MARTIN Challender’s interesting letter about Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War (Your Letters, March 8) puts me in mind of Lincoln’s secret weapon without which the Union side would undoubtedly have lost.

At the outbreak of hostilities the Lincoln government was strapped for cash, so Lincoln approached the New York fractional reserve bankers for finance. He was offered funding but at extortionate rates of interest that would have crippled the war effort.

Lincoln sought the advice of an old friend, Colonel Dick Taylor, who said after a careful study of the problem: “Why Lincoln, it’s easy. Just get Congress to pass a Bill authorising the printing of full legal tender Treasury notes and pay your soldiers with them and go and win your war.” So Lincoln began to issue his famous “greenbacks” and the Union was saved.

On March 7, in “Your Letters”, a writer asked how the British government’s budget deficit could be reduced because borrowing more would make the deficit worse and, of course, the writer is correct in this assertion.

The answer to this problem, as Col Taylor said all those years ago, is easy. All that is required is a modern British version of Lincoln’s “greenbacks”.

James Marshall Bridge Tomlin Square Bolton