McCulloch took command of the Treasury Department
the credit of the government was at a heavy discount, and getting less
every hour. The only class at the North that doubted the ability of the
government to maintain itself in the War of Secession was the moneyed
class, and this class continued to decry the credit of the government
long after the war had been brought to a successful conclusion. This,
because the condition of discredit was a source of income. They who had
refused to fetch out their money-bags to aid the government when the
roar of the first artillery was throbbing along the halls of the
Capitol, now sought to fatten on its distress.

Hugh McCulloch found the government financially aground like a stranded
whale, with sharks eating in at one end, and vultures and wolves at the
other.

And yet all the vast powers of the government are given to the aid and
support of this class from which come the sharks, buzzards, and wolves.

The new Secretary had this class to contend with; and he had another in
the form of politicians, the representatives of the people that
represented everything but the people's patriotism. Mr. McCulloch knew
that to restore credit and redeem our currency the volume must be
contracted. The moneyed class wanted to be let alone--it always wants
that. The politicians wanted more currency--or money, as they called it.

In addition to this trouble, the politicians of the dominant party
sought to make a colony of the entire South, to be governed by
carpet-baggers and bayonets, because Southern staples could thus be made
to contribute to Northern capital, and the ignorant plantation negroes
could be used to keep that party in power. In this way half our
territory and the most valuable of our products were paralyzed.

Fortunately for the country, President Johnson got into a row with both
capitalists and politicians. As a poor white of the South, he hated
wealth; as a Southerner, he hated Northern politicians. An ignorant,
vicious sort of a man, Johnson was obstinate and courageous. It was,
however, a sort of moral courage--if we may use such a term in this
connection. Probably his nerve had been demoralized by his intemperate
habits. It is true that the man who in the Senate defied the fierce
slave-holders was the man whom General Don Carlos Buell cowed at
Cincinnati, and who ordered the unfortunate and innocent Mrs Surratt to
be hanged within twenty-four hours, with the recommendation to m