At 11:57 PM 11/11/1996, "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin@law.miami. wrote:

On Tue, 12 Nov 1996, Doug Renner wrote:

...

article nearly head-on. However is it true that what you are saying is that two fundamental premises in the article you refer to as "rabid" are incorrect? Namely:

...

"ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8 OF THE CONSTITUTION STATES THAT CONGRESS SHALL HAVE THE POWER TO COIN (CREATE) MONEY AND REGULATE THE VALUE THEREOF.

The above is a true statement. Note however that "congress" cannot operate the mint. It must -- **MUST** -- delegate this duty to the executive branch (or someone outside the legislative branch, cf. Chadha v. U.S.) if it wants it done. Congress is free to select the type of agent it wants to do this. Indeed, if Congress chose to license private mints, that would, IMHO be legal. The point here is that the states don't have the power to coin money.

During the Free Banking Era, banks and companies issued their own dollars. I believe that at that time the dollar was defined in terms of a certain weight of gold. The value of any dollar you might be holding was related to the level of confidence in the institution that issued it. Books were published which recorded the "exchange rate" between each kind of dollar. This is very similar to Congress licensing private mints. Peter Hendrickson ph@netcom.com