The United States Used To Take Any Foreign Currency As Legal Tender

Here’s how it worked and why

Spanish silver dollars were widely used in the early USA over standard American dollars (Public domain)

In the days directly following the American Revolution, the newly christened United States hardly had any currency of its own. The economy was severely depressed and the country was having a hard time getting people to take its newly created currency. In 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1792…