Childhoods in Peace and Conflict 1st

Edition J. Marshall Beier

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/childhoods-in-peace-and-conflict-1st-edition-j-marshal
l-beier/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Discovering Childhood in International Relations 1st

ed. Edition J. Marshall Beier

https://ebookmass.com/product/discovering-childhood-in-
international-relations-1st-ed-edition-j-marshall-beier/

Existential Risks in Peace and Conflict Studies Noah B.

Taylor

https://ebookmass.com/product/existential-risks-in-peace-and-
conflict-studies-noah-b-taylor/

Management and War: How Organisations Navigate Conflict

and Build Peace 1st ed. Edition Joanne Murphy

https://ebookmass.com/product/management-and-war-how-
organisations-navigate-conflict-and-build-peace-1st-ed-edition-
joanne-murphy/

Peace and Conflict Studies Fourth Edition – Ebook PDF

Version

https://ebookmass.com/product/peace-and-conflict-studies-fourth-
edition-ebook-pdf-version/
The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork 1st ed.
Edition Roger Mac Ginty

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-companion-to-peace-and-
conflict-fieldwork-1st-ed-edition-roger-mac-ginty/

The Palgrave Encyclopedia Of Peace And Conflict Studies

1st Edition Oliver P. Richmond

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-encyclopedia-of-peace-
and-conflict-studies-1st-edition-oliver-p-richmond/

War and Peace in Somalia: National Grievances, Local

Conflict and Al-Shabaab Michael Keating

https://ebookmass.com/product/war-and-peace-in-somalia-national-
grievances-local-conflict-and-al-shabaab-michael-keating/

Gendered Agency in War and Peace : Gender Justice and

Women's Activism in Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina
1st Edition Maria O’Reilly (Auth.)

https://ebookmass.com/product/gendered-agency-in-war-and-peace-
gender-justice-and-womens-activism-in-post-conflict-bosnia-
herzegovina-1st-edition-maria-oreilly-auth/

Contemporary Peacemaking: Peace Processes,

Peacebuilding and Conflict Roger Mac Ginty

https://ebookmass.com/product/contemporary-peacemaking-peace-
processes-peacebuilding-and-conflict-roger-mac-ginty/
RETHINKING PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES
SERIES EDITORS: OLIVER P. RICHMOND · ANNIKA BJÖRKDAHL ·
GËZIM VISOKA

Childhoods in Peace
and Conflict

Edited by
J. Marshall Beier
Jana Tabak
 Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies

Series Editors
Oliver P. Richmond, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Annika Björkdahl, Department of Political Science, Lund University,
Lund, Sweden
Gëzim Visoka, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
This agenda-setting series of research monographs, now more than a
decade old, provides an interdisciplinary forum aimed at advancing inno-
vative new agendas for peace and conflict studies in International Rela-
tions. Many of the critical volumes the series has so far hosted have
contributed to new avenues of analysis directly or indirectly related to the
search for positive, emancipatory, and hybrid forms of peace. Constructive
critiques of liberal peace, hybrid peace, everyday contributions to peace,
the role of civil society and social movements, international actors and
networks, as well as a range of different dimensions of peace (from peace-
building, statebuilding, youth contributions, photography, and many case
studies) have been explored so far. The series raises important political
questions about what peace is, whose peace and peace for whom, as well
as where peace takes place. In doing so, it offers new and interdisci-
plinary perspectives on the development of the international peace archi-
tecture, peace processes, UN peacebuilding, peacekeeping and mediation,
statebuilding, and localised peace formation in practice and in theory. It
examines their implications for the development of local peace agency
and the connection between emancipatory forms of peace and global
justice, which remain crucial in different conflict-affected regions around
the world. This series’ contributions offer both theoretical and empir-
ical insights into many of the world’s most intractable conflicts, also
investigating increasingly significant evidence about blockages to peace.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14500
 J. Marshall Beier · Jana Tabak
Editors

Childhoods in Peace
and Conflict
Editors
J. Marshall Beier Jana Tabak
Department of Political Science Department of International Relations
McMaster University State University of Rio de Janeiro
Hamilton, ON, Canada Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies

ISBN 978-3-030-74787-9 ISBN 978-3-030-74788-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74788-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For the young people navigating peace and conflict
 Acknowledgments

A debt of gratitude is owed to the many people without whom this

volume would not have been possible. As with all such projects, it is
founded on the strength of vast and intricate webs of relationships that
exceed the possibility of their being mapped. Not least among these
are the connections (whether literal or figurative) that oftentimes bind
us to those about whom we research and write. They include also the
growing number of colleagues working at the emerging nexus between
Critical Childhood Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies, Critical Secu-
rity Studies, and disciplinary International Relations more broadly. From
the outset, we have benefitted from the insights and encouragement of
students and colleagues alike. Like those further afield in the vibrant and
expanding networks of scholarship, activism, and communities of practice
around issues of children and childhoods in varied contexts of peace and
conflict, valued members of our home departments bear special mention
for their interest in and support of our work on this and other projects.
It simply is not possible to recognize everyone we would like to here, but
all have left indelible impressions with their ideas, perspectives, support,
and encouragement. We continue to learn from our participation in these
networks and hope to contribute to them in return.
In more direct connection with the book itself, we are grateful to the
contributors for answering our initial open call for papers with original and
deeply intriguing proposals, for following through on the submission of
full chapters that delivered on this promise, and for carrying out revisions

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

to schedule while juggling the many new and competing demands occa-
sioned by a global pandemic. Challenging times beget changing expecta-
tions around commitments earlier made and we recognize the extraordi-
nary effort needed in many cases to follow through in spite of them. It
has been our genuine pleasure to work with and learn from each of you
through this process and we look forward to continuing conversations
with hopes of further collaborations in the future.
We are very pleased to have the volume included in the Rethinking
Peace and Conflict Studies series and thank the series editors, Oliver P.
Richmond, Annika Björkdahl, and Gëzim Visoka, for their support and
for drawing the book into such good company. At Palgrave, Anca Pusca
and Katelyn Zingg ushered our proposal through the process of approval
and acceptance, while two anonymous reviewers for Palgrave gave excel-
lent and engaged feedback from which we have all gained much. We are
grateful to them all for their enthusiasm, their clear and supportive edito-
rial guidance, and for input into the framing and scope of the volume—
the final product is much stronger for all of it. Ashwini Elango provided
excellent project coordination, seeing us through the production process
and to publication swiftly and professionally.
And, as always, we are indebted to our families. Their love and support,
their patience as we tend to commitments, and the often-profound
insights they inspire are contributions in their own right, in this and in
all else we do.

