the next session how these bitter opponents, because washington insisted the ratification process be fair and open, and a fair debate, and this was to make sure they did not ramrod it through, that even the opponents recognized that been fairlyt had adopted and, therefore, we should give it a fair try. a sense, a wonderful tribute to that generation. thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. likein the conversation, us on facebook at c-span

history. a former: and now dealer and cataloger in u.s. and world paper money, bruce smart, discusses banknotes from 1961 until 1928. he talked about the people depicted on the banknotes and as well as legislation that changed who could appear on banknotes. mr. smart shows items from his personal collection as well as those with martha washington and a native american. it is 50 minutes. >> today i have the pleasure of introducing bruce smart. bruce received a bs in chemistry and a b.s. in math from kansas city. receive his on to phd at the university of california berkeley. from 1970 to 2006 he was employed by the dupont company. a research scientist and corporate research manager. at dupont, he was responsible for 55 u.s. patents and he

authored or co-authored more than 100 technical publications. in 2002, he began consulting for a company as a cataloger and dealer for paper money. he began providing services to the auction gallery, typically in the field of work -- world banknotes. he is a 15 year member of the international bank notes society. in today's talks, bruce will review the type of bank notes in circulation and will include some anecdotes. following his presentation, he has brought some objects from his personal collection and they will be available for the audience's inspection. i will now turn the program over to dr. bruce smart. [applause]

dr. smart: thank you, kristin. today i am going to talk about a financial period in u.s. history where some of the most beautiful, artistic, and historically interesting bank notes were issued. now unfortunately, almost none , of the general public has seen or heard of any of these banknotes. today, you are going to see quite a few of them. i'm going to focus mainly on the various portraits of people that are engraved on these banknotes during this 67 year period. as the subtitle indicates some , of these people you will easily recognized. some names might ring a bell. so to speak. and then there will be several people who are basically forgotten, like these two handsome bearded gentleman on this slide. in fact the fellow on the left , precipitated an act of congress which had a lasting effect on the design of our

currency. the guy on the right was a very high ranking union general. and i will comment on both of these more as we get into the talk. let's start out by looking at today's currency, which everybody should be familiar with. and everybody should know who is depicted on the currency. the one dollar bill is washington, the two is jefferson, lincoln, hamilton, and so forth. all of these notes are in circulation. the interesting thing is that exactly the same person has been on the same denomination of our so-called modern banknotes since 1929. these are truly a standard design. some of you will recognize that, in the mid-90's, they started filling with portraits. large portraits. this is the traditional franklin portrait. that is the so-called "big head" portrait. but, nonetheless it is still the

, same individual on the same denomination. these are, of course all in , circulation today. there were higher notes in in least up until 50 or 60 years ago. it used to be able to find a $500 bill or a $100,000 bill in circulation the $500 bill had , mckinley, the thousand dollar bill, president cleveland. president madison is depicted on the 5000, and this is solomon chase. we will have more to say about him in the talk, a very there is figure in -- important statesman and a figure in finance. surprisingly, there is even a $100,000 bill. it is the highest denomination ever produced. but it was only used for internal bank transfers. it is a gold note. it is the only note that has

woodrow wilson on it. that is a snapshot of what i would call more modern notes. the so-called small sized banknotes. now what we are going to talk , about is this period where the united states issued large sized notes in something called fractional currency. there were 12 different types of the so-called large sized notes. many of these were in circulation at the same time. now, i am not going to have time today to go into detail on many of these notes. but let me just comment on a couple of them. let me show you right now what we mean by a large sized note. if you can see this note this , was what is considered a large sized note or a horse blanket. they were issued in this size from 1861 to 1928. if you contrast that size with the current one dollar bill, you

can see why they are called large sized type notes. now, even more strange, perhaps, this is what is called fractional currency which was issued during a 14-year period. it started during the civil war mainly because of the shortage of coins. during the civil war, the notes that were redeemable were discontinued. people tended to board -- hoard silver and gold coins. so without silver coins, the lower denomination currency, there wasn't enough in circulation, so they started issuing these things called fractional notes, and here is a couple of them, and i will have more to show you after the talk. they were issued in interesting but denominations. this is a three cent note. anybody ever see a three cent note?

