GREENBACK PARTY. In American politi cal history, a party organized to further the increased use of a 'greenback' currency, and a completer recognition of such currency as a legal tender. After the close of the Civil War the rise in the gold value of– United States notes, or `greenbacks' (see MONEY) , occasioned much dis tress in the States of the Middle West, where business operations had become adjusted to the high scale of prices prevailing during the war. An act of 1866 which aimed gradually to retire the greenbacks awakened a great deal of opposi tion; and when it was proposed, in 1868, to make the bonds not specifying the medium of payment payable in coin, what was denominated the 'Ohio idea'—a demand that all such bonds should be paid in greenbacks—gained vogue, controlling the Democratic National Convention, although Sey mour, who was opposed to it, received the Presi dential nomination. The discussion of the Re sumption Bill in 1874 led to a revival of the greenback agitation. On November 24, 1874, a convention, national in scope, met at Indianapolis, and advanced three propositions: (1) That the note circulation of State and national banks should be prohibited; (2) that the only paper currency should be greenbacks, exchangeable on demand for bonds bearing interest at 3.63 per cent.; (3) that coin should be used to pay only the interest on the national debt and the prin cipal of bonds expressly payable in coin. The
supporters of these views were at first inclined to attach themselves to the Democratic Party; but when it became clear that Tilden would be the nominee of the party, they withdrew and formed the 'Independent Party,' more generally known as the Greenback Party. In 1876 they nominated for the Presidency Peter Cooper, of New York, who received 81,737 popular votes, chiefly from the Middle West. The labor trou bles of 1877 led to the formation of numerous local workingmen's parties, which united with the Greenbackers and created the 'National' or Greenback-Labor Party in 1878. In the elections of the same year this party controlled a popular vote of more than a million, and elected fourteen Congressmen. In 1880 the party nominated for President James B. Weaver, of Iowa. He re ceived a popular vote of 300,867, the number of Greenback-Labor Congressmen being reduced to eight. In 1884 Gen. B. F. Butler was nominated by the Greenbackers, as also by the Anti Monopolists, and received 175,380 votes. After that year the party ceased to exercise inde pendent influence, generally becoming merged with the Democrats in the North and the Re publicans in the South.