January 2021 J. Marshall Beier

Jana Tabak
 Contents

1 Other Childhoods: Finding Children in Peace

and Conflict 1
J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak

Part I Ontologies of Children in Peace and Conflict

2 Children as Soldiers or Civilians: Norms and Politics
in the United Nations Monitoring and Reporting
Mechanism on Children Affected by Armed Conflict 23
Vanessa Bramwell
3 Voices of Ex-Child Soldiers from the War in Bosnia
and Herzegovina: Between Public and Private
Narratives 43
Dalibor Savić, Rusmir Piralić, and Aleksandar Janković
4 ‘I Have the Right’: Examining the Role of Children
in the #DimeLaVerdad Campaign 65
Diana Carolina García Gómez

Part II Pedagogies of Children in Peace and Conflict

5 Children, Internationalism, and Armistice
Commemoration in Britain, 1919–1939 85
Susannah Wright

ix
x CONTENTS

6 Childhood, Education, and Everyday Militarism

in China Before and After 1949 103
Haolan Zheng
7 Primary Education and the French Army During
the Algerian War of Independence 123
Brooke Durham
8 Militarizing Citizenship in Ukraine: “Strategy
for the National-Patriotic Education of Children
and Youth” in Social Context 143
Vita Yakovlyeva

Part III Contingencies of Children in Peace and Conflict

9 More Than a Victim: Childhood Resilience in Malik
Sajad’s Munnu 165
Suniti Madaan and Cijo Joy
10 Children and Childhood on the Borderland of Desired
Peace and Undesired War: A Case of Ukraine 183
Urszula Markowska-Manista and Oksana Koshulko
11 Production of ‘Safe’ Spaces for Adivasi Children
and the Armed Conflict of Bastar, India 203
Rashmi Kumari
12 Raising the Empire’s Children? Everyday Insecurities
and Parenting the Privileged in the United States 223
Jennifer Riggan

Index 241
 Notes on Contributors

J. Marshall Beier is a Professor of Political Science at McMaster Univer-

sity. In his current research, he investigates issues around children’s polit-
ical subjecthood, visual and affective economies of children in abject
circumstances, and imagined childhood as a technology of global gover-
nance. His publications include: Discovering Childhood in International
Relations, ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020); Childhood and the Produc-
tion of Security, ed. (Routledge, 2017); The Militarization of Childhood:
Thinking Beyond the Global South, ed. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, 2014).
He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Critical Studies on Security and his
work has appeared in journals including Childhood, Children’s Geogra-
phies, Contemporary Security Policy, Critical Military Studies, Global
Governance, Global Responsibility to Protect, International Political Soci-
ology, International Politics, International Studies Review, Journal of
Human Rights, Security Dialogue, and Third World Quarterly.
Vanessa Bramwell is a Ph.D. candidate at Massey University, New
Zealand, examining the role of norms in the UN infrastructure on child
protection in armed conflict. Her general research interest is in civilian
protections in conflict through the disciplinary lenses of politics, Interna-
tional Relations, and Security Studies, and in communicating across wider
disciplinary boundaries in the theorization of conflict-affected people. She
is working on contributions to several publications due in 2021, while
building academic teaching experience. She lives with her husband and
two sons in Wellington.

xi
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Brooke Durham is a Ph.D. candidate in Modern European History

at Stanford University. Her work focuses on the history of the French
Empire and decolonization in North and West Africa in the twentieth
century. She is completing her dissertation on social work, education, and
human development during decolonization in Algeria.
Diana Carolina García Gómez is a Ph.D. candidate in the Childhood
Studies Department at Rutgers University—Camden, New Jersey, USA.
Drawing from the fields of childhood studies, memory studies, decolonial
thought, and international relations, her research focuses on children’s
and youth political participation in peacebuilding, collective memory, and
social movements in post-conflict contexts, particularly in post-accord
Colombia. Her dissertation, Cultivating Hope: Children’s and Youth’s
Participation in Collective Memory Processes in Post-Accord Colombia,
centers children’s and youth participation in transitional contexts by
examining their engagement with collective memory processes in urban
and rural settings. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from Pontificia
Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia, and an M.A. in Cognition
and Communication from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Aleksandar Janković is an Assistant Professor at the University of Banja
Luka, Faculty of Political Sciences, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He special-
izes in theoretical sociology. His research interests are in the areas of
social inequalities, sociology of youth, post-socialist transformation and
ethno-nationalism, and social statistics.
Cijo Joy teaches English Literature as an Assistant Professor (Ad-hoc) at
the University of Delhi. He has an M.Phil. from the University of Delhi
in Adivasi folktales from the state of Jharkhand. In his research, he traces
shifts and changes of the Adivasi identity from precolonial to contem-
porary times and situates it in contestation with caste hierarchies as well
as the colonial and postcolonial state. His research was inspired from his
work with cultural groups focusing on archiving folk songs across India.
His activism has focused on issues of civil liberties and democratic rights.
He is currently working on the novel and textual articulation of tempo-
ralities in the city in South Asia. His research interests also include critical
theory and childhood.
Oksana Koshulko is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global
Economy at Alfred Nobel University, Dnipro, Ukraine. She has an M.A.
degree in Economy and Society from Lancaster University and a Ph.D.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

in Economic Sciences. Her areas of research are Women’s Studies and

Migration Studies, including Refugees and Asylum Seeking, inspired by
the occupation and war in Ukraine since 2014. In 2019, she prepared a
master’s thesis for Lancaster University, entitled “Exploring patriotism of
women engaged in revolution and war in Ukraine.” She has published
over 140 scientific papers, books, and chapters in books in various coun-
tries, including the USA and the UK. Dr. Koshulko currently studies
women’s and children’s issues and society in general as impacted by the
occupation and war in Ukraine.
Rashmi Kumari is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Childhood
Studies at Rutgers University. As a scholar trained in Social Anthro-
pology, she also holds a Women’s and Gender Studies certificate from
Rutgers University. Her research engages with residential schools for
Adivasi (Indigenous) Children in Chhattisgarh, India. She is currently
conducting fieldwork for her dissertation entitled, “Shaping Indigenous
Girls as National Subjects: Role of Residential Schools in Central India.”
Her research explores the intersectionality of indigeneity, age, and gender
in the lives of Adivasi children living in highly militarized contexts.
She engages multimodal ethnographic fieldwork utilizing photography
and documentary filmmaking components. Through multimodal work,
Rashmi engages Adivasi youth in the ethnographic processes while also
disseminating filmmaking techniques. Rashmi’s field engagements can be
found at https://rashmish.xyz.
Suniti Madaan teaches English Literature as an Assistant Professor (Ad-
hoc) at the University of Delhi. She has a doctorate from Jawaharlal
Nehru University in the area of Indian comics, looking specifically at the
evolution of popular children’s comic, Tinkle, from the 1980s to contem-
porary times. In her doctoral work she reads caste, gender, and class poli-
tics in children’s comics as an expression of middle-class popular culture
in India. She has also translated a short story and some poems from Hindi
to English for the Sahitya Akademi journal, Indian Literature. She is
an active member of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Litera-
ture and Language Studies and has presented research papers in its inter-
national conferences. Her research interests include children’s literature,
childhood, Indian English writing, and popular culture.
Urszula Markowska-Manista field researcher and contemporary
nomad, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Warsaw, Faculty
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

