President Grover Cleveland appointed Daniel Manning (1831-1887) Secretary of the Treasury in 1885. The pressing issue of the period was government currency, specifically, how much currency should be in circulation and whether it should be backed by gold or silver. Conservative Eastern financiers urged a currency backed by gold, while Western speculators, in need of a large, more plentiful money supply to build railroads and businesses on the frontier, wanted a currency backed by readily available silver.
Manning advocated a compromise currency based on both gold and silver which would be redeemable in gold. He stated that "every dollar note shall be the representative certificate of a coin dollar actually in the Treasury and payable on demand; a currency in which our monetary unit coined in gold ... and its equivalent coined in silver-shall not be suffered to part company." In the international arena, Manning began work on what eventually became the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which significantly lowered customs duties. He resigned from the cabinet in 1887 due to ill health.
- Text Courtesy of the Office
of the Curator
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