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The agitation for bills of credit became violent in New England, in 1786. Connecticut resisted the demand firmly and consistently. In New Hampshire and Massachusetts the advocates of paper...
- Edward Stanwood
Explanatory Essays. Bills of Credit. Colonial paper notes functioned as currency but actually were bills of credit, that is, short term public loans to the government. Previously, currency had been limited to coins with an intrinsic value based on their gold, silver or copper content; similar to the value of commodity items used in bartering.
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The most striking example occurred in New England. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island all had, long before the 1730s, emitted paper money in bills of credit known as “old tenor” bills of credit, and “old tenor” had become the most commonly-used unit of account in New England.
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
Feb 23, 2015 · Also called “bills of credit,” they were “interest bearing certificates” with the buyer putting up their land as collateral. The patriotic buyer would then (or so they were told) get their principal back plus interest – assuming America won the war!
The Absence of a Bill of Rights. On September 12, just five days before the Convention was to adjourn, George Mason, the author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, proposed that the nearly-completed draft of the Constitution be “prefaced with a Bill of Rights.” It would, he said, “give great quiet to the people.”
Use in the American Colonies (pre-1775) British colonies in North America would issue bills of credit in order to deal with fiscal crises, although doing so without receiving them as revenue in like amounts would increase the money supply, resulting in price inflation and a drop in value relative to the pound sterling.
