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From Blood to Profit: Making Money in the Practice and Imagery of Early America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Christine Desan
Christine Desan
Affiliation:
Harvard Law School
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Extract

Money, wrote Pennsylvanian Francis Rawle in 1725, is “the vital spirit and blood of the body politick.” Is not money, another pamphleteer contended, “the blood of life, which circulates from member to member, throughout the whole body of all living creatures?” It followed that the tokens acting as the medium of value could be anything, “whether it be pewter, silver, spelter, brass or paper, matters not which.” Americans in fact used provincial tax credit notes for money, along with other specie substitutes: “bills of credit” were issued to public creditors and could be employed by the holder or others to pay public obligations like taxes. They were “in value equal” to coin and, like coin, could be passed from hand to hand in the meantime. It was their circulating property—”the ready currency of the thing”—that controlled.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 26 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 2008

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References

Notes

1. Rawle, Francis, Ways and Means for the Inhabitants of Delaware to Become Rich … (Philadelphia: Samuel Keimer, 1725), 5.Google Scholar

2. Borden, William, An Address to the Inhabitants of North-Carolina, Occasioned by the Difficult Circumstances the Government Seems to Labour Under … (Williamsburg, Va., 1746), 26.Google Scholar

3. Rawle, Francis, Some Remedies Proposed, for the Restoring the Sunk Credit … (Philadelphia: Andrew Bradford, 1721), 7Google Scholar (emphasizing the need to find a “running stock of money,” made of any material).

4. Ibid., 8.

5. Morris, Robert, “Report on the Public Credit,” in 22 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (1782), 437.Google Scholar

6. Sargent, Thomas J. and Velde, Francois R., The Big Problem of Small Change, The Princeton Economic History of the Western World Indexes (Princeton, 2002), 8–10, 45–68Google Scholar; cf. Wray, Randall, “Modern Money,” in What Is Money? ed. Smithin, John (New York, 2000), 45–46.Google Scholar

7. Most historical and economic analyses agree that the supply of coined currency in the American colonies through 1770 was inadequate to allow monetized exchange in all the circumstances that participants would have wished. See, e.g., Grubb, Farley, “Monetary Usage in Colonial Pennsylvania: Deconstructing the Literary Evidence,” [Preliminary Draft] (2004): 12–17Google Scholar; Calomiris, Charles W., “Institutional Failure, Monetary Scarcity, and the Depreciation of the Continental,” Journal of Economic History 48, no. 1 (1988): 47–53Google Scholar; Brock, Leslie V., The Currency of the American Colonies, 1700–1764, A Study in Colonial Finance and Imperial Relations, Dissertations in American Economic History (New York, 1975), 532Google Scholar; Ernst, Joseph Albert, Money and Politics in America, 1755–1775: A Study in the Currency Act of 1764 and the Political Economy of Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1973), 6, 48–49, 57–58, 89, 216, 51–52, 59Google Scholar. For a contrary view, see Michener, Ron, “Fixed Exchange Rates and the Quantity Theory in Colonial America,” Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 27 (1987)Google Scholar; Edwin J. Perkins, American Public Finance and Financial Services, 1700–1815, Historical Perspectives on Business Enterprise (Columbus, Ohio, 1994), 27 (arguing for adequate money stock considering paper and other components).

8. For an account of the expedition to Canada that catalyzed the turn to paper in 1690, see, e.g., Savage, Thomas, An Account of the Late Action of the New-Englanders (London: Thomas Jones, 1691)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, Thomas, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay (New York: 1970; reprint), 336–337, 340–41Google Scholar; Davis, Andrew McFarland, Colonial Currency Reprints, 1682–1751 (Boston: John Wilson & Son, 1910), 21–22.Google Scholar

9. Brock, Currency of the American Colonies, 17–19; Davis, Colonial Currency Reprints, 1682–1751, 23.

10. Savage, An Account of the Late Action of the New-Englanders, 13.

11. Brock, Currency of the American Colonies, 28; Priest, Claire, “Currency Policies and Legal Development in Colonial New England,” Yale Law Journal 110, no. 8 (2001): 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. See Newman, Eric P., The Early Paper Money of America (Racine, Wisc., 1967), 204 (specimen).Google Scholar

13. See Nettels, Curtis P., The Money Supply of the American Colonies before 1720 (Madison, 1934), 268–269Google Scholar; Brock, Currency of the American Colonies, 18–20; Priest, “Currency Policies,” 43–44.

