1790 description of fiat currency by Hamilton

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http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders ... 8_2s5.html

This document from 1790 gives a good description of fiat currency from a (fairly) old school perspective:

"It is a well known fact, that in countries in which the national debt is properly funded, and an object of established confidence, it answers most of the purposes of money. Transfers of stock or public debt are there equivalent to payments in specie; or in other words, stock, in the principal transactions of business, passes current as specie. The same thing would, in all probability happen here, under the like circumstances. The benefits of this are various and obvious."