According to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress – and only Congress – has the power to create money. For example, in order to fund the Civil War, Encyclopedia Britannica (1998) notes that in 1862 the Legal Tender Act was passed authorizing the creation of paper money not redeemable in gold or silver. Between 1862 and 1865 approximately $430,000,000 in United States Notes were put into circulation as the country’s first national currency. Bill Still (2016) reminds us that the United States Notes remained the nation’s legal tender for all debts from 1862-1994, making it the longest serving form of American money called colonial scrip.
