|
A Demand Note is a type of United States paper money that was issued between August 1861 and April 1862 during the American Civil War in denominations of 5, 10, and 20 US$. Demand Notes were the first type of paper money issued by the United States in the sense that they were the first in the series of emissions which has continuously achieved wide circulation down to the present day. The U.S. government placed the Demand Notes into circulation by using them to pay expenses incurred during the Civil War including the salaries of its workers and military personnel. Because of the distinctive green ink on their reverse, and because state-chartered bank and Confederate notes of the day typically had blank reverse, the Demand Notes were nicknamed "greenbacks", a name later inherited by Legal Tender and Federal Reserve Notes. The obverse of the Demand Notes contained familiar elements such as the images of a bald eagle, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander Hamilton, though the portraits used on Demand Notes are different from the ones seen on U.S. currency today. When Demand Notes were discontinued, their successors, the Legal Tender Notes, could not be used to pay import duties, a large part of the U.S. federal tax base at the time, and thus Demand Notes took precedence. As a result, most Demand Notes were redeemed, though the few remaining Demand Notes are the oldest valid currency in the United States today. ==Treasury Notes and early United States paper money== Between the adoption of the United States Constitution and the civil war, the United States government did not issue paper money as it is known today, but on many occasions it did issue short term debt called Treasury Notes. The Demand Notes were a transitional issue connecting these Treasury Notes to modern paper money. The Demand Notes had been intended to function as money but were authorized within the legal framework of Treasury Notes since the U.S. was not generally assumed to have the authority to issue banknotes at that time. The Continental Congress had issued Continental dollars between 1775 and 1779 to help finance the American Revolution. The paper Continental dollars nominally entitled the bearer to an equivalent amount of Spanish milled dollars but were never redeemed in silver and lost 99% of their value by 1790 despite the American victory.〔The Continental Dollar: What Happened to it after 1779?, Farley Grubb, NBER Working Paper No. W13770, February 2008.〕 With the fate of the Continentals in mind, the Founding Fathers embedded in the constitution no provision for a paper currency, and the constitution explicitly prohibits states from making anything but gold or silver legal tender. As a result, the pre-civil war circulation of banknotes in the United States consisted of private issues,〔Cuhaj, George S.; Brandimore, William (2008). ''Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money'', 27th edition, Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications. ISBN 0-89689-707-9.〕 including issues by private federally chartered banks such as the First and the Second Bank of the United States. While the constitution did not explicitly grant the power to issue paper currency, it did grant the power to borrow money. Treasury Notes, as a form of debt, were an innovation to help bridge federal financing gaps when the government encountered difficulty selling a sufficient amount of long term bonds, or loan "stock". Treasury Notes were first employed during the War of 1812 and were issued irregularly up through the civil war. Characteristically the issues were not extensive and the "polite fiction" was always maintained that Treasury Notes did not serve as money when, in fact, to a limited extent they did.〔Coins of 1861 Controlled by the South, R.W. Julian, "Numismatic News", December 3, 2008.〕 These notes usually bore interest, their value varied with market conditions, and they rapidly disappeared from the financial system after the crisis associated with their issuance had ended. Among the several issues of Treasury Notes, of special note are the "Small Treasury Notes" of 1815 which, like the Demand Notes, did not bear interest and were intended to circulate as currency – and thus are also candidates for "the first U.S. paper money". However only $3,392,994 were issued, and these were rapidly exchanged for bonds.〔United States Notes, John Joseph Lalor, "Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States", Rand McNally & Co, Chicago, 1881.〕 In witness to the limited circulation achieved by these notes, only two issued uncancelled examples of the Small Treasury Notes are known today〔Friedberg, Arthur L. and Ira S. ''The Official RED BOOK A Guide Book of United States Paper Money'', Whitman Publishing, Atlanta, Georgia, 2008 ISBN 0-7948-2362-9.〕 vs. almost 1000 examples of the Demand Notes. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Demand Note」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|