of Education and Lecture & Program Co-Director of M.A. Child-

hood Studies and Children’s Rights, University of Applied Sciences,
Potsdam. She conducts field research on the everyday life and education
of children in culturally diversified environments, among Indigenous
communities (Central Africa), children “out of place” (the Horn of
Africa), national and ethnic minorities (the South Caucasus), as well
as children and youth with migrant and refugee backgrounds. She
researches, publishes, and teaches extensively on topics related to child-
hood and youth studies through Indigenous, postcolonial perspective,
nondiscrimination, and participatory approaches to research, chil-
dren’s rights, and education in pre-dysfunctional contexts and culturally
diversified environments.
Rusmir Piralić is an ex-child soldier participant of war in BiH. He
holds a bachelor’s degree in criminology from the University of Sarajevo,
Faculty of Criminal Justice, Criminology and Security Studies, Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Currently, he acts as president of War Veterans Asso-
ciation—Juvenile Volunteers of the War of Independence and Libera-
tion ’92-’95 Canton Sarajevo. He is a Peace Activist and an Independent
Researcher. He is presently involved in the “Children of War to Children
of Peace, Learning from the War Past” project—a youth ethnic reconcil-
iation project sponsored and provided by Visegrad Fund implemented in
BiH.
Jennifer Riggan is a Professor of International Studies at Arcadia
University. An educational and political anthropologist, her research and
publications focus on Eritrea and Ethiopia to explore: the relationships
between political identities and the state; teachers and political insta-
bility; and, displacement, containment, and temporality. She has held
fellowships from the Wolf Humanities Center (2020–2021), the Georg
Arnhold Program (2019), Fulbright (Addis Ababa University 2016–2017
and Asmara University 2004–2005), The Spencer Foundation/ National
Academy of Education (2012–2014), and the Social Science Research
Council (2004–2005). She is the author of The Struggling State: Nation-
alism, Mass Militarization and the Education of Eritrea (Temple Univer-
sity Press, 2016). She is presently co-authoring a book entitled, The
Hosting State and Its Restless Guests: Containment, Displacement and
Time Among Eritrean Refugees in Ethiopia.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

Dalibor Savić is an Assistant Professor at the University of Banja Luka,

Faculty of Political Sciences, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He specializes in
social science research methods. His research interests are in the areas
of applied sociology, sociology of youth, sociology of sport, and peace
studies. He is currently involved in the “Children of War to Children of
Peace, Learning from the War Past” project—a youth ethnic reconciliation
project sponsored and provided by Visegrad Fund implemented in BiH.
Previously, he was a research team member for the “Life Projects of Young
(Re)emigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina” project.
Jana Tabak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International
Relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. She is the author of The
Child and the World: Child-Soldiers and the Claim for Progress (Univer-
sity of Georgia Press, 2020). Her other publications include: a co-edited
special issue of Childhood: A Journal of Global Child Research; a book
entitled Organizações Internacionais: História e Práticas, 2nd edition, ed.
with Monica Herz and Andrea Ribeiro Hoffmann (Elsevier, 2015); and,
Modernity at Risk: Complex Emergencies, Humanitarianism, Sovereignty,
with Carlos Frederico Pereira da Gama (Lambert Academic, 2012). She
is the author of articles in the journals Contexto Internacional, Cultures et
Conflits, Global Responsibility to Protect, and The Hague Journal of Diplo-
macy. She has taught in the areas of international organizations, peace and
conflict studies, and children and war.
Susannah Wright is a Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Research Tutor
in the School of Education, Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has
researched and published articles and a monograph on themes of chil-
dren, moral education, and citizenship in England in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Her current research considers themes of
young people’s engagement with war and peace, and with internation-
alism and pacifism, from the 1920s to the 1960s. Until the end of 2019
she was co-editor of the journal History of Education and is now Hon.
Secretary of the History of Education Society (UK).
Vita Yakovlyeva holds a Ph.D. in Social Theory and Cultural Studies
and is currently a Research Associate at the Canadian Institute of
Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research
interests lie at the intersection of critical studies of childhood, its materi-
ality, and social memory. She has previously studied childhood memories
in relation to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

independent Ukraine, focusing on the event of the Chernobyl nuclear

explosion as a formative socio-political framework still resonant in the
Ukrainian society.
Haolan Zheng is an Associate Professor of China studies at Keio Univer-
sity, Japan. She received a B.A. from Fudan University and a Ph.D.
from Keio University. She was visiting scholar at Stanford University in
2019–2020. Her research focuses on grassroots politics in modern and
contemporary China. Her first book, entitled Chinese Rural Society and
Revolution: The Historical Transformation of Jinggangshan’s Villages (in
Japanese), was awarded the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize in 2010. Her
works have been appeared in many academic journals and books in Japan.
Her co-edited book, Mao’s Campaign and Ordinary People’s Daily Life,
will be published in 2021. She is currently working on everyday politics
in socialist China, from the perspective of children and youth.
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Dominant discourses on ex-child soldiers in BiH 45

Table 3.2 Discourses on childhood 47
Table 3.3 Typical motives for joining the armed forces and their
characteristics 54
Table 3.4 List of interviewees 61

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Other Childhoods: Finding Children in Peace

and Conflict

J. Marshall Beier and Jana Tabak

Introduction
Childhoods intersect peace and conflict in myriad ways, though render-
ings of children in these contexts are all too often reduced to one of
two dominant, if quite distinct, framings: hapless victims or child soldiers.
While critical interventions of recent years have begun to work toward
the recovery of children’s agency and to sketch the complex hetero-
geneity of childhoods in both framings, the framings themselves remain
dominant. The contributors to this volume approach redress of this by
way of offering a collection of nuanced accounts of children and child-
hoods in varied contexts of peace and conflict across political time and
space, finding other childhoods constituted in and constituting interstitial