this is still monetized. then there is a $.15 note on the other side. so there were a lot of different kinds of fractional currency issued. the very first issue with something called a demand note. i have an example. the back of a demand note has a dark green back, hence the name greenbacks. that's where it originated. 1861 issue. the things called demand notes. were greenthe backs ostensibly is because somebody had invented a green ink that could not be reproduced by photography. of course, that has extended today. if you look at them today the , backs are still green today. not for the same reason. has carrieddition on to the small sized banknotes. the point is that there were 12 different of these large sized notes issued.

again, the topic of today's talk there were 57 different persons , depicted on banknotes during this period. in contrast with our more modern notes where there are only a half a dozen people that you see on that in circulation. now, you will see that some of the famous people in particular are depicted on several different denominations. you don't always the andrew jackson on a $20 bill. he will appear on other denominations in this period of the large size type notes, and you will also see different portraits for some famous individuals. whereas the portraits you see on today's notes are fairly constant in design. that was not necessarily the case during this time. we will plunge into some of these notes. of course there were a lot of , presidents on banknotes. and, in fact, the presidents you see on our current currency also appeared on notes during this time. in addition, there are

presidents that do not appear on other banknotes. here is john quincy adams on this $500 legal tender note. incidentally, $500 with the -- was the equivalent of about $8,500 in today's money. so the general public really didn't see this note. the average salary for a worker during the civil war in 1869 was -- in about 1865, it was about $25 a month. so people never really -- most people never really got to see john quincy adams on a note. grover cleveland was on our thousand dollar bill, the small sized thousand, was on $20 bills during this period, so-called federal reserve notes. james garfield appears. here he is. this is a gold certificate that has his portrait, and there is a near image of his portrait on a special kind of national banknotes.

it is called a brownback note issued in the 1880's. now, most people if you know , garfield at all, he is known for a couple of things. one is he got assassinated. when he was only an office about aboutmonths, and he died 200 days later. for me the most important thing about garfield is that he was the only president that published a mathematic truth in a journal. this is a so-called trapezoidal proof of the pythagorean theorem. a show of hands for anybody who wants to spend some time on this? that is what i thought. this was published in the journal of education back in 1876. garfield is on a bank note. grant is also on several different banknotes. here we have benjamin harrison you don't often hear about. he was actually the grandson of william harry harrison and he served as president. he is the president who split

the term of grover cleveland. the sherman antitrust act was passed under his administration. he is not particularly well buthe is not particularly well known to this day, and, in fact, if you look at scholars' ratings of presidents, he falls in like 34th or 35th place. out of 44 presidents. not very significant today. when this note was issued, this was one of the most widely circulated banknotes. this type of note. this was called a national bank note. this blue thing you see here is a charter number. what happened with the currency wasof 1863, i believe it that created these national bank , notes, it allowed individual banks to put up collateral by government gold bonds and the government would print banknotes for that bank up to 90 percent

of the amount of value of the collateral they had deposited here it you will see things like the national city bank of kansas city, missouri. that is my hometown. kansas city, missouri. this got to be so popular that eventually there was something like 14,000 different charters issued. the government printed these notes. so they are some of the most widely circulated notes at the time. but the lower denomination one has a president that most people just don't remember. andrew jackson is on several notes, thomas jefferson, lincoln, madison is also on a large sized $5,000 note. mckinley is on the $10 bill. in today's smaller notes, he was on the $500 bill, as you might recall. here is a new president popping up, james monroe on this $100 silver certificate of 1878 through 1891. george washington appears the most on currency.

