Silver and Segregation

• Published in: Historically speaking Vol. 14; no. 5; pp. 2 - 4
• Main Author: Wells, Wyatt
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.11.2013
• Subjects: 19th century; African Americans; American dollar; Civil rights; Congressional elections; Fraud; Libraries; Political parties; Progressivism; Race relations; State elections; State of the Union Address; Tariffs; Voting rights; United States > US
• DOI: 10.1353/hsp.2013.0048
• ISSN: 1941-4188; 1944-6438

Ever since the Civil War had forced the country to adopt a fiat currency (greenbacks), money had been a major political issue.8 The adoption of the gold standard in 1879 and the prosperity of the early 1880s temporarily pushed the question into the background, but falling agricultural prices at the end of the decade once more moved the subject to the center of political life. The government would buy 4.5 million ounces of silver a month- the equivalent of the output of all U.S. mines-in exchange for Treasury notes (another variety of paper money), which the government undertook to maintain at par with gold. [...]the process of "Redemption," the overthrow of Reconstruction by fraud, intimidation, and violence, although distasteful, represented progress. Many of the Senators who made speeches during this debate had them printed up and circulated to their constituents back home, and Google Books has collected many of them in a volume entitled Silver Speeches in the U.S. Senate. 10 For the ties between Populism and Progressivism, see Walter Nugent, Progressivism: A Ver y Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010).