J. M. Beier (B)
Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada
e-mail: mbeier@mcmaster.ca
J. Tabak
Department of International Relations, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
J. M. Beier and J. Tabak (eds.), Childhoods in Peace and Conflict,
Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74788-6_1
2 J. M. BEIER AND J. TABAK

sites and practices. Organized according to three broad and overlap-

ping themes (ontologies, pedagogies, and contingencies), each chapter
explores the complexities of a particular case study, providing new insights
into the ways children’s lives figure in engagement, ambivalence, contesta-
tion, and resistance in and through the (re)production of political violence
and (anti)militarisms. Venturing beyond the well-worn paths of work
dominated by the iconic figure of the child soldier (in most conventional
renderings, typically prepubescent, male, African) and the objectified child
victim (exemplified in ubiquitous images of acutely vulnerable children in
circumstances of abjection), each urges us to glimpse other childhoods,
in places beyond those that have tended to draw most attention. They
do so from a variety of disciplinary, experiential, and (inter)relational
standpoints. Together, they bring into comparative perspective children’s
experiences of peace and conflict across a range of less familiar contexts
via original inquiries into specific cases of children and childhoods in
peace and conflict including, among others, classroom curricula on war
commemoration in the United Kingdom, pedagogy in the People’s
Republic of China, resistance movements in Colombia, the ongoing war
in Ukraine, and North American parenting practices. A further important
contribution is in foregrounding childhood agency, treating militarized,
conflict-affected, and peacebuilding subjects as more than ‘passive skin’
inscribed by others and recovering something of the ways in which they
perform, acquiesce in, and resist militarisms in their own everydays (de
Certeau 1984).
Children as victims appear primarily as the ‘emotional scenery’
(Brocklehurst 2015: 32) of conflict and security literatures, critical and
mainstream alike. Images of child soldiers or child victims of war similarly
manifest as potent political resources while also encoding much in the
way of claims about various peoples and contexts. Among other things,
the overwhelming focus—albeit with a few notable exceptions—on
sub-Saharan African contexts does the political work of reproducing
colonial relations of power (Macmillan 2009; Lee-Koo 2011) whilst
mystifying myriad intersections of militarisms with the everyday lives and
lifeworlds of children elsewhere. In particular, the militarized childhoods
of the comparatively privileged environs of the advanced (post)industrial
societies of the Global North are due more attention (see Beier 2011).
Of course, as Diana Carolina García Gómez reminds us in Chapter 4,
“Children and youth are more visible in war than they are in peace.” War
understandably draws our gaze, but looking only to the exceptional or
 1 OTHER CHILDHOODS: FINDING CHILDREN IN PEACE AND CONFLICT 3

the spectacular confounds our notice of what may be equally instructive

in contexts more apt to register as mundane and quotidian (Beier and
Tabak 2020). Disturbing the sharp distinction between war and peace—
understanding them as imbricated and interpenetrated along practices
of war, war preparation, war commemoration, and more—helps us in
uncovering a more complicated picture and understanding a fuller range
of militarized childhoods. At the same time, we should take care to hold
these insights together with those to be gleaned from situations in which
children are more visibly—or perhaps more recognizably—affected by
war. As a collection, the chapters gathered in this volume make visible
a range of different contexts of children and childhoods in war and
peace. Together, they provide a rich case/empirical complement to the
existing literatures seeking to broaden our understanding of childhoods
in zones of conflict (Brocklehurst 2006; Jacob 2014; Huynh et al.
2015; D’Costa 2016), children as peacebuilders (McEvoy-Levy 2006,
2018; Pruitt 2013; Berents 2018), the child soldier as (de)constitutive
of global ideational orders (Tabak 2020), and theorizations of children
and childhoods in global political perspective more broadly (Benwell and
Hopkins 2016; Beier 2020).
The organization of the volume along themes of ontologies, pedago-
gies, and contingencies should not be taken to mean that each chapter
speaks to only one of these or that any of the three is not relevant to
all chapters. Rather, it reflects our reading of the sum of the chapters
in each part as an illuminating ‘constellation’ of insights that contribute
to complicating dominant knowledges, ‘common senses,’ and habits of
thought along lines of each particular theme. In the realm of ontolo-
gies, fundamental questions about the nature of childhood, central to
debates animating Critical Childhood Studies, are crucially at stake. Here,
childhood defined by deficit and understandings of children as preso-
cial “human becomings” (Uprichard 2008) have come under sustained
critique from a new sociology of childhood (Burman 1994; James et al.
1998) that places the accent on assets and abilities in its recovery of chil-
dren’s active and engaged political subjecthood in ways more consistent
with concomitant moves toward apprehending them as rights-bearing
subjects (Mayall 2000; Alanen 2010) meaningfully engaged in (re)making
the social worlds they inhabit. Still, the children and childhoods ‘called
into being’ by the sorts of ideas and practices of which these currents have
been critical are, nevertheless, among what we might call ‘actually existing
childhoods’ in the sense that they have social and political currency and
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
softening party asperities and aiding very materially in the
restoration of better feeling between the North and South. Its
conservatism, always manifested save on extraordinary occasions,
did that much good at least.
 The Campaign of 1880.

The Republican National Convention met June 5th, 1880, at

Chicago, in the Exposition building, capable of seating 20,000
people. The excitement in the ranks of the Republicans was very
high, because of the candidacy of General Grant for what was
popularly called a “third term,” though not a third consecutive term.
His three powerful Senatorial friends, in the face of bitter protests,
had secured the instructions of their respective State Conventions for
Grant. Conkling had done this in New York, Cameron in
Pennsylvania, Logan in Illinois, but in each of the three States the
opposition was so impressive that no serious attempts were made to
substitute other delegates for those which had previously been
selected by their Congressional districts. As a result there was a large
minority in the delegations of these States opposed to the
nomination of General Grant, and the votes of them could only be
controlled by the enforcement of the unit rule. Senator Hoar of
Massachusetts, the President of the Convention, decided against its
enforcement, and as a result all of the delegates were free to vote
upon either State or District instructions, or as they chose. The
Convention was in session three days. We present herewith the

BALLOTS.
 Ballots. 1 2 3 4 5 6
Grant, 304 305 305 305 305 305
Blaine, 284 282 282 281 281 281
Sherman, 93 94 93 95 95 95
Edmunds, 34 32 32 32 32 31
Washburne, 30 32 31 31 31 31
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1 1 1 2 2
Harrison, 1
Ballots. 7 8 9 10 11 12
Grant, 305 306 308 305 305 304
Blaine, 281 284 282 282 281 283
Sherman, 94 91 90 91 62 93
Edmunds, 32 31 31 30 31 31
Washburne, 31 32 32 22 32 33
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1 1 1 2 2 1
Hayes, 1 2
Ballots, 13 14 15 16 17 18
Grant, 305 305 309 306 303 305
Blaine, 285 285 281 283 284 283
Sherman, 89 89 88 88 90 92
Edmunds, 31 31 31 31 31 31
Washburne, 33 35 36 36 34 35
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
Garfield, 1
Hayes, 1 1
Davis, 1
McCrary, 1
Ballots, 19 20 21 22 23 24
Grant, 305 308 305 305 304 305
Blaine, 279 276 276 275 274 279
Sherman, 95 93 96 95 98 93
Edmunds, 31 31 31 31 31 31
Washburne, 31 35 35 35 36 35
Windom, 10 10 10 10 10 10
 Garfield, 1 1 1 1 2 2
Hartranft, 1 1 1 1
Ballots, 25 26 27
Grant, 302 303 306
Blaine, 281 280 277
Sherman, 94 93 93
Edmunds, 31 31 31
Washburne, 36 35 36
Windom, 10 10 10
Garfield, 2 2 2

