I have the honor to be, &c.
ROBERT MORRIS.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS.
Office of Finance, January 15th, 1782
Sir,
Finding by the Act of the United States in Congress of the 7th instant, that I am instructed to prepare and report a table of rates, at which the different species of foreign coins most likely to circulate within the United States shall be received at the Treasury, I have been induced again to turn my attention to an object, which has employed my thoughts very frequently, and which would have been long since submitted to Congress, had I not been prevented by other business, and much delayed by those things relating to this business, which depended upon others. I shall now pray leave to deliver my sentiments somewhat at large on this subject.
The United States labor under many inconveniences and even disadvantages which may at present be remedied, but which, if suffered to continue, would become incurable, and lead to pernicious consequences. It is very fortunate for us, that the weights and measures used throughout America are the same. Experience has shown in other countries, that the efforts of the legislator to change weights and measures, although fully seconded by the more enlightened part of the community, have been so strongly opposed by the popular habits and prejudices, that ages have elapsed without producing the desired effect. I repeat, therefore, that it is happy for us to have throughout the Union the same ideas of a mile and an inch, a hogshead and a quart, a pound and an ounce. So far our commercial dealings are simplified and brought down to the level of every capacity.
With respect to our money, the case is very widely different. The ideas annexed to a pound, a shilling, and a penny, are almost as various as the States themselves. Calculations are, therefore, as necessary for our inland commerce as upon foreign exchanges. And the commonest things become intricate where money has anything to do with them. A farmer in New Hampshire, for instance, can readily form an idea of a bushel of wheat in South Carolina, weighing sixty pounds, and placed at one hundred miles from Charleston; but, if he were told, that in such situation it is worth twentyone shillings and eight pence, he would be obliged to make many inquiries, and form some calculations before he could know that this sum meant in general what he would call four shillings; and even then he would have to inquire what kind of coin that four shillings was paid in, before he could estimate it in his own mind, according to the ideas of money, which he had imbibed. Difficulties of this sort do not occur to farmers alone. They are perplexing to most men, and troublesome to all. It is, however, a fortunate circumstance, that money is so much in the power of the Sovereign, as that he can easily lead the people into new ideas of it; and even if that were not the case, yet the loose state in which our currency has been for some years past, has opened the way for receiving any impressions on that subject.
As we are now shaking off the inconveniences of a depreciating medium, the present moment seems to be that, in which a general currency can best be established, so as that in a few months, the same names of money will mean the same things in the several parts of the United States.