14. See Newman, Early Paper Money (specimens of paper money by colony). For the impressive records of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, see Smith, Bruce D., “American Colonial Monetary Regimes: The Failure of the Quantity Theory and Some Evidence in Favour of an Alternate View,” Canadian Journal of Economics 18, no. 3 (1985): 544–549Google Scholar; see also Wicker, Elmus, “Colonial Monetary Standards Contrasted: Evidence from the Seven Years' War,” Journal of Economic History 45, no. 4 (1985): 881–882Google Scholar (Pennsylvania, New York); Michener, “Fixed Exchange Rates and the Quantity Theory in Colonial America,” 246–47 (New York, New Jersey). For Delaware, see Lester, Richard, “Currency Issues to Overcome Depressions in Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland, 1715–1737,” Journal of Political Economy 47, no. 2 (1939): 185–187Google Scholar; Brock, Currency of the American Colonies, 391–93. South Carolina stabilized its paper currency after a tumultuous start. See Smith, Bruce D., “Some Colonial Evidence on Two Theories of Money: Maryland and the Carolinas,” Journal of Political Economy 93, no. 6 (1985): 1189–1191Google Scholar; Wicker, “Colonial Monetary Standards Contrasted: Evidence from the Seven Years' War,” 879–80. For Virginia's short experience with tax-based paper (as opposed to tobacco), see Smith, “Colonial Monetary Regimes,” 557–58. For Maryland's more mixed record, see Smith, “Some Colonial Evidence,” 1204–5; Brock, Currency of the American Colonies, 413, 418–27. For Massachusetts's problems with paper money, see Calomiris, “Institutional Failure,” 52–54.

15. Feavearyear, Albert Edgar, The Pound Sterling: A History of English Money, ed. Morgan, E. Victor, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1963), 3.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., 3,435 (appearing to indicate still-higher percentage costs born by users).

17. See Chandaman, C. D., The English Public Revenue, 1660–1688 (Oxford, 1975), 286Google Scholar. For a history locating tallies, like bills of credit, as part of an early modern approach to money, see Desan, “Reconceiving the Creation Story” (2006) (draft on file with author).

18. Mossman, Philip L., Money of the American Colonies and Confederation: A Numismatic, Economic, and Historical Correlation, Numismatic Studies, No. 20 Index (New York, 1993), 133 n. 45.Google Scholar

19. Anonymous, Petition of Divers of the Inhabitants (Philadelphia, 1768). Terry Bouton identifies the manuscript version of the petition, which I use to date the broadside. Bouton, Terry, “Tying up the Revolution: Money Power and the Regulation in Pennsylvania, 1765–1800” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1996), 67 n. 28.Google Scholar

20. Thomas J. Sargent, “The Ends of Four Big Inflations,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Conference on Inflation (Washington, D.C., 1981).

21. Anonymous, A Dialogue between Mr. Robert Rich, and Roger Plowman (Philadelphia: Samuel Keimer, 1725), 2.

22. Ibid. Following his own logic, Roger did admit the possibility that the English “will be satisfied neither with the produce of the country, nor the country it self.” Ibid. In that circumstance, he concluded with a little flourish of trouble for the Empire, the Americans will have to make their own products or receive goods from the merchants “gratis, which it is to be fear'd, they will not do.” Ibid.

23. Carter, Landon, A Letter to a Gentleman in London, from Virginia (Williamsburg, Va., 1759), 4 (quoting memorial in opposition to paper)Google Scholar; Logan, James, A Dialogue Shewing (Philadelphia, Samuel Keimer, 1725), 35 (emphasizing the ephemeral nature of paper money).Google Scholar

24. Anonymous, The Commercial Conduct of the Province of New-York Considered … (New York: Printed for the benefit of the Society of Arts, Agriculture and Oeconomy of New-York, 1767), 13.

25. Anonymous, An Essay on Currency … (Charlestown, S.C.: Lewis Timothy, 1734), 7; see also Anonymous, An Essay on Currency, 6, 16, 24 (similar); Penn. H.R., Address of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pensilvania [Pennsylvania], in General Assembly Met, This 7th Day of December, 1725, Appended to Keith, a Just and Plain Vindication (Philadelphia: S. Kreimer, 1725), 28 (identifying provincial currency as expedient “to pass amongst ourselves, having not cash enough to carry on our domestick affairs and commerce”).

