But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity-the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge.” -Eric Foner, New York Times Book Reviewįrom renowned journalist and master storyteller Roger Lowenstein, a revelatory financial investigation into how Lincoln and his administration used the funding of the Civil War as the catalyst to centralize the government and accomplish the most far-reaching reform in the country’s history “ Ways and Means, an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives. makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and on Wall Street during the early 1860s seem as enthralling as what transpired on the battlefield or at the White House.” -Harold Holzer, Wall Street Journal
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