ABSTRACT
The depreciated United States note or "greenback", as it was popularly called, dates from early 1862 to the end of 1878. It broke both major political parties for a time into hostile factions, and created the Greenback Party, with a presidential candidate of its own in the election of 1868. To both historians and economists the greenback history is still a field of controversy. The greenbacks were issued as a temporary emergency measure to assist a Government, largely dependent upon customs duties for its revenues, to meet the heavy fiscal demands suddenly thrown upon it by the outbreak of a great civil war. The State bank-note issues, many of which continued until after the end of the war, and the newly created issues of national bank notes were all convertible into greenbacks on demand, and their values therefore moved up and down with the fluctuating value of the greenback.
