Summary of Roger Lowenstein's Ways and Means

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Lincoln had chosen William Seward, his closest rival for the Republican nomination, for the State Department. He wanted to appoint Chase to be the next Treasury secretary. The country was suffering a financial crisis, and investors were losing faith in government securities.

#2 Financial pressure was being applied to the South to keep them in the Union. The North did not have the funds to pay off the debt they had accumulated from the war, and they were starting to default on their loans.

#3 Lincoln named Chase the Treasury secretary, and the two became good friends. However, Chase was very religious, and Lincoln was not. Lincoln tended to see things as being a mixture of good and bad, while Chase saw them as either good or bad.

#4 Lincoln and Chase had very different economic philosophies, but they both recognized the importance of promoting prosperity. Lincoln was a supporter of a federal bank to modernize the financial system and provide the people with a usable currency.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669368533

IRB Media

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Insights on Roger Lowenstein's Ways and Means

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Lincoln had chosen William Seward, his closest rival for the Republican nomination, for the State Department. He wanted to appoint Chase to be the next Treasury secretary. The country was suffering a financial crisis, and investors were losing faith in government securities.

#2

Financial pressure was being applied to the South to keep them in the Union. The North did not have the funds to pay off the debt they had accumulated from the war, and they were starting to default on their loans.

#3

Lincoln named Chase the Treasury secretary, and the two became good friends. However, Chase was very religious, and Lincoln was not. Lincoln tended to see things as being a mixture of good and bad, while Chase saw them as either good or bad.

#4

Lincoln and Chase had very different economic philosophies, but they both recognized the importance of promoting prosperity. Lincoln was a supporter of a federal bank to modernize the financial system and provide the people with a usable currency.

#5

Lincoln was impressed with Chase’s antislavery work, but he was also aware that Chase had been more engaged in it than he had been.

#6

Lincoln had a more intimate understanding of southerners than most abolitionists, as he had grown up in Kentucky, a slave state. He knew that abolitionism would tear the country apart. He could not advocate equal rights for Blacks, as he believed that would be against the law.

#7

John A. Dix was the first official to recognize the grave threat to the finances posed by secession. He took preemptive steps to delay a collapse. He advised Representative Sherman, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, that he would need authorization for an additional $25 million in bonds.

#8

The war telegram that Dix sent to the south jolted the northern people awake to the reality of conflict. Southerners had confidently assumed that business interests would prevent the North from ever using force.

#9

The Republican strategy of restricting expansion of slavery by preventing its spread into federal territory and prohibiting the interstate slave trade would cause the market value of southern slaves to plummet.

#10

Jefferson Davis, the president of the Provisional Congress, was inaugurated two