General Butler's chief title to distinction in political life
was a scheme which Massachusetts has pronounced a scheme
of dishonesty and infamy in every method by which her sentiment
can be made known. This scheme was to pay off the national
debt and all other debts public and private, including all
widows' and soldiers' pensions, in irredeemable paper money.
He proposed to issue a series of government bonds bearing
interest, payable like the principal, in greenbacks, and providing
that the greenbacks should never be redeemed, but that the
holder might at any time, on demand, get from the Treasury
the equivalent in bonds. This scheme had been announced by
General Butler for several years before the Presidential election
of 1876. In that year General Butler, who had been defeated
for reelection to Congress from the Essex district in 1874,
was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the Middlesex
district, which included his home in Lowell. There was much
opposition to him. But the party feeling was very strong
and no other person of large enough reputation or of conspicuous
ability could be found to take the Republican nomination.
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