In
1839, Martin van Buren was faced with a terrible economic depression,
the result of Western land speculation and the growth of unregulated
banks issuing a flood of unsecured paper money. As the depression
ravaged on, President Van Buren doubled down on his faith in "hard
money" - silver and gold - as the only reliable store of value.
In his 1839 annual address to Congress Van Buren accused the state banks as being mostly responsible for the economic insecurity of the country. It was the state banks who flooded the country with depreciated paper. And according to Van Buren, this was unconstitutional. In the constitution it states that congress is to "Coin money and regulate the value of foreign coin", and that "No state shall coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". In theory, the states were adhering to the constitution, but in practice they were subverting it. On the books, Silver and Gold were the legal tender, but in practice the bank notes become the currency of the country.
Here are Van Buren's actual words:
In 1840, the U.S mint under director Robert Maskell Patterson expressed Van Buren's view of hard money when it introduced the Seated Liberty Dollar. The new dollar was viewed as the pinnacle of America's sliver coinage. In 1840, one silver dollar was a store of wealth to millions of impoverished working-class Americans. Today, an 1840 Seated Liberty Dollar is even more of a store of wealth. Today, they are selling for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay.
In his 1839 annual address to Congress Van Buren accused the state banks as being mostly responsible for the economic insecurity of the country. It was the state banks who flooded the country with depreciated paper. And according to Van Buren, this was unconstitutional. In the constitution it states that congress is to "Coin money and regulate the value of foreign coin", and that "No state shall coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". In theory, the states were adhering to the constitution, but in practice they were subverting it. On the books, Silver and Gold were the legal tender, but in practice the bank notes become the currency of the country.
Here are Van Buren's actual words:
"They have seen that the Constitution, though theoretically adhered to, is subverted in practice; that while on the statute books there is no legal tender but gold and silver, no law impairing the obligations of contracts, yet that in point of fact the privileges conferred on banking corporations have made their notes the currency of the country"
In 1840, the U.S mint under director Robert Maskell Patterson expressed Van Buren's view of hard money when it introduced the Seated Liberty Dollar. The new dollar was viewed as the pinnacle of America's sliver coinage. In 1840, one silver dollar was a store of wealth to millions of impoverished working-class Americans. Today, an 1840 Seated Liberty Dollar is even more of a store of wealth. Today, they are selling for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay.
No comments:
Post a Comment