There was little change from the 27th ballot until the 36th and
final one, which resulted as follows:

Whole number of votes 755

Necessary to a choice 378
Grant 306
Blaine 42
Sherman 3
Washburne 5
Garfield 399

As shown, General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nominated on

the 36th ballot, the forces of General Grant alone remaining solid.
The result was due to a sudden union of the forces of Blaine and
Sherman, it is believed with the full consent of both, for both
employed the same wire leading from the same room in Washington
in telegraphing to their friends at Chicago. The object was to defeat
Grant. After Garfield’s nomination there was a temporary
adjournment, during which the friends of the nominee consulted
Conkling and his leading friends, and the result was the selection of
General Chester A. Arthur of New York, for Vice-President. The
object of this selection was to carry New York, the great State which
was then almost universally believed to hold the key to the
Presidential position.
The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati, June 22d.
Tilden had up to the holding of the Pennsylvania State Convention
been one of the most prominent candidates. In this Convention there
was a bitter struggle between the Wallace and Randall factions, the
former favoring Hancock, the latter Tilden. Wallace, after a contest
far sharper than he expected, won, and bound the delegation by the
unit rule. When the National Convention met, John Kelly, the
Tammany leader of New York, was again there, as at St. Louis four
years before, to oppose Tilden, but the latter sent a letter disclaiming
that he was a candidate, and yet really inviting a nomination on the
issue of “the fraudulent counting in of Hayes.” There were but two
ballots, as follows:
 FIRST BALLOT.

Hancock 171
Bayard 153½
Payne 81
Thurman 63½
Field 66
Morrison 62
Hendricks 46½
Tilden 38
Ewing 10
Seymour 8
Randall 6
Loveland 5
McDonald 3
McClellan 3
English 1
Jewett 1
Black 1
Lothrop 1
Parker 1

SECOND BALLOT.

Hancock 705
Tilden 1
Bayard 2
Hendricks 30

Thus General Winfield S. Hancock, of New York, was nominated

on the second ballot. Wm. H. English, of Indiana, was nominated for
Vice-President.
The National Greenback-Labor Convention, held at Chicago, June
11, nominated General J. B. Weaver, of Iowa, for President, and
General E. J. Chambers, of Texas, for Vice-President.
 In the canvass which followed, the Republicans were aided by such
orators as Conkling, Blaine, Grant, Logan, Curtis, Boutwell, while the
Camerons, father and son, visited the October States of Ohio and
Indiana, as it was believed that these would determine the result,
Maine having in September very unexpectedly defeated the
Republican State ticket by a small majority. The Democrats were
aided by Bayard, Voorhees, Randall, Wallace, Hill, Hampton, Lamar,
and hosts of their best orators. Every issue was recalled, but for the
first time in the history of the Republicans of the West, they accepted
the tariff issue, and made open war on Watterson’s plank in the
Democratic platform—“a tariff for revenue only.” Iowa, Ohio, and
Indiana, all elected the Republican State tickets with good margins;
West Virginia went Democratic, but the result was, notwithstanding
this, reasonably assured to the Republicans. The Democrats,
however, feeling the strong personal popularity of their leading
candidate, persisted with high courage to the end. In November all of
the Southern States, with New Jersey, California,[36] and Nevada in
the North, went Democratic; all of the others Republican. The
Greenbackers held only a balance of power, which they could not
exercise, in California, Indiana, and New Jersey. The electoral vote of
Garfield and Arthur was 214, that of Hancock and English 155. The
popular vote was Republican, 4,442,950; Democratic, 4,442,035;
Greenback or National, 306,867; scattering, 12,576. The
Congressional elections in the same canvass gave the Republicans
147 members; the Democrats, 136; Greenbackers, 9; Independents, 1.
Fifteen States elected Governors, nine of them Republicans and six
Democrats.
General Garfield, November 10, sent to Governor Foster, of Ohio,
his resignation as a Senator, and John Sherman, the Secretary of the
Treasury, was in the winter following elected as his successor.
The third session of the Forty-sixth Congress was begun December
6. The President’s Message was read in both Houses. Among its
recommendations to Congress were the following: To create the
office of Captain-General of the Army for General Grant; to defend
the inviolability of the constitutional amendments; to promote free
popular education by grants of public lands and appropriations from
the United States Treasury; to appropriate $25,000 annually for the
expenses of a Commission to be appointed by the President to devise
a just, uniform, and efficient system of competitive examinations,
and to supervise the application of the same throughout the entire
civil service of the government; to pass a law defining the relations of
Congressmen to appointments to office, so as to end Congressional
encroachment upon the appointing power; to repeal the Tenure-of-
office Act, and pass a law protecting office-holders in resistance to
political assessments; to abolish the present system of executive and
judicial government in Utah, and substitute for it a government by a
commission to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the
Senate, or, in case the present government is continued, to withhold
from all who practice polygamy the right to vote, hold office, and sit
on juries; to repeal the act authorizing the coinage of the silver dollar
of 412½ grains, and to authorize the coinage of a new silver dollar
equal in value as bullion with the gold dollar; to take favorable action
on the bill providing for the allotment of lands on the different
reservations.
Two treaties between this country and China were signed at Pekin,
November 17, 1881, one of commerce, and the other securing to the
United States the control and regulation of the Chinese immigration.
President Hayes, February 1, 1881, sent a message to Congress
sustaining in the main the findings of the Ponca Indian Commission,
and approving its recommendation that they remain on their
reservation in Indian Territory. The President suggested that the
general Indian policy for the future should embrace the following
ideas: First, the Indians should be prepared for citizenship by giving
to their young of both sexes that industrial and general education
which is requisite to enable them to be self-supporting and capable
of self-protection in civilized communities; second, lands should be
allotted to the Indians in severalty, inalienable for a certain period;
third, the Indians should have a fair compensation for their lands not
required for individual allotments, the amount to be invested, with
suitable safeguards, for their benefit; fourth, with these prerequisites
secured, the Indians should be made citizens, and invested with the
rights and charged with the responsibilities of citizenship.
The Senate, February 4, passed Mr. Morgan’s concurrent
resolution declaring that the President of the Senate is not invested
by the Constitution of the United States with the right to count the
votes of electors for President and Vice-President of the United
States, so as to determine what votes shall be received and counted,
or what votes shall be rejected. An amendment was added declaring
in effect that it is the duty of Congress to pass a law at once providing
for the orderly counting of the electoral vote. The House concurred
February 5, but no action by bill or otherwise has since been taken.
Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, December 15, 1881, introduced a bill
to regulate the civil service and to promote the efficiency thereof, and
also a bill to prohibit Federal officers, claimants, and contractors
from making or receiving assessments or contributions for political
purposes.
The Burnside Educational Bill passed the Senate December 17,
1881. It provides that the proceeds of the sale of public land and the
earnings of the Patent Office shall be funded at four per cent., and
the interest divided among the States in proportion to their illiteracy.
An amendment by Senator Morgan provides for the instruction of
women in the State agricultural colleges in such branches of
technical and industrial education as are suited to their sex. No
action has yet been taken by the House.
On the 9th of February the electoral votes were counted by the
Vice-President in the presence of both Houses, and Garfield and
Arthur were declared elected President and Vice-President of the
United States. There was no trouble as to the count, and the result
previously stated was formally announced.
 The Three Per Cent. Funding Bill.

