Comptroller of the Currency

History

During the American Civil War, leaders of the U.S. federal government, including President Abraham Lincoln and Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, drafted plans for a national banking system. These plans were put into action by the National Currency Act of 1863, subsequently amended by the National Bank Act, which created the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to administer the new system. Hugh McCulloch, former president of the state-owned Bank of Indiana, was chosen to be the first comptroller of the currency.