It was called the Articles of Confederation.
So people say things like, well, the power was not prohibited to Congress. But that has the entire frame of reference wrong. The question is whether it was granted.
No. People say "Necessary and Proper".
The whole problem of a government unbounded is rooted in the assertion of power to designate slugs, or paper, or anything else, as legal tender.
I'm glad you don't resort to hyperbole much. Please tell me about this magical time in U.S. history when there was no legal tender.
With respect to "necessary and proper," please read it in context: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers...". The contextual and other evidence is overwhelming as to the correct frame of reference: unless the power is expressly granted to the federal government, the federal government doesn't have it. Inferring additional powers does great violence to the Constitutional design.
That you would refer to a "magical time" without legal tender laws indicates a frame of reference somehow assuming that such a government power is necessary. But it is utterly unnecessary, and commerce proceeded for thousands of years without it. A free people can choose to accept or reject what others proffer as money. Gold and silver stood the test of time, paper had ignominiously and repeatedly failed, and hence the Constitutional restriction that no American government could ever force the acceptance of anything else but gold and silver.
Once this restriction was lifted, the evils foreseen by the Founders were all but inevitable; things took a long time to fall apart because the system still worked between governments, until Nixon closed the gold window and forced everyone to take American paper. Now the end is in sight.