Even in the dormant Grant administration, a young reformer soon has plenty to write about. On September 24, 1869, the price of gold crashes spectacularly, exposing a scheme involving financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk as well as President Grant’s own brother-in-law. The Legal Tender Act is still an issue, and Adams is concerned that the Constitution has lost its effectiveness because of emergency measures taken by the Lincoln administration during the Civil War. While they oppose slavery, for example, the Adams men maintain that even the Emancipation Proclamation was actually unconstitutional.
