Beschreibung:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT]. SPINNER, Francis Elias (1802-1890), Treasurer of the United States . Original (mostly autograph) manuscripts of the "Annual Report of the Treasurer of the United States" for the years 1868 and 1870, comprising expenditures and receipts, as submitted by Spinner to the Secretary of the Treasury, each volume signed at end ("F.E. Spinner Treasurer of the United States"), with PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION FROM SPINNER: the flyleaf of the 1868 report inscribed by Spinner, Washington, 20 May 1872: "This volume is presented to Mrs. Mary Rosemond Spinner Harvey, as a specimen of his labors for his country, and as a token of his love for his daughter." Washington, D.C. 20 October 1868 and 1 November 1870. 133 and 213 pp., written on rectos only, 2 vols., 4to, 9 5/8 in x 7/3/4 in., FINELY BOUND in green (1868) and brown (1870) morocco leather, elaborately gilt-tooled, top edges gilt, bindings slightly rubbed, internally fine. U. S. TREASURER'S ANNUAL REPORTS FOR 1868 AND 1870, DOCUMENTING THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE MINTING OF COINS AND ISSUANCE OF PAPER CURRENCY A remarkable pair of volumes containing over 300 pages of the Treasurer's Annual Report, mostly in the very distinctive hand of Spinner, who served as Treasurer for fourteen consecutive years under Presidents Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and U.S. Grant (1861-1875). Evidently these manuscripts were used by the government printer to typeset Spinner's published annual reports. A native of upstate New York, Spinner took on the challenging task of managing the nation's funds during the unprecedented crisis of secession and Civil War, including the National Banking Act of 1863, which introduced federally chartered national banks, significantly increased the money supply and established a uniform national currency. Spinner's reports, each in the form of a lengthy letter addressed to Treasury Secretaries George Boutwell and Hugh McCulloch are detailed records of expenditures, indebtedness and receipts by the Treasury. For the year 1868, for example, Spinner tallies total cash on hand at the end of the fiscal year as $1.246 billion, by 1870, the total is recorded as $930.14 million. Each report contains an interesting "Comparative statement" showing changes in the various Departments' receipts from the previous year. The 1868 report contains (pp.126-130) an article considering the issue of "Base Metal Tokens," which Spinner terms "false, iredeemable and almost valueless," explaining that their use developed after the "suspension of specie payments." In search of a substitute, postage stamps, he explains, "were at once, for want of a better, used for this purpose," but "were soon found to be very inconvenient," at which point the issuance of fractional paper currency was authorized by Congress. But the smaller denominations were soon withdrawn and replaced by "an almost worthless, irredeemable, poisonous and stinking copper and nickel token currency" [coins], widely used by the Post-Office but unredeemable at the treasury due to Congressional rules. "Was there ever," Spinner rails, "an act of government of a respectable people that for meanness can compare with this?" If an individual practiced such a fraud, he goes on, "he would be branded as a two-penny thief and would soon be consigned to a house of correction." This controversy culminated in the establishment of the U.S. Mint as a bureau of the Treasury in 1873 and the historic coinage law which demonitized silver ("the crime of 1873"). Other separate reports deal with staff and salaries, destruction of worn currency, Post-Office receipts, unclaimed interest on government stocks, and in 1870, the theft of $20,000 in bills from the Treasury office, which is described in great detail. (2)