No State Coins or Bills

                    The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday comes from Article I, Section 10, Clause 1:  "No State shall … coin money [or] emit Bills of Credit…."  This provision in the Constitution reminds the States that Congress has the authority to mint coins or print paper money.  The term "Bills of Credit" refers to any type of money not backed by silver or gold.

                    One of the worst problems of the Revolutionary War "was the lack of national control over money and credits.  In section 8 this power had been specifically reserved to the national government so that there would be a central control of whatever medium was used as legal tender in commercial transactions" (W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America - The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, p 493).

                    The Constitution prohibited states from making any type of money and shifted "the power to make economic policy from the states to the federal government.  In the late eighteenth century, money and trade were the prime mechanisms for regulating the economy, and the Constitution gave both exclusively to the new central government" (David F. Forte, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, p 168).