George S. Boutwell - U.S. Secretary of Treasury

U.S. Secretary of Treasury

Boutwell resigned from the House in 1869 to accept the appointment of Secretary of the Treasury from President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869. As Treasury Secretary, his primary achievements were reorganizing and reforming the Treasury Department, improving bookkeeping by customs houses, incorporating the United States Mint into the Treasury and reducing the national debt. He also managed the Black Friday crisis of September 23, 1869, warding off gold speculators by flooding the market with Treasury gold.

As Secretary, he opposed the lowering of taxes and favored a large reduction of the national debt. In 1870 Congress, at his recommendation, passed an act providing for the funding of the national debt and authorizing the selling of certain bonds, but not authorizing an increase of the debt. In order to implement the restrictive law, Sec. Boutwell set up a banking syndicate to buy newly issued bonds at 4% and 5% in order to pay back Civil War bonds initially sold at 6%; that would alleviate the national debt. Secretary Boutwell, however, in order to implement the banking syndicate, had to temporarily raise the national debt more than half of one per cent, for which he was accused of technically violating the law. The House Committee of Ways and Means afterward absolved him from this charge.