what has happened here? he appears on 10 different types of large sized banknotes, five different denominations. then he appears on all of these fractional banknotes. so washington was a very popular figure in this day and of course , he is today on the one dollar bill. do we need to keep going here? oops. oh, ok. a\i mentioned, the portraits vary quite a bit during this period. these are all portraits of alexander hamilton that appeared on different banknotes. this is probably the most familiar portrait, because this was on hours for a long time before they blew it up. here are a couple of notes that are only a few years apart. he looks a lot more fleshy here than he did in this portrait. here is an entirely different view of him in the first issued

banknote, the 1861 demand note. here is a couple yet different engravings of alexander hamilton on other banknotes. this was fairly common practice to modify the portraits of it. whereas you don't really see that in today's standardized currency. let's go over a number of these historical figures. some familiar, many forgotten. you realize that this currency started in 1861, the beginning of the civil war. so you can imagine there were eventually lots of figures from lincoln's cabinet. in the civil war era that appear on these banknotes. in fact there are three fellas , here from his team of rivals , if you will. this first fellow is william seward. folly, the purchase of alaska.

people are quite familiar with that, i think. he appears on a rather scarce $50 banknote called a treasury note which was redeemable in either gold or silver at the discretion of the treasurer. the fellow in the middle is again solomon chase who appeared on a number of banknotes. and chase was a very important figure during this period. he almost single-handedly established the national banking system. and the issue of paper currency. the country had various types of currency before 1861. these were not government-backed banknotes that could be turned in for government bonds. the banking system we are familiar with today started at chase's hand in 1861. he was likely responsible for the design of these early notes. there was rather unseemly

political advertising done in those days. some people actually put their faces on banknotes. chase is one person who was guilty of that. he was also instrumental in adding the motto "in god we trust" to coins which first appeared in 1864. but it didn't really appear on banknotes. this is a little bit of a trick question. but, actually for issued notes , in wide circulation, it wasn't really until 1957. he was a retired supreme court justice. he served about 10 years in the supreme court. so he was a very important figure at the time. edwin stamm, i'm sure many of you have heard of, was the secretary of war during the civil war under lincoln. solomon chase's successor served as the secretary of treasury during these couple of years.

and then he was succeeded by this fellow named euan mccullough who probably no one remember. again here is the fellow who was , on the first slide, this is spencer clarke. he was a superintendent of the national currency bureau at the time. and this is really the forerunner of the bureau engraving and printing which was started about 1868. the fellow on the right is an interesting character. france's spinner was a treasurer of the u.s. during the lincoln administration. -- francis spiller most of these military men served while lincoln was president. again, a lot of civil war historical figures. this first fellow is a gentleman

-- general named winfield scott. he is known as old fuss and feathers and the grand old man of the army. for the simple reason that he served on active duty as a general longer than any other man in american history. he had a 53-year career in the army, 47 years as a general. he served under every president from jefferson to lincoln. he was a commanding general of the u.s. army when the civil war broke out. than the day that the civil war broke out, he was 74 years old at the time he offered command , to robert e lee. that was the same day that virginia seceded from the union. command tored the lee. david farragut is the first admiral of the navy. sherman is quite famous. david farragut is the first admiral of the navy. you probably remember him more than anything else for the

n the torpedoes, full speed ahead." that's not exactly what he said. when he actually said was more. i think the shortened version is a little more catchy. incidentally, a true peter is a naval. it is not as we think of it today, a cigar shaped device. winfield scott hancock is also a very important general. those of you that have seen the movie "gettysburg" -- he was the corps commander of the second core, which is the union core that faced picket's charge. so he is a fairly significant fellow. he eventually became major-general and commanded the

left-wing of the army of the potomac. he ran for president in 1880 and narrowly lost to garfield. the next fellow is george thomas, known as the rock of chickamauga. his defense saved the union army at the battle of the mob chickamauga. he later became the general of the army of the cumberland. chattanooga, and he essentially destroyed the confederate army of tennessee at nashville. military experts rate him as probably the third best general in the union army behind grant and sherman. he is not too familiar today. phil sheraton was the commander of the u.s. calvary from the army of the potomac. he later served in the western

