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@ Brunswick
2025-03-31 16:21:01
The Legal Debate
Support for your position:
The federal government is not granted the power to emit bills of credit.
That means under a strict enumerated powers view, it can’t do so.
Especially given the explicit denial of that power to states, the omission for Congress is meaningful.
Opposing view (judicial precedent):
The Legal Tender Cases (esp. Juilliard v. Greenman, 1884) upheld Congress’s power to issue paper money, even not directly tied to borrowing, as part of its implied powers over monetary policy and borrowing.
Courts interpreted "borrowing" as flexible enough to cover paper notes.
However, these decisions are from the post-Civil War era, when Greenbacks had already been issued.