Is a check currency by this definition? How about a credit card? In any event, we were discussing the issuance of currency. As I use that term, it applies to Continentals, Greenbacks, and post 1933 FRNs. The characteristic they all share is that they have the force of government behind them and can legally be issued without constraint. No banks prior to the Fed were granted such power.
A blanket prohibition on all governments like in the 2d amendment would have been established not one explicitly directed at the states.
Strict interpretation of the original intent of the constitution does not include an interpretation of what specific, individual framers probably preferred. Instead, one must look at the actual words used in the context of the language of the day. The 10th Amendment states, for example: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Doesn’t this mean: if the power wasn’t granted it wasn’t intended to be granted? Where, then, do you believe the Constitution granted the government the right to issue money in any form?
If only coins were to be issued (how is another question for you since a Mint was not mentioned) why would the phraseology have been "coin Money" rather than "issue coins" or "mint coins?" Had there been a desire to prevent the issuance of paper money that would have been made explicit since the writers were very familiar with the experience of the Continentals.
You confuse the verbs “issue” and “coin.” The phrase “coin money” supports my interpretation not yours. Money (even to Morris and Hamilton as their writings make abundantly and unambiguously clear) was coin. What we know as paper money, today, they called bills of credit. The evidence you quote above does not support your interpretation, but, rather, refutes it. Since Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 carefully distinguishes among the powers to “coin money”, “emit bills of credit” and “make anything but gold or silver….”, it is quite clear that these are different things and your interpretation which confuses them all lacks support.
BTW, within 3 years of the Constititution, Congress acted in the Coinage Act of 1792 to do all those things that were consistent with my interpretation and none of the things consistent with your interpretation. How do you explain that?
Non-metallic currency was clearly a means to use the power granted Congress to declare war and provide for the national defense.
This argument is specious. It says, in effect, anything that would improve a government’s ability to wage war is constitutional. Anything that can be demonstrated to help the war effort is, ipso facto, constitutional. So much for a strict interpretation of original intent.