Greeley Horace

Horace Greeley 2x Signed ALS Regarding Gold Standard Debate

Two pieces of correspondence, including a 1p ALS 2x signed by newspaper editor Horace Greeley (1811-1872), the first time as "Horace Greeley", and the second time as "H.G." Greeley was responding to a 2pp ALS sent to him by Olive S. Brown, an elderly wool famer in South Hartford, New York. She wrote Greeley requesting his opinion on the legitimacy of paper money as legal tender. With expected paper folds and several minor closed tears along these folds, else very good to near fine. Greeley wrote his response at the end of his correspondent's original letter. Accompanied by an envelope inscribed "Two letters of Horace Greeley with my own OSB". [Only one of Greeley's letters is included in this lot.] 5" x 8".

Olive S. Brown wrote this letter to Horace Greeley on July 6, 1869 from a rural community located about halfway between the Finger Lakes and the New York/Vermont border. Brown asked for Greeley's opinion about a recent financial transaction, in which she had attempted to pay off her deceased husband's heirs with paper money. Brown's "lawful tender of Green-backs" was rejected by the creditors, "they demanding Gold on an equivalent in currency asserting that the law in regard to legal tender cannot be applied to a case where a bargain was made previous to the passage of the law". Brown, a longtime reader of the New York Tribune, respected Greeley's input, especially in light of his late June editorial about gold and the public debt.

In his reply written from New York City on July 9, 1869, Greeley wrote:

"My Friend:

I believe you are legally right under the notes in question specified payment in coin. If it did (under a decision of the Supreme Court last winter) you will have to pay in coin.

Yours,

Horace Greeley

Mrs. O.S. Brown,

Hartford, NY.

P.S. To make your tender perfect, you should (?) Greenbacks and offer them. I fear Notarized Bank notes would not answer.

H.G."

The debate between hard species and paper currency was not new, and it would continue raging for the next 30 years or more. When the United States issued paper money during the Civil War to pay off debts without raising taxes, it opened up the possibility that widely available paper money could depreciate in value. This became a problem when older debts were paid off in devalued currency instead of in more stable gold or silver. The U.S. Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase from 1864-1873, would explore this issue in its series of so-called Legal Tender Cases (1871).

Horace Greeley is best known for founding and later editing the New York Tribune. This daily subscription newspaper was one of the first of its kind to feature serious news stories of national scope, and to eschew more sensational or unbalanced reporting. Greeley, who was very socially conscious, even used his paper as a platform from which to champion issues like emancipation, communal living, and western migration.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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