to 1874, and served as president judge of the court of common pleas of Philadelphia from 1874 until his resignation in 1896. In 1873 he was appointed on the board of visitors to West Point and he was elected by the judges of the common pleas court prothonotary of Philadelphia in 1896. He also engaged in literary pursuits and he died in Philadelphia in 1906 and is buried in the churchyard of Church of St. James the Less in Philadelphia. The Duties of Citizenship A Reply to Mr. Charles Ingersolls Letter to a Friend in a Slave State, the Great Victory, its Cost and Value The Law considered as a Progressive Science On Libraries The Life and Works of Francis Lieber The Battle of Germantown United States Congress. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, the Political Graveyard Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds. Works by Martin Russell Thayer at Project Gutenberg Martin Russell Thayer at Find a Grave
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