26. Rawle, Some Remedies Proposed, 9, 10; see also So. Car. Gen. Assembly, Report of the Committee, Appointed to Examine into the Proceedings of the People of Georgia … (Charles-Town, S.C.: Lewis Timothy, 1737), 299–300 (substitutes act for gold or silver when those cannot be kept “in this part of the world”); Webbe, John, A Discourse Concerning Paper Money … (Philadelphia: W. Bradford, 1742), 5 (identifying paper as better than coin in “a dependent government” that cannot control the flow of silver)Google Scholar; Gen, N.J.. Assembly, A Modest Vindication of the Late New-Jersey Assembly in Answer to a Printed Paper against Them, Call'd a Representation (Philadelphia: William Bradford, 1745), 16 (“challenging the world to show a currency less fluctuating, or of a more fixed determinate value” than New Jersey's paper money)Google Scholar; Franklin, Benjamin, “Remarks and Facts Relative to the American Paper Money,” Pennsylvania Chronicle 1767, 83 (noting that “very universal estimation” of value attached to specie “is an inconvenience which paper money is free from, since it tends to depreive a country of even the quantity of currency that should be retain'd as a necessary instrument of its internal commerce”)Google Scholar; Franklin, “Remarks and Facts,” 85–87 (finding paper money superior as a local currency to bank bills, deposit-backed bills, or interest-bearing bills).

27. Davenant, Charles, Discourses on the Publick Revenues and on Trade (1698), 170, 64.Google Scholar

28. Franklin, Benjamin, A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency (Philadelphia, 1729), 17–18 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

29. Ibid., 18.

30. Anonymous, An Essay on Currency, 11. Americans applied the logic of consent to gold and silver repeatedly: If paper was local because locally consented, gold was a widespread medium because it had “the universal consent of mankind” or was held in “widespread estimation,” 1. See, respectively, Anonymous, The Commercial Conduct, 13–14; Franklin, “Remarks and Facts,” 83–84; see also So. Car. Gen. Assembly, Report of the Committee, 299 (identifying the value of gold or silver as flowing “from the agreement of the generality of the world about them”); Carter, Letter to a Gentleman, 16 (“to say that gold and silver coin is current in more places than the paper currency is, and therfore though local yet less confined, is but a kind of begging the question”).

31. So. Car. Gen. Assembly, Report of the Committee, 297, 310.

32. Borden, An Address to the Inhabitants of North-Carolina, 10.

33. See, e.g., Keith, William, A Just and Plain Vindication of Sir William Keith (Philadelphia: Samuel Keimer, 1726), 3–4Google Scholar; So. Car. Gen. Assembly, Report of the Committee, 314; Anonymous, A Copy of a Letter from Quebec (Philadelphia, 1747), 1–2; Hopkins, Stephen, The Grievances of the American Colonies Candidly Examined (London, 1766; reprinted for J. Almon), 1, 4Google Scholar; T.R., A Letter to the Common People of the Colony of Rhode Island … (Providence, 1763), 4.

34. Rawle, Ways and Means, 58.

35. Anonymous, The Observator's Trip to America, in a Dialogue between the Observator and His Country-Man Roger (Philadelphia: Andrew Bradford, 1726), 43; see also, e.g., Anonymous, The Case of the Inhabitants in Pensilvania (Philadelphia, 1742); Anonymous, A Scheme (by Striking Twenty Thousand Pounds, Paper Money) to Encourage the Raising of Hemp … (New York: William Bradford, 1737); S. Atkinson, The Interest of New-Jersey Considered ([Unknown], N.J., 1743), 3.

36. Anonymous, Letter from Quebec, 2.

37. Anonymous, Petition of Divers of the Inhabitants. See generally Richard Lester, “Currency Issues to Overcome Depressions in Pennsylvania, 1723 and 1729,” Journal of Political Economy 46 (1938); Lester, “Currency Issues to Overcome Depressions in Delaware.”

38. Rawle, Ways and Means, 55; Rawle, Some Remedies Proposed, 15.

39. Rawle, Some Remedies Proposed, 15; see also Rawle, Francis, A Just Rebuke to a Dialogue Betwixt Simon and Timothy … (Philadelphia: Samuel Keimer, 1726), 16–17 (identifying farmers unable to buy money with their crops)Google Scholar; Anonymous, An Essay on Currency, 10 (same, for planters struggling to avoid losing land and slaves).

40. N.J. Gen. Assembly, A Modest Vindication, 18–19 (acknowledging that some others were “not worth bestowing this care upon”); see, e.g., Rawle, Some Remedies Proposed, 15.

41. Anonymous, The Triumvirate of Pennsylvania in a Letter to a Friend in the Country (Philadelphia: Andrew Bradford, 1725), 2, 3–4. Other engrossment charges and suggested schemes are in William Keith, Governor William Keith to the Pennsylvania Assembly, Sentiments on Introducing the Paper Currency (Philadelphia, 1722), 165; Anonymous, The Observator's Trip, 39–40, 43–44; Anonymous, An Essay on Currency, 13–14; So. Car. Gen. Assembly, Report of the Committee, 297; Anonymous, The Case of the Inhabitants in Pensilvania, 1; Anonymous, Petition of Divers of the Inhabitants, 52.

42. Governor Robert Hunter to Popple, 3 December 1717, Cal. State Papers, Col., 118, as quoted in Ernst, Money and Politics, 29.

