William Windom (1827-1891) resigned from the Senate in 1881 to become President James Garfield's Secretary of the Treasury, serving until the President's death eight months later when Windom returned to the Senate to complete his term. As a Senator he chaired a special committee on transportation routes to the western seaboard and was a proponent of expansion. President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Secretary a second time in 1889.
Though he advocated a gold standard, Windom's expansionist beliefs and the fact that he was from Minnesota made him sympathetic to the new Western states' desire for a currency backed by silver. He effected a compromise in the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which authorized the Secretary to buy silver and gold bullion and to issue notes of full legal tender. In 1891 Windom addressed the New York Board of Trade with the words, "As a poison in the blood permeates arteries, veins, nerves, brain and heart, and speedily brings paralysis or death, so does a debased or fluctuating currency permeate all arteries of trade, paralyze all kinds of business and brings disaster to all classes of people." Seconds later he suffered a heart attack and died.
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