June 10, 2019 Monday
Bedtime Story
Congressman Elbridge G. Spaulding Drafts the Bill
Lincoln, to be honest, was not impressed
with the idea of printing paper currency and making it a legal tender but
pressure was mounting on him from the Congress.
To finance the war Lincoln had only one
other option (apart from the blasphemy that was being suggested to him) which
was to borrow money from foreign creditors and risking falling into a perpetual
debt trap that was equally an unviable idea considering the way the war was
progressing or rather not progressing becoming a stalemate.
In addition to this barely a year after
issuing the Demand Notes (by December of 1861) the government was already
facing the problem of failing to redeem the Demand Notes with payment of specie
which meant that soon people would realize their worthlessness.
It was much akin like a private bank that
issues the note going bust only in this case it was the government of the
United States that was on the brink of bankruptcy and not able to honor its Notes.
In fact in the beginning days of 1862
because of its inability to supply enough gold and silver coins the government had
suspended specie payment for Demand Notes.
Thus it was unable to redeem the Demand
Notes which it was supposed to do provide “on demand” to any Demand Note bearer
which became a source of great consternation for the Congress that after all
represented ordinary people.
In February of 1862 the desperate Congress
in sheer exasperation with no better option visible to them passed an Act
allowing an additional and final batch of $10 million worth of Demand Notes to
be printed.
Any more amount than this would certainly
make the Demand Notes unredeemable even by rough calculation of the circulating
specie and thereby completely worthless.
Even in the Congress as was the case with
Lincoln most were extremely queasy with the idea of printing paper currency
that was not backed with anything valuable such as gold or silver.
Most Congressmen read the Constitution and
did not find any interpretation in it that granted the government the power to
issue paper currency.
But a banker, a lawyer and a Congressman by
the name of Elbridge G. Spaulding was sure in his mind that the country had no
option but to draft a bill, get this bill passed by the Congress and ratified
by the President which would allow the government to print paper currency.
In his appeal and argument to his fellow
Congressmen in the house to support his bill that he had drafted he said:
“The bill before us is a war measure, a
measure of necessity, and not of choice.”
“These are extraordinary times, and
extraordinary measures must be resorted to in order to save our Government, and
preserve our nationality.”
He stressed that this action of the
Congress would be justifiable as it was the only way “to raise and support
armies” and “to provide and maintain navy” which were the powers granted in the
Constitution to the Congress.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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