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Christopher Gustavus Memminger Autograph Letter Sig

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MEMMINGER, Christopher Gustavus (1803-1888) was a prominent political leader and the first Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States of America. Memminger attempted to finance the government initially via bonds and tariffs (and confiscation of gold from the United States Mint in New Orleans), but soon found himself forced to more extreme measures such as income taxation and fiat currency. Memminger had been a supporter of hard currency before the war, but found himself issuing increasingly devaluated paper money, which by war's end was worth less than two percent of its face value in gold. Memminger resigned his post as Secretary of the Treasury on July 18, 1864. In the post-war years, Memminger returned to Charleston, received a presidential pardon in 1866, and returned to private law practice and business investment. He also continued his work on developing South Carolina's public education system and was voted to a final term in the state legislature in 1877.^tStrong content Autograph Letter Signed, "C.G. Memminger," 2p. octavo, September 7, 1881, on his personal stationary, with cover addressed to Edward McCrady (1833-1904) in Charleston, South Carolina, it reads in part: "...I am brought to the conclusion that man in the general, and I in the particular am a lazy animal...I did propose to consider the plan of which we spoke about organizing church arrangements for Negroes; but have made no progress, and today Mr. Green has sent me an immense box of school books, to eliminate the irregularity which has crept in of using various Books at the different schools...I will try and muster courage enough to look over Mr. Green's consignment. Meantime could you not send me some suggestions as to the negro matter. We see by today's paper that the President is to try as a last resort, a change of residence. It seems likely that Arthur will have to take the reins - certainly for a time. Can what the Herald reports Hancock as saying for him, be true? I have supposed him to be a mere tool of [Roscoe] Conkling [An original drafter of the 14th Amendment]..." Fine. ^t

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