The 3 per cent. Funding Bill passed the House March 2, and was
on the following day vetoed by President Hayes on the ground that it
dealt unjustly with the National Banks in compelling them to accept
and employ this security for their circulation in lieu of the old bonds.
This feature of the bill caused several of the Banks to surrender their
circulation, conduct which for a time excited strong political
prejudices. The Republicans in Congress as a rule contended that the
debt could not be surely funded at 3 per cent.; that 3½ was a safer
figure, and to go below this might render the bill of no effect. The
same views were entertained by President Hayes and Secretary
Sherman. The Democrats insisted on 3 per cent., until the veto, when
the general desire to fund at more favorable rates broke party lines,
and a 3½ per cent. funding bill was passed, with the feature
objectionable to the National Banks omitted.
The Republicans were mistaken in their view, as the result proved.
The loan was floated so easily, that in the session of 1882 Secretary
Sherman, now a Senator, himself introduced a 3 per cent. bill, which
passed the Senate Feb. 2d, 1882, in this shape:—
Be it enacted, &c. That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby
authorized to receive at the Treasury and at the office of any
Assistant Treasurer of the United States and at any postal money
order office, lawful money of the United States to the amount of fifty
dollars or any multiple of that sum or any bonds of the United States,
bearing three and a half per cent, interest, which are hereby declared
valid, and to issue in exchange therefore an equal amount of
registered or coupon bonds of the United States, of the denomination
of fifty, one hundred, five hundred, one thousand and ten thousand
dollars, of such form as he may prescribe, bearing interest at the rate
three per centum per annum, payable either quarterly or semi-
annually, at the Treasury of the United States. Such bonds shall be
exempt from all taxation by or under state authority, and be payable
at the pleasure of the United States. “Provided, That the bonds
herein authorized shall not be called in and paid so long as any bonds
of the United States heretofore issued bearing a higher rate of
interest than three per centum, and which shall be redeemable at the
pleasure of the United States, shall be outstanding and uncalled. The
last of the said bonds originally issued and their substitutes under
this act shall be first called in and this order of payment shall be
followed until all shall have been paid.”

The money deposited under this act shall be promptly applied

solely to the redemption of the bonds of the United States bearing
three and a half per centum interest, and the aggregate amount of
deposits made and bonds issued under this act shall not exceed the
sum of two hundred million dollars. The amount of lawful money so
received on deposit, as aforesaid, shall not exceed, at any time, the
sum of twenty-five million dollars. Before any deposits are received
at any postal money office under this act, the postmaster at such
office shall file with the Secretary of the Treasury his bond, with
satisfactory security, conditioned that he will promptly transmit to
the Treasury of the United States the money received by him in
conformity with regulations to be prescribed by such secretary; and
the deposit with any postmaster shall not at any time, exceed the
amount of his bond.
Section 2. Any national banking association now organized or
hereafter organized desiring to withdraw its circulating notes upon a
deposit of lawful money with the Treasury or the United States as
provided in section 4 of the Act of June 20, 1874, entitled “An act
fixing the amount of United States notes providing for a
redistribution of National bank currency and for other purposes,”
shall be required to give thirty days’ notice to the Controller of the
Currency of its intention to deposit lawful money and withdraw its
circulating notes; provided that not more than five million of dollars
of lawful money shall be deposited during any calendar month for
this purpose; and provided further, that the provisions of this section
shall not apply to bonds called for redemption by the Secretary of the
Treasury.
 Section 3. That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to
authorize an increase of the public debt.
In the past few years opinions on the rates of interest have
undergone wonderful changes. Many supposed—indeed it was a
“standard” argument—that rates must ever be higher in new than old
countries, that these higher rates comported with and aided the
higher rates paid for commodities and labor. The funding operations
since the war have dissipated this belief, and so shaken political
theories that no party can now claim a monopoly of sound financial
doctrine. So high is the credit of the government, and so abundant
are the resources of our people after a comparatively short period of
general prosperity, that they seem to have plenty of surplus funds
with which to aid any funding operation, however low the rate of
interest, if the government—State or National—shows a willingness
to pay. As late as February, 1882, Pennsylvania funded seven
millions of her indebtedness at 3, 3½ and 4 per cent., the two larger
sums commanding premiums sufficient to cause the entire debt to be
floated at a little more than 3 per cent., and thus floating commands
an additional premium in the money exchanges.
 History of the National Loans.