army and custer served under , him. he eventually was killed. he became top dog under grover cleveland. and this bearded fellow is a fellow named joseph mansfield. he was a core commander in 1862 battle of antietam. he spent 40 years in the army. a major general. but he really had no recent combat experience. he was marching his troops in line and took fire from the woods. and he thought that was friendly fire so he rode over to the , woods. well it wasn't friendly fire. and theyonfederates, shot him down, and he died a day later, so this is major-general mansfield, who was killed at the battle of antietam. for all of you trivial pursuit types. the last fellow is james mcpherson, also a very interesting general. he succeeded sherman in the army of tennessee.

which became the right wing of sherman's army in the march to the sea. he was killed at the battle of atlanta, and he is the only union army commander that was killed in combat during the civil war. so a very high-ranking officer. those of you who have been to washington, d.c. might be , familiar with mcpherson square and mcpherson station. they were named after this gentleman. i have a picture -- i have authentic notes of most of these fellows. but the real banknotes i only have pictures of. the rare banknotes i will show these over run the table a little bit later today. here is winfield scott on an interest-bearing note. there were two or three types of notes that were issued during this period, really to help

finance the war, and they were interest-bearing, 3% for five years, this sort of thing. they could also be used for legal tender. but you can see there is a coupon remaining there that can be torn off and you can get your annual interest on that note. but that is a very valuable note. a rather handsome portrait of sherman is on the $500 treasury note, which was, unfortunately never issued. , it is only available in proof. farragut is on the $100 note. this is called a watermelon note for obvious reasons. the decoration of the two zeros. these notes turned out to be relatively easy to counterfeit. because of the very busy work and design, so they actually simplify the design and made a much less interesting note the following year. this is an open note that is more difficult to counterfeit.

the granddaddy of all notes is the one who has general meade on. of course, he was the commander of forces at gettysburg. i think he is one of five people who appear on banknotes during the period who were not born in the united states. he was born in spain, but at any rate, he adorns this $5,000 bill, which is called a grand watermelon note for obvious reasons. for those of you that might be thinking about the value of these notes, this note set a world record in an auction last january. it sold for almost $3.3 million. there is a lot of collector value in the things that i'm showing you today. but this is the creme de la creme of what i am showing you today. ok, here is our general mansfield on the $500 bill. again something the public

really never saw. now we're going to switch to statesman, politicians, inventors. and as you can imagine there are , a lot of secretaries of the treasury that appear on banknotes of this time. this is a listing of all of those folks. some names are very familiar, obviously alexander hamilton. the first secretary of the treasury, who you can see a lot of in this building if you take the tour. and just for historical interest, michael hillegas was the first treasurer of the united states back in i will 1775. show you portraits of people whose names might not be familiar. that is hillegas. the first treasurer of the u.s.. there is samuel dexter, with peers on one of these fractional notes. is gallatin who appears on a note. walker, meredith. has anyone ever heard of these people?

these are part of a forgotten. of course, chase, pheasant and, -- fessendan. mccullouch. this is meredith. here is john sherman that appears on the $50 bill. he was the brother of william tecumseh sherman. he is the fellow that crafted the sherman antitrust act. he is a name you have known although you probably couldn't put the name to the face. but there he is, displayed, engraved on a $50 bill. william wyndham was secretary of the treasury under harrison. but like harrison he is long , forgotten as well. the last one here is a gentleman, daniel manning. he appears on a $20 silver

certificate. so all of these were secretaries of treasury that appeared on banknotes, and here is the bank note that had gallatin on it. if you notice the portrait, it looks like he left out his dentures, but that is the note. now, if you're paying attention, of course, you'll notice that i'm talking about a lot of who were still alive at the time. in fact, there are six of them. scott,, chase, winfield fessenden, spinner, and clark. fessenden was the successor to chase as secretary of the treasury. and here is just an interesting cartoon that came from the harper's weekly in 1865.

