Tea at Trianon: Early American Currency

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Early American Currency

Fascinating early banknotes. Share

2 comments:

Amanda Borenstadt said...: Fascinating! I've never seen such old American paper money.; April 26, 2011 at 1:22:00 AM EDT
Michael J. Russell said...: There's a valuable lesson to be learned here for today's economy. Since it's inherently a proxy or an IOU for something else of intrinsic value, paper money is worth exactly what those accepting it think it's really worth - no less, no more.

Some early American currency, called continentals, were perceived to be worthless, since there was no certitude about the gold behind them at that time. Based on this, a popular expression, "not worth a continental" persisted well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

So, when any modern currency is backed solely by the full faith and credit of the government issuing it, it's essential not to debase it by unsound and inherently inflationary measures like the euphemistically-named "quantitative easing," if we wish to prevent our money from being "not worth a continental" in the not-too-distant future.; April 27, 2011 at 1:49:00 PM EDT