The Constitution of the United States, September 17, 1787, contains in Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins”; and further, “No State shall coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”
Analysis of the above will show the reason why the various States discontinued their own coinage.
The Continental Congress, January 7, 1782, instructed Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, to prepare and report a table of rates at which the different species of foreign coins most likely to circulate within the United States should be received at the treasury. On January 15th, the week following, he made a lengthy report regarding the different names and values of coins then in use and the necessity of a legal tender. He stated that the necessary machinery for a mint could easily be made and that the advantage of possessing legal money in preference to any other would induce people to carry foreign money to the mint until a sufficiency were struck for the circulating medium, and the remainder of foreign gold and silver coins should be left entirely to the operations of commerce as bullion.
On April 14, 1790, Thomas Jefferson reported to the House of Representatives, advising the declination of the proposition of John H. Mitchell regarding his offer to furnish coins from Europe at a fixed price per pound for copper coins. His objections were that the opportunity of recoinage of coins would be lost, and that in transportation across the ocean it would be subject to the dangers of the sea, acts of piracy, and, in times of war, would offer the sinews of war to the enterprise of the enemy, and further, that the resource of coining household plate would be lost. The risk of counterfeiting was also noted.
Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, on January 28, 1791, as a result of instructions on the part of the House of Representatives on April 15, 1790, sent a lengthy communication to it on “The Establishment of a Mint.” This communication was evidently the basis for the act of Congress, dated April 2, 1792, establishing the mint and regulating the coins of the United States.
The mint was to be situated at the seat of government, then Philadelphia, and the President, in addition to the authority given him under the Act of March 3, 1791, was authorized to cause to be provided and put in proper condition such buildings as appeared to him to be necessary for carrying on the business of the mint.
The Act of March 3, 1791, approved by President Washington, authorized the establishment of a mint under such regulations as should be directed by law. This Act authorized him to cause to be engaged artists and the procurement of the necessary apparatus.
On December 30, 1793, Jefferson wrote the President regarding artists. He mentioned that a certain Drotz had been hired, but, after considerable delay, refused to come to America, and that our minister at London had succeeded in getting Mr. Albion Coxe, who was probably the person of that name who had the right to make copper coins for the State of New Jersey in 1786, to accept the position as assayer. Inasmuch as it was impossible to secure abroad a chief coiner of greater ability than at home, Mr. Henry Voight, who was temporarily in the position, was favorably mentioned.
These two men were required to furnish security in the sum of ten thousand dollars each, which neither was able to do, and Jefferson stated that the coinage of precious metals was prevented for some time past, but that in order that the mint might not be entirely idle the coinage of copper had been going on. Jefferson recommended that their securities be lessened by reducing their responsibilities.