i believe it was, may 1865, it was one month before lincoln was assassinated. you hear a lot today about inflation and reckless printing of banknotes. etc. we had the same problem then. you probably cannot read this, so i will read it for you. fessenden is turning a crank to produce greenbacks. the caption says these are the greediest fellas i ever saw. i can't satisfy their pockets. we keep the mill going day and night. and there are these couple of contractors down here saying, give me more greenbacks, give me more greenbacks, campground interest. getting criticized for it. spinner here is an interesting fellow. he was probably most famous for being the first administrator in the u.s. government to actively and widely employ women. and they were employed as clerks in the department of treasury.

they were doing all sorts of work in the treasury, and here is a picture from a magazine of that period, showing a number of women at quitting time at the treasury, leaving the treasury building, and i think there were up to 400 women employed in the treasury department then. mainly thanks to spinner. the other thing he is famous for is his signature. he spent a lot of time honing his signature. and it turned out that it was the most recognizable of all signatures in his day. even more recognizable than hancock. that is what the thing looked like. you will see that on banknotes. so spinner spent a lot of time now, this last fellow is the one, as i said, that precipated an act of congress. this was in so, once this law 1886. was enacted, no living person

bonds,ppear on any fractional, or any currency of the united states, so once this law was enacted, no living person could appear on bank notes. and this legislation was pushed by a pennsylvania congressman named thayer. martin thayer. what ticked off martin thayer. he had a principle that no man should be immortalized on the public on the of the country until favorable verdict by posterity has been made upon his name, and what had happened was this five cent fractional note that depicts washington was being replaced by this 5 cent fractional note which depicts clark. there are several different stories about how clark's portrait wound up on this note. a misunderstanding because some people thought it was most be william clark of lewis and clark fame or some other clark that was the superintendent of currency.

but this clark took it to be him. so he put his face on the currency. this is what mr. thayer had to say. about that when it happened -- "if you asked me whose image is -- and superscription is this? i'm obliged to answer not that of george washington, which used to a door in it but the likeness , of a person who superintend s the printing of these notes. i'd like anyone to tell me why his face should be on the money of the united states." i trust the house will support me in the cry that i raise of off with their heads. off with their heads, so you can thank this fella clark for the reason our coins, currency never depicts living persons to this day. unfortunately for mr. sherman,

who was, of course, one of the most well-known personalities i've discussed today, he never made it on an issued bank note. there was a 15 cent note fractional issue that was being produced on april 6, 1866, which coincides with the date that the legislation was passed. so there are proofs that exist, but it was never printed because it would be in violation of the law. so for this reason, you never see william tecumseh sherman on a banknote, at least not a u.s. government note. lots of other famous people appeared on banknotes during this. this period,ring and we will run through these. one that might be surprised to many is martha washington. the only woman that ever appeared on u.s. currency. that is her portrait. i have an example of that note to show you. she also appeared on another silver certificate with her husband george washington. so, obviously, the only banknote with husband and wife on it. and, you know maybe it 50 years, , you will see bill and hillary

on the banknote. of course, benjamin franklin, one of the founders is on a , number of different notes. here is the most common portrait you will see a $50 bill. lewis and clark, the famous explorers, appear on a very famous banknote, one that has a buffalo or bison in the center. and there is an example you will see over there. daniel webster i think most of you have heard of, an important orator and statesman from massachusetts. he was secretary of state under three presidents. and there's his portrait, a dour looking fellow. henry clay appears on a high denomination note. henry clay, as you might know, is a senator and representative from kentucky, was instrumental in the compromises of passing the compromise of 1820 and 1850 which had to do with which new territories or states became slave or free.

