He could have the U.S. Treasury issue up to $3 billion in greenbacks, reduce the gold content of the dollar by as much as 50 percent, or accept 100 million dollars in silver at a price not to exceed fifty cents per ounce in payment of World War I debts owed by European nations.
It was a response to Congressional perceptions that the low value the fiat currency greenbacks were then trading at relative to gold was as a result of a failure of the private market.
The issuance of greenbacks and the sale of government bonds to finance the war were led by the Secretary of the Treasury at the time, Salmon P. Chase (Geisst, 53-54).
The United States Congress had enacted the Legal Tender Acts during the U.S. Civil War when southern Democrats were absent from the Congress, and thus their Jacksonian hard money views were under represented.
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Ninger would buy bond paper from Crane & Company, in Dalton, Massachusetts, cut it to the same size as the $50 and $100 United States Notes he was copying, then soak the paper in a dilute coffee solution.
1869: A new $50 United States Note was issued with a portrait of Henry Clay on the right and an allegorical figure holding a laurel branch on the left of the obverse.