This is a 20 dollar gold piece from, you guessed it, 1854. You were doing one if you had these in your pocket. Let's take a slice from it for our use today, in 2016. In trying to sort through the confusion and strangeness of the 2106 presidential campaign, I've been thinking about an earlier time when the American political party system exploded. That was in 1854, the same year that freshly … [Read more...]