43. See, e.g., Adams, John, “Letter to the Compte De Vergennes,” in The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, ed. Wharton, Francis (Washington D.C., 22 06 1780)Google Scholar. For the choices made in War finance, see Ferguson, E. James, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776–1790 (Chapel Hill, 1961).Google Scholar

44. U.S. Constitution, Art. I, sec. 9.

45. U.S. Constitution, Art. I, sec. 10.

46. Mint Act of 1792, I Stat. 246.

47. Sargent and Velde, The Big Problem of Small Change, 313.

48. Mint Act of 1792, sec. 14, 1 Stat. 246, 249. The mint was in operation by 1794. Kemp, Arthur, ed., The Legal Qualities of Money (New York, 1956), 60.Google Scholar

49. The coins were declared legal tender, as were foreign coins at rates according to their silver or gold content. Kemp, The Legal Qualities of Money, 59, 61; Sargent and Velde, Big Problem of Small Change, 310.

50. I Stat. 191, 196; Kemp, The Legal Qualities of Money, 67. By contrast, the notes were not legal tender. For the importance of a demand mechanism, as opposed to legal tender status, in constituting value, see Smith, “Some Colonial Evidence”; Sargent, “The Ends of Four Big Inflations”; Sumner, Scott, “Colonial Currency and the Quantity Theory of Money: A Critique of Smith's Interpretation,” Journal of Economic History 53, no. 1 (1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. I Stat. 195.

52. Federal notes depended in particular on public bonds at their inception and provided a national exemplar for state practice. Over the next years, public debt reserves gave way to private debt reserves. The transition would reduce government payments for the amount of public debt still used as reserves.

53. An Act to Incorporate the Subscribers, sec. 1–2, I Stat. 191–92; Perkins, American Public Finance, 237.

54. The Treasury borrowed first to cover the government's entire subscription to capital, the $2 million used to purchase its 20 percent share of ownership, and then to survive the series of revenue shortfalls that carried through most of Washington's presidency, for a total of up to $6 million in 1796. Perkins, American Public Finance, 254–55. Private borrowing during the period ranged from $5.3 to 9.4 million at the end of the decade. Ibid., 254.

55. For this argument, see, e.g., Morris, “Report on the Public Credit.”

56. Government debt also, as above, constituted the initial capitalization of the banks.

57. The remainder was made up mainly of specie. Figures from 1792 are comparable: bank notes composed $11.5 million of a money stock amounting to $29.5 million, or about 39 percent. See Blodget, Samuel, Economica Microform: A Statistical Manual for the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: Printed for the author, 1806), as quoted in Perkins, American Public Finance, 247.Google Scholar

58. These percentages are based on Perkins's estimates that the money supply in 1800 amounted to about $6.50 per capita, of which $1.00 to $1.50 consisted of Bank of the United States notes. For those estimates, as well as estimates about how much the turn to fractional banking multiplied the total money stock (approximately threefold), see Perkins, American Public Finance, 246–47.

59. Dividends from the First Bank of the United States averaged over 8 percent annually; 60 percent of dividends came from U.S. government funds paid to the bank as bond interest and interest on an initial loan covering its whole $2 million subscription. See ibid., 248, 253.

60. Ibid., 248.

61. See Ferguson, The Power of the Purse, 151. Morris submitted his report on 5 August 1782, 22 Journals of the Continental Congress, 429–46.

62. Morris, “Report on the Public Credit,” 437.

63. Ibid., 433, 436–37.

64. See, e.g., Sloan, Herbert E., Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt (New York, 1995).Google Scholar

65. Morris, “Report on the Public Credit,” 431. The strategy made especially good sense in the straitened circumstances, for America's earning potential would only grow. “For as the Governments acquire more stability, and the people more wealth, the former will be able to raise and the latter to pay much greater sums than can at present be expected” (433).

66. Ibid., 433. For a characteristic trope of the time equating individuals with communities, see Morris, “Report on the Public Credit,” 432 (“By making foreign loans the community [as such] receive the same extensive benefits, which one individual does in borrowing of another.”)

67. Morris, “Report on the Public Credit,” 431–32. Almost as if to mock Davenant, Morris labeled the concern that the interest would form a “balance of trade against us” as like saying “that it would be more convenient to receive money as a present than as a loan” (432).

68. Ibid., 435 (conceiving payment of debt as “simple executive operation”); ibid., 444–45 (considering norms of private contract). Morris also naturalized money and public credit, removing the need for discretion or political analysis from that realm. See ibid., 434.

69. For the drama over the repayment of the Revolutionary War debt, see Holton, Woody, “‘Divide Et Impera’: Federalist 10 in a Wider Sphere,” William and Mary Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2005): 175–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ferguson, The Power of the Purse.