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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2010
Foreign money remained in widespread use in the United States until the middle of the nineteenth century. Several foreign coins were provided legal tender status in order to supplement the scanty American specie supply. A particular disadvantage was the perpetuation of non-decimal units of account, especially in New York. When the U.S. enacted a subsidiary silver standard in 1853, the expedient bases for the lawful status of foreign coin was removed. In 1857, the United States coinage was finally reformed to secure an exclusive national currency.
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40 For example, the Prussian Thaler (dollar) which was hot a legal tender and had a metallic value of 69.4 cents was often accepted in trade at 100 cents. Niles National Register, 67 (Nov. 2, 1844), 144.
41 U.S. Treasury Dept., Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances, December, 1845, p. 19; The U.S. Magazine and Democratic Review, 18 (Mar. 1846), 235, claimed that seventy-five percent of the specie holdings of the 412 banks in the U.S. was foreign coin.
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52 During the era of the Confederated States the Spanish dollar was lawfully received at 5 shillings in Georgia, 6 shillings in New England and Virginia, and 7 shillings in the Middle states. American State Papers, Finance, I, 103. The Spanish eighth was calling a shilling in New York, a levy in the Middle states, and a nine-penny bit in New England. The sixteenth was known as a six-pence in New York, the flip in Pennsylvania, a four-pence in New England, and a picayune in Louisiana. McMaster, John B., A History of the People of the United States, I (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1927), 189Google Scholar.
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56 Hunt's Merchants Magazine, 23 (Sept. 1850), 335.
57 House of Representatives, House Executive Document 76, April 3, 1850, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., X, #579, 2.
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65 Congressional Globe, 34th Cong., 3d Sess., XXVI, Part I, 196–9, 341–3, 574, 751, 774, 808.
66 House of Representatives, House Executive Document 71, 34th Cong., 3d Sess., IX, #906, 2.
67 John B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, VIII, 285.
68 Hunt's Merchants Magazine, 37 (July 1857), 86–7. The new cents were not extended legal tender status until April 22, 1864.
69 Carothers, Neil, Fractional Money (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1930), p. 145Google Scholar; Bankers' Magazine ir Statistical Register, 7 (Aug. 1857), 119–20.
70 Hunt's Merchants Magazine, 37 (Sept. 1857), 340–1; (Nov. 1857), 585.
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73 Whig Almanac and United States Register (New York: Greeley and McElrath, 1851–1858), p. 1.
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