Excerpt from The Forum, Vol. 16: September, 1893-February, 1894 When the articles of Confederation went into force in the month of March, 1781, the Continental Congress, for the first time in its existence, was given power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. The need of such regulation was great; for there was at that day no national coinage; no uniform circulating medium, no legal tender, no common money of account. In the towns and cities along the seaboard the currency was composed of paper bills put out by the States and confined in circulation to the limits of the States Wherein they were printed; of loan office certificates, indents and continental notes issued by authority of Congress and passing at dif ferent rates of discount at different places; and to some extent of specie made up of the coins of England, France, Portugal and Spain. Back from the seaboard and especially along the frontier debts were generally paid in produce or lumber; barter was the chief me dium of exchange; and, if any standard of value existed, it was a bushel of Wheat, or a gallon of Whiskey; a bundle of Skins, or a hundredweight Of tobacco. The money of account used by the Con gress was the Spanish milled dollar and its fractions. The money of account used by the States, the merchants and the people was the pound and its fractions. But neither the pound nor the dollar had a common value the country over, for each expressed a. Very different value in New England and in New York; in Pennsylvania and in the South. To make matters worse, not a doubloon nor a moidore, not a guinea nor a crown, not a joe, not a Sixpence, not a gold or silver coin of any denomination passed current by tale; for all had been so clipped or plugged that no one would take them save by Weight. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.