“Nothing had more obviously threatened quick and overwhelming disaster to the country in the days of the Revolution and the Confederation than the reckless financial operations of the States, their unlimited issues of irredeemable paper, their piled up promises and meagre means of redeeming them; and the constitution of the Union had been framed almost as much to avert ruin from that quarter as to create a real government, clear up the relationships of the States to one another, and steady their political action. It absolutely forbade the States to issue bills of credit, did not give the federal government … Continue reading Woodrow Wilson on Irredeemable Paper and Gold and Silver