Third Party Candidates

The Greenback Party

To ease financial burdens during the Civil War, the government issued paper notes (“greenbacks”) that were not backed by Federal reserves. Radical thinkers within the Democratic Party hoped that keeping the notes in circulation after the war would lead to inflation. The crushing economic effects of the Civil War, combined with the devastating “Panic of 1873,” left many farmers of the West and South to face overwhelming debt. Greenback supporters hoped that an inflated economy would make debts easier to pay. Failing to win control of the Democratic Party, they forged their own party. It existed for a short time during the Reconstruction era, and essentially espoused one issue. The Greenback Party was an important opponent to conservative fiscal policies in the 1870s, but dissolved after poor election results in 1884.

This ballot takes the form of an imitation dollar bill on one side, and on the other, states the Greenback Party’s opposition to the issuance of government bonds that support an “aristocracy.”


Burlington County (New Jersey) National Greenback Labor Ticket, ca. 1876.


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