no United States bills or notes in circulation. There was no such
thing as a national currency. Except the gold and silver pieces of
foreign nations, there was no money which would pass all over our
country. To-day a treasury note, a silver certificate, a national bank
bill, is received in payment of a debt in any state or territory. In
1789 the currency was foreign coins and state paper. But the
Constitution forbade the states ever to make any more money, and as
their bills of credit already issued would wear out by use, the time was
near when there would be no currency except foreign coins. To prevent
this, Congress in 1791 ordered a mint to be established at Philadelphia,
and in 1792 named the coins to be struck, and ordered that whoever would
bring gold or silver to the mint should have it made into coins without
cost to him. This was _free coinage._ As both gold and silver were to be
coined, the currency was to be _bimetallic_, or of two metals.[1] The
ratio of silver and gold was 15 to 1. That is, fifteen pounds' weight of
silver must be made into as many dollars' worth of coins as one pound of
gold. The silver coins were to be the dollar, half and quarter dollar,
dime and half dime; the gold were to be the eagle, half eagle, and
quarter eagle. Out of copper were to be struck cents and half cents. As
some years must elapse before our national coins could become abundant,
certain foreign coins were made legal tender.

[Footnote 1: The first silver coin was struck in 1794; the first gold,
in 1795; the first cent and half cent, in 1793.]

%287. "Federal Money."%--The appearance of the new money was followed
by another change for the better. In colonial days the merchants and the
people expressed the debts they owed, or the value of the goods they
sold, in pounds, shillings, and pence, or in Spanish dollars. During the
Revolution, and after it, this was continued, although the Continental
Congress always kept its accounts, and made its appropriations, in
dollars. But when the people began to see dollars, half dollars, and
dimes bearing the words "United States of America," they knew that
there really was a national coinage, or "Federal money," as they called
it, and between 1795 and 1798, one state after another ordered its
treasurer to use Federal money instead of pounds, shillings, and pence;
and thereafter in laying taxes, and voting appropriations for any
purpose, the amount was expressed in dollars and cents. The