THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS OF

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS

Issued in commemoration op the completion op the first ten

YEARS OP THE UNIVERSITY'S EXISTENCE

EDITED BY A COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY THE SENATE

EDWARD CAPP3

STARR WILLARD CUTTING ROLLIN D. SALISBURY

JAKES ROWLAND ANQELL WILLIAM I. THOMAS 8HAILER HATHEW9

CARL DARLING BUCK FREDERIC IVES CARPENTER OSKAR BOLZA

JULIUS STIEGLITZ JACQUES LOEB

THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED

TO THE MEN AND WOMEN

OF OUR TIME AND COUNTRY WHO BY WISE AND GENEROUS GIVING

HAVE ENCOURAGED THE SEARCH AFTER TRUTH

In all departments of knowledge

HISTORY OF THE GREENBACKS

GREENBACKS

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE ECONOMIC

CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ISSUE: 1862-65

WESLEY CLAIR MITCHELL

OF THE DEPABTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

THE DECENNIAL PUBLICATIONS

SECOND SERIES VOLUME IX

CHICAGO

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

1903

Copyright 1903

BT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHTCAOO

TO J. W. M. AND L. M. M.

PREFACE

APOLOGIES must be made both for the bulkiness and

for the fragmentary character of the following monograph.

These defects are due to the same cause: an attempt to

utilize all the well-authenticated statistical material bearing

upon the subjects treated. The amount of labor entailed by

this attempt was so large that I have been unable to carry

the discussion beyond the first four years in tjie history of

the greenbacks. Even within this brief period two impor-

tant topics are passed over. Nothing is said of the effects

of the greenbacks upon foreign trade, and no comparisons

are made between American and foreign experiences with

paper money. The former topic is omitted from lack of

time to get the refractory statistical data relating to it into

significant shape; indeed, my dealings with the figures incline

me to doubt whether any other than a speculative treatment

Is feasible. As for the latter topic, I soon discovered that

foreign comparisons presented too large a subject to be dealt

with as a side issue in such a monograph as the present.

Moreover, the consequences of the abandonment of the specie

standard in which I have been most interested are such as

can be traced only when one has much fuller information

regarding prices, wages, and the like than are available to

the student of foreign experiments with inconvertible paper

currencies.

All of the statistical data employed in the course of the

discussion are presented at length in the Appendix in such

form that they can be readily verified, or employed in new

combinations. The tables have passed through the hands

of two computers. While I can hardly hope that no errors

Xll

PREFACE

of transcription, computation, or printing remain uncor-

rected, I should be surprised to find any of sufficient

consequence to affect the validity of the conclusions drawn.

Four of the chapters have appeared at various dates as

articles in the Journal of Political Economy, and one has

been reprinted in Sound Currency and the Report of the