had authority to select portraits on new notes, approved it. Other designs were selected at random and when it came to issuing the 5-cent note, Spinner was asked whose portrait was to be selected. Clark is said to have replied, "How would the likeness of Clark do?" "Excellent," said Spinner, thinking that reference was made to Freeman Clarke, the Comptroller of the Currency. The matter escaped further notice until the notes had been printed in enormous quantities. Whatever the story, Congress was outraged when the notes, which had already been mass-produced, came out. According to numismatic historian Walter Breen, Congress’s "immediate infuriated response was to pass a law retiring the 5¢ denomination, and another to forbid portrayal of any living person on federal coins or currency." Clark only kept his job because of the personal intervention of Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. Departure Clark resigned from the National Currency Bureau in 1868 amidst a congressional investigation into record-keeping and security within the agency. He went on to work at the Department of Agriculture in the Statistical Division. He later headed the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the Agriculture Department until his death in 1890. He is buried in Hartford, Connecticut. References Sources Style; Stamps and Coins, The Washington Post, August 28, 1977 Style; Stamps and Coins, The Washington Post, November 18, 1979 Bureau of Printing and Engraving History, Historical Resource Center, 2004 1811 births 1890 deaths United States Department of the Treasury officials Lincoln administration personnel Andrew Johnson administration personnel