Lincoln’s Greenbacks

Constitutional Moments and Monetary Reform

Oct 17, 2013

Overview

This seminar will explore the political, economic, and legal innovations leading up to, during, and following the Lincoln Administration and the Civil War. In addition, it will examine the relationship between ante- and post-bellum monetary and financial system innovation and the larger currents of constitutional and social transformation of the period.

Questions to be addressed include:

What impact did Abraham Lincoln’s presidency have on the historical evolution of the legal architecture of the United States macroeconomy?

What were the most significant institutional and legal innovations concerning money that took place during this period?

How did these innovations come to be, and what legacy did they impose on subsequent monetary system developments?

What lessons can contemporary policymakers take from the Lincoln-era monetary debates?

Participants

Speaker

Timothy A. Canova

Professor of Law and Public Finance

Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center.

Speaker

Richard Bensel

Gary S. Davis Professor of Government

Cornell University

Speaker

David Weiman

Alena Wels Hirschorn Professor of Economics

Barnard College

Moderator

Gillian Metzger

Stanley H. Fuld Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Global Governance

Columbia Law School

Core Resources

The Political Economy Of The U.S. Monetary Union: The Civil War Era As A Watershed

Weiman, David F.. The Political Economy of the U.S. Monetary Union: The Civil War Era as a Watershed.” Monetary Systems: Transitions and Experiments. Ed. John A. James. 2007.

weiman2.pdf

Lincoln’s Populist Sovereignty: Public Finance Of, By, And For The People

Canova, Timothy A. Lincoln’s Populist Sovereignty: Public Finance Of, By, and For the People., 2009.

canova.pdf

Preface

Bensel, Richard Franklin. Preface.” Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877. 1990.

bensel.pdf