THE GREENBACK INTERLUDE 79 



principal of bonds issued during the Civil War. 

 When the bonds were sold, it was generally under- 

 stood that they would be redeemed in gold or its 

 equivalent. Some of the issues, however, were 

 covered by no specific declaration to that effect, 

 and a considerable sentiment arose in favor of re- 

 deeming them with currency, or lawful money, as 

 it was called. 



These questions were not party issues at first, 

 and there was no clear-cut division upon them be- 

 tween the two old parties throughout the period. 

 The alinement was by class and section rather than 

 by party; and inflationists and advocates of the re- 

 demption of the bonds in currency were to be found 

 not only among the rank and file but also among 

 the leaders of both parties. The failure of either 

 the Democrats or the Republicans to take a de- 

 cided stand on these questions resulted, as so often 

 before, in the development of third parties which 

 made them the main planks in the new platform. 



The first attempts at organized political activity 

 in behalf of greenbackism came not from the farm- 

 ers of the West but from the laboring men of the 

 East, whose growing class consciousness resulted 

 in the organization of the National Labor Union in 

 1868. Accompanying, if not resulting from the 



