was
considerate enough to bring into print a series of postage stamps
without any gum on the back. These could, of course, be handled more
easily, but were still seriously perishable. Towards the close of the
year, the Treasury department printed from artistically engraved plates
a baby currency in notes of about two and a half inches long by one and
a half inches wide. The denominations comprised ten cents, fifteen
cents, twenty-five cents, fifty cents, and seventy-five cents. The
fifteen cents and the seventy-five cents were not much called for, and
were probably not printed more than once. They would now be scarce as
curiosities. The postal currency was well printed on substantial paper,
but in connection with the large requirement for handling that is always
placed upon small currency, these little paper notes became very dirty
and were easily used up. The government must have made a large profit
from the percentage that was destroyed. The necessary effect of this
distribution of government "I.O.U.'s," based not upon any redemption
fund of gold but merely upon the general credit of the government, was
to appreciate the value of gold. In June, 1863, just before the battle
of Gettysburg, the depreciation of this paper currency, which
represented of course the appreciation of gold, was in the ratio of 100
to 290. It happened that the number 290, which marked the highest price
reached by gold during the War, was the number that had been given in
Laird's ship-yard (on the Mersey) to the Confederate cruiser _Alabama_.

Chase was not only a hard-working Secretary of the Treasury but an
ambitious, active-minded, and intriguing politician. He represented in
the administration the more extreme anti-slavery group. He was one of
those who favoured from the beginning immediate action on the part of
the government in regard to the slaves in the territory that was still
controlled by the government. It is doubtless the case that he held
these anti-slavery views as a matter of honest conviction. It is in
evidence also from his correspondence that he connected with these views
the hope and the expectation of becoming President. His scheming for the
nomination for 1864 was carried on with the machinery that he had at his
disposal as Secretary of the Treasury. The issues between Chase and
Seward and between Chase and Stanton were many and bitter. The pressure
on the part of the conservative Republicans to get Chase out of the
Cabinet