In Book VII of this volume devoted to Tabulated History, we try to

give the reader at a glance some idea of the history of our National
finances. An attempt to go into details would of itself fill volumes, for
no class of legislation has taken so much time or caused such a
diversity of opinion. Yet it is shown, by an admirable review of the
loans of the United States, by Rafael A. Bayley, of the Treasury
Department published in the February (1882) number of the
International Review, that the “financial system of the government
of the United States has continued the same from its organization to
the present time.” Mr. Bayley has completed a history of our National
Loans, which will be published in the Census volume on “Public
Debts.” From his article in the Review we condense the leading facts
bearing on the history of our national loans.
The financial system of the United States, in all its main features,
is simple and well defined, and its very simplicity may probably be
assigned as the reason why it appears so difficult of comprehension
by many people of intelligence and education. It is based upon the
principles laid down by Alexander Hamilton, and the practical
adoption of the fundamental maxim which he regarded as the true
secret for rendering public credit immortal, viz., “that the creation of
the debt should always be accompanied with the means of
extinguishment.” A faithful adherence to this system by his
successors has stood the test of nearly a century, with the nation at
peace or at war, in prosperity or adversity; so that, with all the
change that progress has entailed upon the people of the age, no
valid grounds exist for any change here.
“During the colonial period, and under the confederation, the
financial operations of the Government were based on the law of
necessity, and depended for success upon the patriotism of the
people, the co-operation of the several States, and the assistance of
foreign powers friendly to our cause.
“It was the willingness of the people to receive the various kinds of
paper money issued under authority of the Continental Congress,
and used in payment for services and supplies, together with the
issue of similar obligations by the different States, for the
redemption of which they assumed the responsibility; aided by the
munificent gift of money from Louis XVI. of France, followed by
loans for a large amount from both France and Holland, that made
victory possible, and laid the foundations for the republic of to-day,
with its credit unimpaired, and with securities commanding a ready
sale at a high premium in all the principal markets of the world.
“Authorities vary as to the amount of paper money issued and the
cost of the war for independence. On the 1st of September, 1779,
Congress resolved that it would ‘on no account whatever emit more
bills of credit than to make the whole amount of such bills two
hundred millions of dollars.’ Mr. Jefferson estimates the value of this
sum at the time of its emission at $36,367,719.83 in specie, and says;
‘If we estimate at the same value the like sum of $200,000,000
supposed to have been emitted by the States, and reckon the Federal
debt, foreign and domestic, at about $43,000,000, and the State
debt at $25,000,000, it will form an amount of $140,000,000, the
total sum which the war cost the United States. It continued eight
years, from the battle of Lexington to the cessation of hostilities in
America. The annual expense was, therefore, equal to about
$17,500,000 in specie.’
“The first substantial aid rendered the colonies by any foreign
power was a free gift of money and military supplies from Louis XVI.
of France, amounting in the aggregate to 10,000,000 livres,
equivalent to $1,815,000.
“These supplies were not furnished openly, for the reason that
France was not in a position to commence a war with Great Britain.
The celebrated Caron de Beaumarchais was employed as a secret
agent, between whom and Silas Deane, as the political and
commercial agent of the United States, a contract was entered into
whereby the former agreed to furnish a large amount of military
supplies from the arsenals of France, and to receive American
produce in payment therefor.
 “Under this arrangement supplies were furnished by the French
Government to the amount of 2,000,000 livres. An additional
1,000,000 was contributed by the Government of Spain for the same
purpose, and through the same agency. The balance of the French
subsidy was paid through Benjamin Franklin. In 1777 a loan of
1,000,000 livres was obtained from the ‘Farmers General of France’
under a contract for its repayment in American tobacco at a
stipulated price. From 1778 to 1783, additional loans were obtained
from the French King, amounting to 34,000,000 livres. From 1782
to 1789, loans to the amount of 9,000,000 guilders were negotiated
in Holland, through the agency of John Adams, then the American
Minister to the Hague.
“The indebtedness of the United States at the organization of the
present form of government (including interest to December 31,
1790) may be briefly stated, as follows:

Foreign debt $11,883,315.96

Domestic debt 40,256,802.45
Debt due foreign officers 198,208.10
Arrears outstanding (since discharged) 450,395.52

