NOTES
THE MONETARY
PROBLEMS OF WILLIAM McKINLEY
1 Congressional Record, 51 cong., 1 sess., 5812. An analysis of McKinley
similar to this may
appear in a projected volume titled
"Crossroads to Twentieth Century America: Politics, Policies
and Problems of William McKinley,"
edited by Paolo Coletta.
2 In this narrative the term "currency" is not restricted to
issues of paper money; it includes
emissions of coin.
3 1881-83, forty-seventh congress,
Republicans 146, Democrats 138, Greenbackers 10; 1889-91,
fifty-first congress, Republicans 166,
Democrats 159, with numerous silver advocates lacking an
official silver party label.
4 The political figures have been
compiled by checking the Ohio Hundred Year Book, 1803-1902
against the Biographical Directory of
the American Congress, and an aggregation of Ohio histories.
5 The
other main issue was Negro suffrage. Ohio's political shifts, 1867-73, are
traced in Eugene
H. Roseboom, The Civil War Era,
1850-1873 (Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio,
IV, Columbus, 1944), 457-485.
6 This act of February 4, 1868,
left outstanding $356,000,000; this countered the February 12,
1866, law authorizing retirement of
$10,000,000 of greenbacks within six months and up to $4,000,000
in any month thereafter.
7 A. K. McClure, Our Presidents and
How We Make Them (New York, 1902), 208, 213-216. On
the twenty-second ballot Seymour, who
had had no votes most of the time, got twenty-one, all from
Ohio, presumably cast by the
anti-Greenback faction. This commenced a stampede which gave
him the nomination on that ballot.
8 Law of March 18, 1869. Grant's
inaugural insisted upon gold payment, unless otherwise
stipulated in the contract.
9 Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and
Letters of James Abram Garfield (New Haven, Conn.,
1925), I, 471.
10 Congressional Record, 43 cong., 1 sess., 2835, 3078; veto of April 22, 1874.
Secretary of the
Treasury W. A. Richardson, under
depression pressures, had added $26,000,000 to the total
$356,000,000 outstanding under the 1868
contraction law.
11 Congressional Record, 43 cong., 2 sess., 319.
12 Irwin Unger, "Business and
Currency in the Ohio Gubernatorial Campaign of 1875," Mid-
America, XLI (1959), 27-39.
13 Hayes's plurality was only 5,544
votes. For 1875 Ohio campaign inconsistencies, compare
Hayes's speeches, quoted liberally in
Charles R. Williams, The Life of Rutherford Burchard Hayes
(Boston, 1914), I, 387-408, with the
newspaper citations in Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age,
1873-1900 (Carl Wittke, ed., The History of the State of Ohio,
V, Columbus, 1943), 3648.
14 Canton Repository, September
and October, 1875.
15 Congressional Record, 45 cong., 2 sess., 1605-1607.
16 The national platform lauded
Republicanism as the defense against treasonable Democracy.
The Democratic platform demanded repeal
of the resumption clause of 1875 and berated the
Republicans for failing to achieve
specie payment sooner and by less alarming methods. McClure,
Our Presidents and How We Make Them, 249-252, 254-255.
17 Richard P. Bland's H.R. 4189
passed the house with ayes 167 and nays 53, Ohio contributing
two nays (Garfield and a Democrat, F. H.
Hurd). Congressional Record, 44 cong., 2 sess., 172.
18 Bland's H.R. 1093 easily got
suspension of the rules for quick action and passed with ayes 163,
nays 34. Congressional Record, 45
cong., 1 sess., 241-242.
19 Resumption repeal passed the house by
the narrow vote of yeas 133, nays 120. Congressional
Record, 45 cong., 1 sess., 632-633. One Democratic and seven
Republican Ohio congressmen, includ-
ing Garfield, voted nay.
20 See for example the Canton
Repository of November 9, 16, 23, 30, December 7, 14, 21, 28, 1877,
judged by biographer Margaret Leech to
be a faithful reflection of McKinley's views. In the Days
of McKinley (New York, 1960), 54.
21 Sherman to August Belmont, November 13, 1877, in John Sherman's
Recollections of Forty
Years in the House, Senate and
Cabinet: An Autobiography (Chicago,
1895), 606.
22 Canton Repository, January
25, 1878. The Democrats complained that the earlier resolution
"didn't have the effect desired
upon John Sherman and the rest."
23 This was the only time from
1849 to 1911 that the Ohio opposition to the Democrats held
no senate seat.