s as interest by
bondholders, who could have demanded coin. During the entire year only
$11,456,536 in greenbacks were offered for redemption, while over
$250,000,000 in them were paid out in coin obligations. It was found
that people preferred paper to metal money, and had no wish for gold
instead of notes when assured that the exchange could be made at their
option. Notwithstanding our acceptance of greenbacks for
customs--$109,467,456 during 1879--the treasury at the end of that year
experienced a dearth of these and a plethora of coin, having actually to
force debtors to receive hard money.

[1876-1877]

Such popularity of the greenbacks stimulated to fresh life the "fiat
greenback" theory, long in vogue and very influential in many parts of
the country. Its pith lay in the proposition that money requires in its
material no intrinsic value, its worth and purchasing power coming
entirely from the "fiat" of the government issuing it, so that paper
money put forth by authority of a solvent and powerful government will
be the peer of gold. This idea was the rallying point of the National
Labor Greenback Party, organized at its Indianapolis convention, May 17,
1876, when Peter Cooper was put in nomination for President. At the
subsequent presidential election in November, he received 82,640 votes.
The next year his party polled 187,095 votes; in 1878, 1,000,365.

From the moment of its issue, there had been in the country many who
went to the opposite extreme with reference to the greenback. They
believed it unconstitutional and pernicious, a menace to the nation's
credit and financial weal. The question came to the Supreme Court during
the war, and this form of contracting debt on the part of the Government
was then justified as a war measure. When the war was over the question
whether the greenback's legal tender quality could still be maintained,
also had to be passed upon by the court. The first decision was in the
negative, but it was subsequently reversed. Still a third question was
whether a man could be forced to take greenbacks in liquidation of debt
after the resumption of specie payments. This was tried out in the
famous case of Juilliard vs. Greenman, and the decision was, as on the
other two occasions, in favor of the greenback. In spite of all this,
however, the zeal for the fiat or non-promissory theory and practice of
paper money almost totally died away after about 1880.

The most desperate and exten