and he ran for president three times. now, he was known for the expression "i'd rather be right than president." well he ran three times and he , was right three times. unelected with still a famous still a famous person, unlike the president. john marshall, most of you will recognize the name. he is a very famous supreme court justice. adorns this $20 treasury note, and there were a couple of inventors on the back of this interesting looking silver certificate. robert fulton, the fellow on the left that pioneered the development of the steam boat. and, of course, samuel morse morse code, etc. some famous people appeared on banknotes of this period. some people that names may sound familiar but not exactly famous in today's age, a lot of scholars will know who robert morris is, an important financier from 1781 to 1784.

he served as superintendent of finance during the fledgling developmental years of the united states. he was one of only two persons to sign all three founding documents of the united states -- the constitution, the declaration of independence, and the articles of confederation. he was one of pennsylvania's first two senators and the first , interestingly, to use the dollar sign in correspondence. you know the "s" with the line , through it that we are all familiar with. apparently, this is attributed to morris, at least in correspondence so mr. morris is , a familiar name, perhaps not all that famous. that's what he looks like on banknotes. stephen decatur was a famous admiral, fought in the barbary wars. fought in the war of

heependence, and he was -- was commander of, i think, the uss constitution and several aner ships, so he is important naval hero, at least two military scholars, and the last fellow is when i want to spend time on -- charles sumner. an interesting fellow. his name has come up in today's news. thehear a lot about all of acrimony and paralysis in congress. and how people are not getting along very well. well the incident that mr. , sumner is famous for my put this in a little better or in a different perspective. he gave a speech in may of 1856, senate.loor of the it was called the crime against kansas speech. in 1854, the kansas-nebraska act passed, and what this act did is recognize two new territories, kansas and nebraska

but it left it up to popular , sovereignty, in other words, the white man's vote as to whether those states were to be slave or free states. of course, this spawned a lot of and violence in kansas. , it led to the uprisings of john brown and other important people you of heard about. -- you have heard about, so mr. sumner give a speech, call the -- called the crime against kansas speech, and this is what he said. abused speech, he pro-slavery senator named andrew butler from south carolina. so he essentially -- he was actually absent from the senate, but he is addressing butler in absentia. "butler has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him. though polluted in the sight of the world is chased in his sight. i mean the harlot, slavery." alright? a pretty vicious speech. in fact a south carolina

, congressman by the name of preston brooks took offense at these metaphors. and two days after the speech brooks entered the chamber of , the senate where sumner was at his desk and he was accompanied by a guy by the name of lawrence kite who brandished a pistol on the senate floor. and what brooks did is brutally beat sumner with his cane while kite fellow held off the rest of the senators by brandishing this pistol. and, in fact, when sumner was knocked to the floor, brooks continued to beat him with his cane. it took three years before mr. sumner could recover and retake his seat on the senate. so it is one of the most brutal offensive acts on the floor of , the senate, which happened in 1856. and, oops. i missed mr. clinton. we will skip him.

or go back to him. but this is charles sumner, who for his troubles, got himself on this banknote. now you might be interested to , know what happened to mr. brooks. mr. brooks resigned from congress before they could expel him. he was actually tried in washington, d.c., court and was fined $300. he was not sent to jail. he returned to his home state where he was a national hero. shamelessly. and he was reelected in a special election to his congressional seat. at the end of 1865, same year that he brutally beat this gentleman. well, fortunately preston brooks , does not get into any banknotes, but he did get into a lot of cartoons of the day. and that's mr. brooks beating sumner on the floor of the senate. so if you hear charles sumner, this is what people are

referring to normally when his name comes up. let's back up a second. i skipped dewitt clinton. dewitt clinton. he is known for one thing and one thing only, and that is clinton's ditch, the erie canal. he actually proposed this canal and saw its construction as governor of new york. it's known as clinton's ditch. but that is probably what he is most famous for. and many new yorkers, of course, know him, so it is a familiar name. and let's quickly rush through some of the forgotten persons. here's thomas hart benton, he is not the famous painter from missouri. he was a congressman from missouri for 30 years that no one remembers. edward everett. he is on the $50 silver certificate. here he is. something of a child prodigy. he was a professor of greek at harvard at age 21.

