Hugh McCulloch

He tried but failed to make a rapid return to the gold standard. He was the last surviving member of the Lincoln Cabinet.

• Name — Hugh McCulloch • Office — 27th and 36th United States Secretary of the Treasury • President — Chester A. Arthur • Term Start — October 31, 1884 • Term End — March 7, 1885 • Predecessor — Walter Q. Gresham • Successor — Daniel Manning • President1 — Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson • Term Start1 — March 9, 1865 • Term End1 — March 3, 1869 • Predecessor1 — William P. Fessenden • Successor1 — George S. Boutwell • Office2 — Comptroller of the Currency • President2 — Abraham Lincoln • Term Start2 — February 25, 1863 • Term End2 — March 9, 1865 • Predecessor2 — Position established • Successor2 — Freeman Clarke • Born — 7 December 1808 • Birthplace — Kennebunk, Maine, U.S. • Died — 24 May 1895 • Place of death — Prince George's County, Maryland, U.S. • Party — Republican • Education — Bowdoin College

Born in Kennebunk, Maine, he was the son of Hugh McCulloch Sr., one of the largest shipbuilders in New England, and Abial Perkins. He was educated at Thornton Academy in Saco, Maine, and attended Bowdoin College for two years, leaving due to ill health. He taught school, then studied law in Boston, and in 1833 began practicing law at Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was cashier and manager of the Fort Wayne branch of the state chartered Bank of Indiana and president of the larger organization from 1835 to 1857, and president of its successor, the privately owned Bank of Indiana, from 1857 to 1863. Despite his early opposition to the National Banking Act of 1862, he was selected by Salmon P. Chase to be the first Comptroller of the Currency in 1863. During McCulloch's 22 months in office, 868 national banks were chartered and no failures occurred. As the first Comptroller, McCulloch recommended major changes in the banking law and the resulting National Banking Act of 1864 remains the foundation of the national banking system.

McCulloch began his banking career as the President of the Bank of Indiana. In 1833 the bank was established in response to the closure of the Second Bank of the United States. Indiana was still a wilderness, and no eastern bank was willing to take charge of the fledgling state bank. McCulloch was one of the few prominent businessmen in the young state, and although he had no banking experience, he was appointed because he was the most qualified person willing to take the position. He ran the bank with great efficiency, making it one of the most stable in the nation. He remained president until the bank was closed in 1859, and the bank's notes were exchanged for federal notes from the new national bank. He then went on to become president of the Second Bank of Indiana, where he remained until 1865.

• Illustration — Bureau of Engraving and Printing portrait of McCulloch as Secretary of the Treasury A day or two after his second inauguration, Abraham Lincoln invited McCulloch to his office at the White House to have a talk with him. The president offered McCulloch the position of Treasury Secretary, which he didn't expect and didn't want at first. On March 9, 1865, he was appointed as the 27th Secretary of the Treasury by President Abraham Lincoln. His appointment was largely due to his influence with existing state banks. McCulloch later remarked that on the morning of Lincoln's assassination, "I never saw Mr. Lincoln so cheerful and happy...The burden which had been weighing upon him for four long years, and which he had borne with heroic fortitude, had been lifted; the war had been practically ended; the Union was safe." McCulloch was also with him on his death bed until his last moments. As he was about to leave the White House, Abraham Lincoln took him by the hand and said: "We must look to you, Mr. Secretary, for the money to pay off the soldiers", to which he replied: "I shall look to the people... they have not failed us thus far, and I don't think they will now". A few hours later, he saw the president becoming unconscious and saw him dying. The death bed scene was immortalized in number of paintings afterwards. He continued where it had been left by Mr. Lincoln, and served in the Presidential Cabinet of Andrew Johnson until the close of his administration in 1869. Immediately confronted with inflation caused by the government's wartime issue of greenbacks, he recommended their retirement and a return to the gold standard. In McCulloch's first annual report, issued on December 4, 1865, he strongly urged the retirement of the legal tenders or greenbacks as a preliminary to the resumption of specie payments. However this would have reduced the supply of currency and was unpopular during the period of postwar reconstruction and westward expansion. • Illustration — Hugh McCulloch In accordance with this suggestion an act was passed, on March 12, 1866, authorizing the retirement of not more than $10,000,000 in six months and not more than $4,000,000 per month thereafter. This act met with strong opposition and was repealed on the February 4, 1868, after only $48,000,000 had been retired. The battle over its revival raged for the next fifty years. McCulloch was also disappointed by the decision of the United States Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of the legal tenders. During his tenure, McCulloch maintained a policy of reducing the federal war debt and the careful reintroduction of federal taxation in the South. Soon after the close of his term of office McCulloch went to England, and spent six years (1870–1876) as a partner and member of the banking firm of Jay Cooke, McCulloch & Co. Their firm received from the Secretary of the Navy, George M. Robeson, the contract for the deposits made in London for the payment of naval officers abroad, with most partners being close friends of General Grant. His partner, Jay Cooke, was the chief financier of Lincoln's Union Army, and was the proprietor of America's premier banking house before his fall. From October 1884 until the close of President Chester A. Arthur's term of office in March 1885, McCulloch again served as Secretary of the Treasury. During his six months in office at that time, he continued his fight for currency backed by gold, warning that the coinage of silver, used by then as backing for currency, should be halted. After his death, McCulloch's portrait was used on several issues of $20 U.S. national bank notes (specifically the 1902 series). • Illustration — $20 banknote with McCulloch's portrait on it, Friedberg #639

• Illustration — Death bed of Abraham Lincoln, April 15, 1865, Hugh McCulloch is at the end of the bed on the left, with Mary Todd Lincoln, Capt. Robert Todd Lincoln, Salmon P. Chase, surgeon Charles Leale, and others McCulloch's first marriage, to Eunice Hardy, ended when she died young. His second marriage was to Susan Man, a schoolteacher, whom he met in Fort Wayne in 1836 when he was a young widower. Susan was the aunt of Albon P. Man, cofounder with William E. Sawyer of the Electro-Dynamic Light Company, competitors of Thomas Edison. Hugh McCulloch was an early investor in the company with James Powell Kernochan. The couple had six children. One of his daughters, Marie Louise, married to John B. Yale, son of Linus Yale Jr., and brother of Julian L. Yale, members of the Yale family. He died at his home, Holly Hill in Prince George's County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in 1895 and is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in D.C. His wife, Susan McCulloch, died at the residence of her son-in-law, John B. Yale, in 1898. Her great uncle was Naphtali Daggett, President of Yale College, and her family members included Gen. Moores, Gen. Melanchton Woolsey, Congressman and Senator Jonas Platt, and Alida Livingston, member of the Schuyler and Livingston family. McCulloch was also a millionaire of 1892, and was featured in the book of American Millionaires of that year.

His recorded language was English. He was the child of Abiel Perkins. He married Susan Maria Man. One child is recorded: Marie Louise McCulloch.

Hugh McCulloch is recorded as banker, lawyer and writer.