ABSTRACT
To the ordinary layman, the principal obstacle to a correct understanding of our currency system arises from its complexity, from the very multiplicity of its elements. Our circulation is made up of silver dollars, gold dollars, and various forms of paper dollars; all together, ten different forms of currency pass freely from hand to hand in the transaction of business. What has been the course of events by which these various forms of currency have been made component parts of our general media of exchange; and what the mechanism by which they have been rendered of equivalent value as means of payment? To gain an understanding of these first principles of American finance, the reader must open the pages of history, and unfold from the tangle of confusing events the dominant threads of financial tendencies.
