“Justice’s fee for signing a warrant, 1 muskrat skin.
“To the constable for serving a warrant, 1 mink skin.
“Enacted into law the 18th day of October, 1788, under the great seal of State.”
Gold and Silver have been used as money metals from the earliest times of recorded history. The Bible has many references to the use of both gold and silver as early as the age of Abraham.
Paper. The first printed bank notes of which we have any record were issued by Palmstruck, a banker of Sweden, in 1660.
Intrinsic Value.
No kind of money, as such, has any intrinsic value, for the instant the material of which the money is made is used for another purpose it ceases to be money. As money, the sole value of the material arises from its function as a circulating medium; and even the value of gold and silver as used in the arts and sciences will be largely determined by the demand for them for money purposes. Of recent years the general demonetization of silver by the principal nations has depreciated the value of that metal about one-half, and there is but little doubt that if gold were similarly demonetized it would correspondingly decline in value. This was the opinion of Cernuschi. He says: “If all nations should demonetize gold it would be worth more than copper, but it would not be worth much more.”
Appleton’s American Encyclopedia (XI, p. 735) says: “After the discovery of gold in California, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany all demonetized gold and adopted silver as the legal tender at a fixed rate. In those countries gold only circulated as a commodity, subject to daily fluctuations in value; and as a consequence, deprived as it was of legal support as money, it was but little used.”
Upon the subject of intrinsic value the following authorities are cited:
“Congress shall have power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.”—Constitution of the United States.