LeLand Stanford CEO of the Central Pacific Railroad  May 11, 1869 The NY Sun A bond issued to help finance the Railroad          If you had asked the rail barons pushing to build a transcontinental railroad, "Will you make a profit selling tickets? Will you make a profit hauling farm crops and manufactured goods?" they would answer, "Certainly." If they were being utterly candid, though, they'd add, "Of course, that's not where the really big and quick money is."      A transcontinental railroad was proposed in the early 1840s.  Before the war with Mexico, its route would have been from Chicago and St Louis to the coast of Oregon. Southern senators and representatives in Congress opposed this, fearing it would simply bring more anti-slavery immigrants into the northern plains, creating more free soil states and breaking the grip minority pro slavery states had on Congress.       Adding Texas and the land gained by the...

  December 21, 1859 Alexandria, Va. Gazette POST OFFICE In the modern age of email and internet we have little concept of how important safe, quick mail delivery was for the development of commerce.  The development of national brands of consumer items was not possible without quick reliable delivery.   A more subtle  impact the post office had on American infrastructure and commerce, was its ability to let contracts to carry the mail.  A mail delivery contract often made the difference in whether a railroad decided to extend a line to a particular area. Just as influential was the post office’s decision to let contracts to ships carrying mail to England, France, Mexico and other points.  Congress was reluctant to authorize money for the US Navy to buy or build steamships, (by the time the US Navy had three steamships, the British Navy had several hundred.)  When the Post office announced contracts to carry mail abroad, ship owners had to commissi...

Shinplasters and Greenbacks  The Origin of the Specie      Before 1863, the Federal government did not issue    paper money . The Federal government minted coins only , referred to in bulk as “specie.”      Specie was real money; “bank notes,” paper money issued by banks  promised payment to the bearer in specie when presented.   President Andrew  J ackson’s  vigorous campaign in the 1830s to  create  a national bank had been bitterly fought and defeated by the banks.  Now, they remained  lightly regulated if at all, so some banks reserved adequate amounts of specie in their vaults to cover bank notes they  issued,  and others did not.        This produced a dizzying amount of exchange rates  for people carrying paper money.  Newspapers published exchange rates – c alled discount rates—of banks from one state to the other. South Carolina banks might  be ...