FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE.*
IN his Men and Measures of Half-a-Century, Mr. Hugh M'Ctilloch shows us the actual working of some • of those American institutions which Mr. Bryce has so ably and elaborately described. Of "bosses," "rings," and professional politicians, he has, indeed, little or nothing to say. He was never a Member of Congress, or of his State Legislature ; but in the crisis of the War he was summoned from the presidency of a large banking institution to superintend the issue of the -new currency, and subsequently was made Secretary of the Treasury by Mr. Lincoln, a post which he also filled during the whole of President Johnson's and part of President Arthur's terms of office. His administrative experience was therefore considerable, and the efficient way in which he dealt with the gigantic war debt was cordially recognised at the time, both in this country and America, eliciting a high com- pliment from Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons. Mr. M'Culloch is by origin a New Englander and a Bostonian. New Englanders, he tells us, are rapidly disappearing as a • Men and Measures of Half a-Century. By Thigh WOnlloch, Secretary of the Treasury in the Administrations of Presidents Lincoln, Johnson, and Arthur. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rirington.
distinct class, and becoming absorbed in the hordes of foreign immigrants who have settled in the Eastern States. When young, he went West and settled, and began to practice law in Indiana, then on the outskirts of civili- sation. The lawyers of those days had to ride circuit through a sparsely populated country, to put up at lonely cabins, and while-away the long evenings in telling stories round a log-fire. It was in this life that Lincoln acquired that fund of apt and humorous anecdotes which distinguished him. Mr. McCulloch first met him a few days after the disaster of Bull's Run, and, not knowing him, was surprised, not to say scandalised, at the President's trying to - amuse his visitors with anecdotes, when his Government - seemed tottering to its fall.
America is not a land of special training. Any one is thought good enough for any post; and soon after his arrival in Indiana, Mr. McCulloch, who knew nothing about banking, was offered the management of one of the branches of the State Bank of Indiana. In this post he continued for over twenty years, until the Bank charter expired in 1857. What followed is too illustrative of the ways of State Legislatures to be passed over. A number of prominent politicians in the Legislature, without either capital or the requisite experience, combined to secure a new banking concession for themselves, and succeeded in doing so by passing their Bill over the Governor's veto. Having thus possessed themselves of one of the most valuable charters in the States, they proceeded to make it over, for valuable consideration, to the shareholders in the old bank. The latter made Mr. McCulloch president of the new body, and appointed one or two of the concessionaires branch managers. It was long, Mr. McCulloch tells, before he could wean them from the notion that the main business of managers was to lend money to themselves.
When the war broke out the solvency of many of these State banks was very doubtful, and as their notes could not safely be accepted in payment of taxes, Mr. Chase resolved to substitute for them a National Banking System. The new banks, or old banks coming under the new system, were to issue notes secured by the purchase of United States Bonds for the full amount of their issue with ten per cent. margin. Then, in case of insolvency, the nation would be liable to the holders of the notes. Mr. McCulloch was chosen to carry the new system into effect in the office of Comptroller of the Currency. Its success has Made it permanent, but its con- tinuance is incompatible with the complete extinction of the national debt. This was one of the measures by which Mr. Chase sought to meet the embarrassments arising from the war. The other was the issue of the greenbacks, of which he has been styled the father. It was, however, against his wish that they were made legal tender, a step which, as Mr. McCulloch points out, added nothing to their value or accept- ance. This question of legal tender, as is well known, raised a most important constitutional issue, and eventually brought down upon the Supreme Court the only serious blow ever aimed at its independence. Mr. Chase, though he assented to the green- backs being made legal tender, did not believe in the legality of the measure. When the point came before the Supreme Court, he had been promoted to be Chief Justice, and he held, with the majority of the Court, that the Constitution gave Congress no power to establish a forced paper currency. The decision was ill-received by Congress and the Executive, and not being able to question it openly, they resolved to effect their purpose by what can only be described as packing the Court. An Act was passed increasing the members of the Court, and the new Justices were chosen because they were known to take the same view as the minority of the Court. The point was then raised in a second case, and the Court, as newly consti- tuted, held, reversing its former decision, that the Act making the paper currency legal tender was legal, as necessary under the circumstances to the safety of the State. Yet a third time the point came before the Court some years later, and they then held that the issue of legal tender notes in ordinary times was legal, on the ground that what the Constitution did not actually forbid, Congress might lawfully do. This decision, Mr. 3fcCalloch remarks more grandiloquently than accurately, relieves Congress from hitherto well-defined restrictions, and "clothes a Republican government with Imperial power." Mr. McCulloch was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln's second administration, and continued in office until Andrew Johnson's term expired. He was with Lincoln on the
day of his assassination, and tells us he never saw him looking so happy. The cares of the war were over, and he was begin- ning to breathe freely. At the Treasury, Mr. McCulloch's efforts were mainly directed to reducing the war debt and cancelling the greenbacks, so far as Congress and the partisans of an inflated currency would let him. The reductions made in the debt were enormous, and nothing has ever been more creditable to the American democracy than the sacrifices it was content to make for this object. Andrew Johnson is perhaps the best abused President America has ever had; but Mr. McCulloch has much to say in mitigation of the harsh judgments passed upon him, and, on the whole, he would seem to have been not a bad specimen of the professional politician. He began life as a tailor, and rose through every gradation of office to the Vice-Presidency. The violence and intemperance of his language towards opponents was little suited to the dignity of his position, and gave rise to the suspicion that his speeches were made under the influence of liquor. This charge, Mr. McCulloch assures us from close personal observation, was totally unfounded. Johnson was a strictly temperate man, but—and in this he is a warning—he was never able to get over the violent and extravagant style of oratory he had cultivated "on the stump." He could write soberly and sensibly enough, but once on his legs he lost all self-control. But he would appear to have done his duty honestly, and to have been right oftener than not in his contests with Con- gress; and his impeachment before the Senate failed, as it deserved to fail.
Mr.. Bryce has remarked on the absence of large and statesmanlike views in the American politics of the day, and Mr. McCulloch's story is to the same effect. Take, for instance, the shipbuilding question. The policy of Congress would seem to aim at making the existence of an American merchant marine impossible. By their heavy duties on materials they render shipbuilding unprofitable in the States, and, not content with this, they make it an offence for an American citizen to purchase a foreign-built ship and bring her under the American flag. If ships cannot be built profitably at home and may not be purchased abroad, it is difficult to see from what source the merchant fleet can be recruited. "Why," he asks, "have our tariff laws been so framed as to prejudice and destroy one great interest while fostering others Why have our people looked on with indifference while our ships have been dis- appearing from the ocean ? The answer must be found in the lack of broad and comprehensive statesmanship in Congress and in the executive branches of the Government." In this case the American loss is our gain, and it is the same in Mr. McCulloch's opinion with the rest of the protective system. Of the immense South American, trade, which they ought to control, very little is left to American merchants, and the same is the case with China and Japan. On the immigration question he has very little to say; but he is alive to the danger of conferring the franchise on ignorant immigrants, and would allow none but native-born Americans the vote.
Interesting and instructive as is Mr. McCulloch's book, it is far too bulky. The chapters on the generals in the war do not throw any new light on these much-discussed personages. It is difficult for an Englishman to judge accurately ; but there are probably at least a hundred "most remarkable men" mentioned in the volume, whose names would none of them have bcen missed by any but the gentlemen themselves and their immediate belongings. Mr. McCulloch's comparison between English and American institutions is written in a kindly and appreciative spirit, but is wanting in depth and insight, and does not add anything to the value of his book.
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