he became the governor of massachusetts. he actually succeeded daniel webster as secretary of state, but basically a forgotten person. henricks is kind of interesting. this is his portrait. he was vice president under cleveland. but he only lived for 9 months once he took the office. of vice president. he died in office. and a year later, he appeared on a bank note. and this is it. it is called the tombstone note. and you can see why. his portrait looks like it is on a tombstone. john knox, long forgotten, a comptroller of the currency from 1872 to 1884. so much for thayer's admonition about posterity judging on the fame of people. i mean, this person is a complete unknown to probably 99,999 people out of 100,000.

william marcy. some here may know marcy. he was the governor of new york. he appears on a very high denomination, $1000 bill. this is the equivalent to 18,000 currency,l in today's and the public never really saw this. he was the governor of new york, secretary of war. ,e also succeeded this guy everett, as secretary of state, and i guess his claim to fame is mt. marcy in essex county, new york, is named after him. it has a height of 1629 meters and is the highest peak in new york so that is the legacy of mr. marcy. uh, the last one, silas wright, again, a senator, representative and governor of new york in the , middle of the 19th century. again largely forgotten. , what i'll conclude with this a

person that again almost nobody knows the name, but any people who collect banknotes or really have a passing interest know his portrait. he appears on this famous $5.00 bill. this is one of the most -- probably one of the top two or three most popular of u.s. bank notes. that's this indian of the lakota sioux tribe. as i said he is the only native , american depicted on a banknote. there's a lot of controversy when this note came out because the headdress is not sioux, it's pawnee. headdress. this led to a lot of speculation about, well, is this a real indian, or is this somebody from the bureau of engraving and printing that put on the wrong bonnet? well it actually is the right , person. it is just the wrong headdress. because here is an actual

photograph of this indian. again, i depicted it here, but you can also see an example of collection, so that essentially concludes what i wanted to say. i hope you've learned a little bit of history here and learned something about our financial system back when it started during the civil war days. and perhaps, most important, maybe it will stimulate some of you to start collecting some of these kinds of banknotes, so, again, i thank you for your attention. [applause] dr. smart: any questions? i can take questions. yeah. try to answer. >> [inaudible] he said the actual note itself -- at face value? dr. smart: yes i will give you , detail on this. the compound interest treasury

note. these were three-year notes. they matured in three years. they had 6% compounded interest. all right? they matured in three years. but if you were foolish enough, you could use them as legal tender but they were only worth face value. there were several denominations. but if you held them for three years you got 6% annual compound interest. absolutely. and then they turned them in. they're extremely rare notes, very hard to find. every once in a while they show up in an auction. >> thank you. dr. smart: the interest-bearing note, which was also on that chart -- again, these were issued mainly to finance the civil war, all right? they are equivalent to bonds, really. but, as i said, the countdown -- compound interest treasury note could be used as legal tender. there were a couple of different types interest-bearing notes. a two year 5% interest note, matured in two years. it was also used as legal tender, but then there was a

7.3% note which matured in three years. all right? at 7.3% annual interest, and this was typically only for hired to nomination notes $50 , and up. these were not used as legal tender. ok? then there is a third note that was issued, called a refunding certificate this was a $10 item which had on it 4% interest in perpetuity. all right? so this is very much like a government bond. people did not use this as legal tender. it is the only one of the examples that really was not used at all as legal tender. now, this business of in perpetuity, that was stopped about 1907. so your $10 note became worth like $24. and so -- those were the interest-bearing notes. yes? >> people, after they died -- was it the sole discretion of

the secretary of the treasury to decide who should go on it? or was there -- yes, prior to -- of course, prior to the 1866 act, the design of notes and who to put on the notes was left at the discretion of the treasury of the united states, where the secretary of the treasury, that was more, of course an , administrative function, except for chase. a little more active in this, but the secretary of the treasury had to approve the design. it did not go to congress. it did not do that sort of thing. i'm not sure when congressional oversight really kicked in on who went on banknotes. but for most of the history of u.s. currency, yes, it has been up to the treasury or the secretary-treasurer who to put on them. of course, with modern notes, that was decided, it seems like,

