L’économie politique de la monnaie : Le régime monétaire de la Reconstruction aux États-Unis

Abstract

During the period of the Reconstruction, the federal government of the United States progressively put into place the gold specie regime and the convertibility of the paper money issued during the Civil War. In addition, the instauration of the hard money was combined with the tariff policy that aimed at protecting infant industry. Notwithstanding, the literature on this issue has not significantly explored the articulation between the monetary policy and the tariff policy. To fill this void, the present paper examines the economical conditions, the political coalitions and the monetary and tariff combination of the Reconstruction. It builds a matrix that rests upon a double dichotomy, at a monetary level (hard money versus soft money), and at the tariff level (protectionism versus free trade). It then deduces an original analysis in terms of monetary and tariff policy mix (hard money and protectionism, soft money and free trade), which contributes to pondering the conditions and coherency of the monetary regime and the industrialisation policy implemented by the Republican government.