The Scales of Money: Monetary Sovereignty and the Spatial Dimensions of American Politics after the Civil War

Abstract

With its victory in the Civil War, the Union affirmed the primacy of the national sovereignty of the United States. After the conflict, the country was absorbed by the consequences of this momentous event. Yet, even in this context, the monetary policies of the government became contentious and led to the eventual redefinition of sovereignty. This article explores how the American institutional structure and political system allowed the money question to become a spatial issue, opposing the great sections of the country. In turn, this sectionalism triggered a confrontation between alternative understandings of what sovereignty entailed in terms of both political legitimacy and spatial scales. By the end of the century, the scope of sovereign power would be redefined, and currency abandoned as one of its instruments.

New Directions in Political History

“…This was true of international finance, especially as regarding the gold and silver standard, that always mixed national and international arguments. 40 It was true of another core political issue of the day, the tariff, where competing visions of national and international markets clashed. 41 Mass movements of labor and finance were as integral to the industrialization of a country like the United States and its drive for imperialist undertakings as they were for other nations like France, the United Kingdom, or Japan.…”