ge of this law was a great
misfortune. It enabled the Secretary of the Treasury to retire at
a rapid rate United States notes and to largely increase the bonded
indebtedness of the United States. It would no doubt have brought
us abruptly to the specie standard and made us dependent for
circulating notes upon the issues of national banks.

At this time there was a wide difference of opinion between Secretary
McCulloch and myself as to the financial policy of the government
in respect to the public debt and the currency. He was in favor
of a rapid contraction of the currency by funding it into interest
bearing bonds. I was in favor of maintaining in circulation the
then existing volume of currency as an aid to the funding of all
forms of interest-bearing securities into bonds redeemable within
a brief period at the pleasure of the United States, and bearing
as low a rate of interest as possible. Both of us were in favor
of specie payments, he by contraction and I by the gradual advancement
of the credit and value of our currency to the specie standard.
With him specie payments was the primary object, with me it was a
secondary object, to follow the advancing credit of the government.
Each of us was in favor of the payment of the interest of bonds in
coin, and the principal, when due, in coin. A large proportion of
national securities were payable in lawful money, or United States
notes. He, by contraction, would have made this payment more
difficult, while I, by retaining the notes in existence, would
induce the holders of currency certificates to convert them into
coin obligations bearing a lower rate of interest.

CHAPTER XVII.
INDEBTEDNESS OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1865.
Organization of the Greenback Party--Total Debt on October 31st
amounts to $2,805,549,437.55--Secretary McCulloch's Desire to
Convert All United States Notes into Interest Bearing Bonds--My
Discussion with Senator Fessenden Over the Finance Committee's Bill
--Too Great Powers Conferred on the Secretary of the Treasury--His
Desire to Retire $10,000,000 of United States Notes Each Month--
Growth of the Greenback Party--The Secretary's Powers to Reduce
the Currency by Retiring or Canceling United States Notes is
Suspended--Bill to Reduce Taxes and Provide Internal Revenue--My
Trip to Laramie and Other Western Forts with General Sherman--
Beginning of the Department of Agriculture.

During this period a party sprang up composed of men of all p