Trying to Corner the Gold Market on Black Friday

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There have been many financial corruptions and scandals though out history and in 1869 one such scandal rock The United States financial institute’s foundation. The attempt to corner the gold market lead to the preverbal straw which almost broke the camel’s back. This scandal has become to be known as Black Friday, not to be confused with the Friday following Thanksgiving this Black Friday proved that without oversight of the market it could quickly become a market of the few.
Here we are 118 years removed from this attempt to create a monopoly of the gold market and we still have some of the same issues going on to this day. The 1869 Black Friday scandal might have been prevented if the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was in place, but that would come 21 years too late to have prevented this financial scandal but did prevent the creation of one oil company. So, in 1869 there was no current laws or over site that would have prevented anyone from cornering the market.
Collusion and prevention was the instruments that prevented all that were involved from being prosecuted or being incarcerated for their actions. All that were involved with this attempt to corner the gold market knew that what they were doing was not ethical and wrong. Even though everyone involved with this scandal was not directly involved they all financially benefited before they were discovered. When testimony was asked from some that were not directly involved they were prevented from testifying.

In 1869, at the age of 46, Ulysses S. Grant was elected as the 18th president. His administrations was shrouded with many scandals, with one of these scandals was the Jay Gould and Jim Fisk’s plot to corner the gold market. President Grant was not personnel involve...

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...tock on Wall Street, but also resulted in the price of crops being dropped by half, which ruining many farmers. Daniel Butterfield to the assistant Treasurer however was forced to resign from his position. President Grant was elected for a second term.
No new legislation resulted from the gold market conspiracy as it would take The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 before any change would take place. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act came about due to the large corporations that had already created monopolies with in their own markets. The failure of any of these corporations would have caused serious economic impact to the U.S. economy.
Do we truly learn from our past or are we ever longing to recreate failures that we have already endured. Greed is not a good quality and absolute power corpus absolutely. Monopoly is only good for the economy when it is in board game form.

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