US Presidency
1837

The character of the funds to be received and disbursed in the transactions of the Government likewise demands your most careful consideration. There can be no doubt that those who framed and adopted the Constitution, having in immediate view the depreciated paper of the Confederacy of which $ 500 in paper were at times only equal to $ 1 in coin intended to prevent the recurrence of similar evils, so far at least as related to the transactions of the new Government. They gave to Congress express powers to coin money and to regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin; they refused to give it power to establish corporations the agents then as now chiefly employed to create a paper currency; they prohibited the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts; and the First Congress directed by positive law that the revenue should be received in nothing but gold and silver.