Total $52,788,722.03

To this should be added the individual debts of the several States,

the precise amount and character of which was then unknown, but
estimated by Hamilton at that time to aggregate about $25,000,000.
“The payment of this vast indebtedness was virtually guarantied by
the provisions of Article VI. of the Constitution, which says: ‘All
debts contracted, and engagements entered into, before the adoption
of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States under
this Constitution as under the confederation.’ On the 21st of
September, 1789, the House of Representatives adopted the
following resolutions:
Resolved, That this House consider an adequate provision for the
support of the public credit as a matter of high importance to the
national honor and prosperity.
 Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to prepare
a plan for that purpose, and to report the same to this House at its
next meeting.
“In reply thereto Hamilton submitted his report on the 9th of
January, 1790, in which he gave many reasons for assuming the
debts of the old Government, and of the several States, and furnished
a plan for supporting the public credit. His recommendations were
adopted, and embodied in the act making provision for the payment
of the debt of the United States, approved August 4, 1790.
This act authorized a loan of $12,000,000, to be applied to the
payment of the foreign debt, principal and interest; a loan equal to
the full amount of the domestic debt, payable in certificates issued
for its amount according to their specie value, and computing the
interest to December 31, 1791, upon such as bore interest; and a
further loan of $21,500,000, payable in the principal and interest of
the certificates or notes which, prior to January 1, 1790, were issued
by the respective States as evidences of indebtedness incurred by
them for the expenses of the late war. ‘In the case of the debt of the
United States, interest upon two-thirds of the principal only, at 6 per
cent., was immediately paid; interest upon the remaining third was
deferred for ten years, and only three per cent. was allowed upon the
arrears of interest, making one-third of the whole debt. In the case of
the separate debts of the States, interest upon four-ninths only of the
entire sum was immediately paid; interest upon two-ninths was
deferred for ten years, and only 3 per cent. allowed on three-ninths.’
Under this authority 6 per cent. stock was issued to the amount of
$30,060,511, and deferred 6 per cent. stock, bearing interest from
January 1, 1800, amounting to $14,635,386. This stock was made
subject to redemption by payments not exceeding, in one year, on
account both of principal and interest, the proportion of eight dollars
upon a hundred of the sum mentioned in the certificates;
$19,719,237 was issued in 3 per cent. stock, subject to redemption
whenever provision should be made by law for that purpose.
“The money needed for the payment of the principal and interest
of the foreign debt was procured by new loans negotiated in Holland
and Antwerp to the amount of $9,400,000, and the issue of new
stock for the balance of $2,024,900 due on the French debt, this
stock bearing a rate of interest one-half of one per cent. in advance of
the rate previously paid, and redeemable at the pleasure of the
Government. Subsequent legislation provided for the establishment
of a sinking fund, under the management of a board of
commissioners, consisting of the President of the Senate, Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Secretary of State, Secretary of the
Treasury, and Attorney-General, for the time being, who, or any
three of whom, were authorized, under the direction of the President
of the United States, to make purchases of stock, and otherwise
provide for the gradual liquidation of the entire debt, from funds set
apart for this purpose. On assuming the position of Secretary of the
Treasury, Hamilton found himself entirely without funds to meet the
ordinary expenses of the Government, except by borrowing, until
such time as the revenues from duties on imports and tonnage began
to come into the Treasury. Under these circumstances, he was forced
to make arrangements with the Bank of New York and the Bank of
North America for temporary loans, and it was from the moneys
received from these banks that he paid the first installment of salary
due President Washington, Senators, Representatives and officers of
Congress, during the first session under the Constitution, which
began at the city of New York, March 4, 1789.
“The first ‘Bank of the United States’ appears to have been
proposed by Alexander Hamilton in December, 1790, and it was
incorporated by an act of Congress, approved February 25, 1791, with
a capital stock of $10,000,000 divided into 25,000 shares at $400
each. The government subscription of $2,000,000, under authority
of the act, was paid by giving to the bank bills of exchange on
Holland equivalent to gold, and borrowing from the bank a like sum
for ten years at 6 per cent. interest. The bank went into operation
very soon after its charter was obtained, and declared its first
dividend in July, 1792. It was evidently well managed, and was of
great benefit to the Government and the people at large, assisting the
Government by loans in cases of emergency, and forcing the ‘wildcat’
banks of the country to keep their issues ‘somewhere within
reasonable bounds.’ More than $100,000,000 of Government money
was received and disbursed by it without the loss of a single dollar. It
made semi-annual dividends, averaging about 8½ per cent., and its
stock rose to a high price. The stock belonging to the United States
was sold out at different times at a profit, 2,220 shares sold in 1802
bringing an advance of 45 per cent. The government subscription,
with ten years’ interest amounted to $3,200,600, while there was
received in dividends and for stock sold $3,773,580, a profit of nearly
28.7 per cent. In 1796 the credit of the Government was very low, as
shown by its utter failure to negotiate a loan for the purpose of
paying a debt to the Bank of the United States for moneys borrowed
and used, partly to pay the expenses of suppressing the whisky
insurrection in Pennsylvania and to buy a treaty with the pirates of
Algiers. On a loan authorized for $5,000,000, only $80,000 could be
obtained, and this at a discount of 12½ per cent.; and, there being no
other immediate resource, United States Bank stock to the amount of
$1,304,260 was sold at a premium of 25 per cent.
“Under an act approved June 30, 1798, the President was
authorized to accept such vessels as were suitable to be armed for the
public service, not exceeding twelve in number, and to issue
certificates, or other evidences of the public debt of the United
States, in payment. The ships George Washington, Merrimack,
Maryland and Patapsco, brig Richmond, and frigates Boston,
Philadelphia, John Adams, Essex and New York, were purchased,
and 6 per cent. stock, redeemable at the pleasure of Congress, was
issued in payment to the amount of $711,700.
“The idea of creating a navy by the purchase of vessels built by
private parties and issuing stock in payment therefor, seems to have
originated with Hamilton.
“In the years 1797 and 1798 the United States, though nominally at
peace with all the world, was actually at war with France—a war not
formally declared, but carried on upon the ocean with very great
virulence. John Marshall, Elbridge Gerry and Charles C. Pinckney
were appointed envoys extraordinary to the French Republic, with
power for terminating all differences and restoring harmony, good
understanding and commercial and friendly intercourse between the
two nations; but their efforts were in vain, and extensive
preparations were made to resist a French invasion. It was evident
that the ordinary revenues of the country would be inadequate for
the increased expenditure, and a loan of $5,000,000 was authorized
by an act approved July 16, 1798, redeemable at pleasure after fifteen
years. The rate of interest was not specified in the act, and the
market rate at the time being 8 per cent. this rate was paid, and it
was thought by a committee of Congress that the loan was negotiated
‘upon the best terms that could be procured, and with a laudable eye
to the public interest.’ A loan of $3,500,000 was authorized by an act
approved May 7, 1800, for the purpose of meeting a large deficit in
the revenues of the preceding year, caused by increased expenditures
rendered necessary on account of the difficulties with France, and
stock bearing 8 per cent. interest, reimbursable after fifteen years,
was issued to the amount of $1,481,700, on which a premium was
realized of nearly 5¾ per cent. These are the only two instances in
which the Government has paid 8 per cent. interest on its bonds.
“The province of Louisiana was ceded to the United States by a
treaty with France, April 30, 1803, in payment for which 6 per cent.
bonds, payable in fifteen years, were issued to the amount of
$11,250,000, and the balance which the Government agreed to pay
for the province, amounting to $3,750,000, was devoted to
reimbursing American citizens for French depredations on their
commerce. These claims were paid in money, and the stock
redeemed by purchases made under the direction of the
Commissioners of the Sinking Fund within twelve years. Under an
act approved February 11, 1807, a portion of the ‘old 6 per cent.’ and
‘deferred stocks’ was refunded into new stock, bearing the same rate
of interest, but redeemable at the pleasure of the United States. This
was done for the purpose of placing it within the power of the
Government to reimburse the amount refunded within a short time,
as under the old laws these stocks could only be redeemed at the rate
of 2 per cent. annually. Stock was issued amounting to $6,294,051,
nearly all of which was redeemed within four years. Under the same
act old ‘3 per cent. stock’ to the amount of $2,861,309 was converted
into 6 per cents., at sixty-five cents on the dollar, but this was not
reimbursable without the assent of the holder until after the whole of
certain other stocks named in the act was redeemed. The stock
issued under this authority amounted to $1,859,871. It would appear
that the great majority of the holders of the “old stock” preferred it to
the new. A loan equal to the amount of the principal of the public
debt reimbursable during the current year was authorized by an act
approved May 1, 1810, and $2,750,000 was borrowed at 6 per cent.
interest from the Bank of the United States, for the purpose of
meeting any deficiency arising from increased expenditures on
account of the military and naval establishments. This was merely a
temporary loan, which was repaid the following year.
 “The ordinary expenses for the year 1812 were estimated by the
Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives at
$1,200,000 more than the estimated receipts for the same period,
and the impending war with Great Britain made it absolutely
necessary that some measures should be adopted to maintain the
public credit, and provide the requisite funds for carrying on the
Government. Additional taxes were imposed upon the people, but as
these could not be made immediately available there was no other
resource but new loans and the issue of Treasury notes. This was the
first time since the formation of the new Government that the issue
of such notes had been proposed, and they were objected to as
engrafting on our system of finance a new and untried measure.
“Under various acts of Congress approved between March 4, 1812,
and February 24, 1815, 6 per cent. bonds were issued to the amount
of $50,792,674. These bonds were negotiated at rates varying from
20 per cent. discount to par, the net cash realized amounting to
$44,530,123. A further sum of $4,025,000 was obtained by
temporary loans at par, of which sum $225,000 was for the purpose
of repairing the public buildings in Washington, damaged by the
enemy on the night of August 24, 1814. These ‘war loans’ were all
made redeemable at the pleasure of the Government after a specified
date, and the faith of the United States was solemnly pledged to
provide sufficient revenues for this purpose. The ‘Treasury note
system’ was a new feature, and its success was regarded as somewhat
doubtful.
“Its subsequent popularity, however, was owing to a variety of
causes. The notes were made receivable everywhere for dues and
customs, and in payment for public lands. They were to bear interest
from the day of issue, at the rate of 5–⅖ per cent. per annum, and
their payment was guaranteed by the United States, principal and
interest, at maturity. They thus furnished a circulating medium to
the country, superior to the paper of the suspended and doubtful
State banks. These issues were therefore considered more desirable
than the issue of additional stock, which could be realized in cash
only by the payment of a ruinous discount. The whole amount of
Treasury notes issued during the war period was $36,680,794. The
Commissioners of the Sinking Fund were authorized to provide for
their redemption by purchase, in the same manner as for other