once and for all in because the 1929, persons have not changed. now, there were measures after reagan died, ronald reagan. i think there were four or five different bills that were introduced in congress to put reagan on a banknote. but some of them wanted to replace hamilton. with reagan. why, that's heresy. i mean people know nothing about financial history or money or anything else that talks about doing that sort of thing. but they tried to pass some congressional bills to get certain people on banknotes. but fundamentally, until -- i don't know exactly when congressional oversight really kicked in but for many, many , years it was to the treasurer and the secretary of the treasury to design these notes. but, of course, you know, the obvious question is why did we switch over to the standardized design? rather kind of boring compared to what you have seen here. well, the obvious reason is a -- it costs a lot of money to

print these larger size notes and print such a variety of them. now those of you that are of my , age might remember when we had things like the united states notes in circulation, they had a red seal. there was a blue seal on a note, which was a silver certificate. all right? and then today, you see nothing but green seals, which are federal reserve notes. the federal reserve system, the federal reserve act of 1913. they started issuing notes on -- federal reserve notes on the 12 different federal reserve banks starting in 1914. but we used to have a little bit of variety in the small size notes, but it was not in a vignette, so much, and certainly not in a portrait, it was just in a type of note. one was redeemable for silver. there were small size gold notes that were issued in 1928. course we wentof

, off the gold standard, so all of those were withdrawn. any other questions? yes? >> i'm wondering, do you think there is a chance that any of these bills would be reprinted for a limited time? that is an interesting question, because they have done this with classic postage stamps. if you are stamp collector, there have been some commemorative issues. they change the color but they are basically the same plates, and, you know i think that might , be something the treasury department ought to think about doing. but they are very conservative about money and making changes. look how long it took them to change the basic design of the 1929 note. it was not until the mid-1990's they decided to make the portrait of little bit bigger. now they have security devices and splashes of color. but they are 75 years behind a lot of world bank note printers.

so i do not think we will see that with banknotes. well, there are -- yes? >> >> more bank notes outside the united states. and all of these portraits you talk about the most secure way , the average person around the world can identify -- no way they are going to start putting william tecumseh sherman on a commemorative -- it is not going to happen. dr. smart: now, what you can buiy from time to time -- what you can buy from time to time, these are called souvenir cards. they are printed by the bureau of engraving and printing. sometimes under special request for special events and whatnot. so, you will actually see a number -- only the face and typically they do not have signatures and that sort of thing, but the basic note you can get in what is called a souvenir card. it is not circulating money but , there have been reprinting of a number of these classic notes.

really just for collectors. but they are by no means , you know, monetized or legal tender. anything else? ok. thanks. and if you want to hang around for a little bit, i'll set out a bunch of notes on this table and you can come by and take a look at them. all rights? thanks again. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-spanhistory. "q&a,"er: tonight on

terry hart on his book, comparing our current government to the republic he says our founders intended. hart: the founding of threes and rum, warning against corruption -- of greece and rome , warning against corruption, quid pro quo money under the table. it was putting special interests and byf the common good, that definition, washington, d.c., today is a massively corrupt place. >> earlier this summer, the u.s. house passed the.com act that to afers the domain system multi-stakeholder community, but it stalled in the senate and the transfer has been postponed for one year. on monday, the author of the act, republican representative ism illinois dom shimkus

joined by the technology reporter for "the hill." >> there is an international struggle in the u.n. and some people saying the united states should not be the keeper of the final vestiges of a contract and we should have a multi-stakeholder approach. tech community has gathered support for that as we start talking about this transition. who isuestions about this multi-stakeholder group and what are they going to decide? there are some pretty good questions and here, so we moved a bill that said keep the u.s. contract biodel so we can do an evaluation of the final project and hope will he trust but verify. >> that's monday