"HOW ABOUT MONEY OWED TO ME AND MONEY I OWE OTHER PEOPLE? ALL OF THE SUDDEN I AM STUCK WITH A MORTGAGE OF 150,000 IN US DOLLARS BUT NOW WITH THE GOLD DOLLAR, I STILL OWE 150,000 BUT ACCORDING TO YOU SINCE THE GOLD WOULD HAVE SO MUCH PURCHASING POWER THAT IT WOULD BE WORTH A LOT MORE THAN A PAPER DOLLAR, BUT I WOULD HAVE TO GIVE THE BANK 150,000 GOLD DOLLARS."
I look at the "it's unconstitutional" argument through the lense of a lawyer who has argued cases to the Supreme Court--nothing is unconstitutional unless you can get the Supreme Court to say its unconstitutional. Clearly the writers of the constitution intended that only specie would be used as money and that any paper evidencing specie (receipts for gold and silver) would be locally created. The fact that the current money system violates the constitution is irrelevant--we have it; its not going away anytime soon for the reason that it is unconstitutional.
The "there is not and will never be enough gold" argument is a facilicy advanced by people who have a vested interest in being able to control the monetary system and accepted by a body politic that does not know enough about economics to understand why it is not so. There is plenty of gold. It is just a question of how much purchasing power it represents (how many units of whatever your basic gold is divided into does it take to exchange for a ham sandwich).
In a gold monetary system, we will be producing a lot of gold because it will be in demand for use as money--if we dig at less than the rate of expansion of the economy, gold will appreciate; if we dig more, gold will depreciate. Probably there will be incremental appreciation in the 1-3 percent range and that will be positive because borrowers will pay little or no interest.
What happens to XCON and his mortgage? You are worried about a global event where Congress passes a law effectively saying XCON has to pay $300 to retire his $150 mortgage. That won't happen so don't worry about it. What happens in the real world is that a global event eliminates the purchasing power of the paper money and people turn to something else as a medium of exchange. You take a few papers off the top of the pile in your wheelbarrow of paper and pay off your mortgage and forget it. You will get the opportunity to do that fairly soon so pay attention.
Why is our economy so great with such a lousy monetary system? Because the underpinnings have been free market capital. As government grows; as the tax rate grows; as government screws up the money system; fails to provide for the national defense; inhibits the education of our people; and regulates productive enterprises out of existence, our economic engine will be less competative. We can be a lot less competative and still compete with the socialists in Europe, Japan, South America, and southeast Asia. However it is possible to foresee that at some point, the government can do enough damage to put us out of business. It may be that destruction of our money system will be enough to do that.