"Nobody gives a hoot about who runs the post offices now, but boy they did then..." - Professor David Blight
"Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender." - President James A. Garfield, Innaugural Address
"I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! I did it and I want to be arrested! Arthur is President now!" - Charles Giteau
An engraving of James A. Garfield's assassination, published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The caption reads:
"Washington, D.C.—The attack on the President's life—Scene in the ladies' room of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot—The arrest of the assassin / from sketches by our special artist's [sic] A. Berghaus and C. Upham."
President Garfield is at center right, leaning after being shot. He is supported by Secretary of State James G. Blaine who wears a light colored top hat.
To left, assassin Charles Guiteau is restrained by members of the crowd, one of whom is about to strike him with a cane.
"There were southern secessionists who absolutely believed that even any discussion of slavery's future in the U.S. Congress should be suppressed, that they would no longer live in a union that even discussed what to do about the future of slavery.
And I would say there's not only a kind of racial fear, a fear of loss of slavery by the planter class, but there's a certain kind of political fear going on as well, and that is the fear that southern polls now had — they'd had this for years, hadn't they?
The fear was the growing, or the growth now for them of a kind of minority status, that that Republican Party in the North now had the potential, given the population of the North, this sectional, anti-slavery party, had the potential to really take over the House of Representatives, in huge numbers.
Then you get Lincoln in the White House for four years — and what if you get him for eight? — and he appoints the next two, three, four, five members of the Supreme Court. And he can control the diplomatic corps around the world, and even more importantly he can control patronage of the post office system, which in those years, believe it or not, was very powerful; nobody gives a hoot about who runs the post offices now but boy they did then.
And what was at stake? And we can see this all over their letters and their diaries, their speeches in secession conventions, was a loss ultimately for the slaveholding class of what James Roark and other scholars have called "planter control."
So to say secession is about slavery is accurate, but there are layers beneath it, in what I'd call a kind of fear thesis."
"any party which commits itself to paper money will go down amid the general disaster, covered with the curses of a ruined people."
"By the experience of commercial nations in all ages it has been found that gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a monetary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but I confidently believe that arrangements can be made between the leading commercial nations which will secure the general use of both metals.
Congress should provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now required by law may not disturb our monetary system by driving either metal out of circulation. If possible, such an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paying power in all the markets of the world.
The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender.
The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation.
These notes are not money, but promises to pay money.
If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept.
The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.
I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on financial questions during a long service in Congress, and to say that time and experience have strengthened the opinions I have so often expressed on these subjects.
The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be possible for my Administration to prevent.
Guiteau was destitute and increasingly slovenly due to wearing the same clothes every day, the only clothes he owned, but he did not give up.
On May 13, 1881, he was banned from the White House waiting room.
On May 14, 1881, Secretary of State James G. Blaine told him never to return:
"Never speak to me again of the Paris consulship as long as you live."
"I think there are only three places that are of value enough to be taken ... One is Hawaii and the others are Cuba and Porto Rico [sic]. Cuba and Porto Rico are not now imminent and will not be for a generation. Hawaii may come up for decision at an unexpected hour and I hope we shall be prepared to decide it in the affirmative."
I quote The Enemy:
"As Secretary of State, Blaine was a transitional figure, marking the end of an isolationist era in foreign policy and foreshadowing the rise of the American Century that would begin with the Spanish-American War.
His efforts at expanding the United States' trade and influence began the shift to a more active American foreign policy. Blaine was a pioneer of tariff reciprocity and urged greater involvement in Latin American affairs. An expansionist, Blaine's policies would lead in less than a decade to the establishment of the United States' acquisition of Pacific colonies and dominance of the Caribbean."
[Sounds an awful lot like British Intelligence, to me...]
Text:
"The Samoan Situation
"As surrendered by Secretary Bayard to His Successor, March 4, 1889."
U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Francis Bayard points a rifle towards his successor, James Gillespie Blaine, who is climbing over the fence of "neutrality."
During this time, Germany was expanding into Samoa, and the United States [and Edward, Prince of Wales, Grandmaster Mason of York Rite Freemasonry] was trying to counter this expansion.
From the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uhmlibrary/8274363782/
"As will shock you all, calls for Chester A. Arthur coins are not big."
Vice President Biden,
announcing the suspension of the $1 Presidential Coin program
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