Who proposed the US money system?

Answer 1

No single person created the US money system, but the two most influential individuals were Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The Constitution gives the government the authority to coin money and establish its value, but most of the details of denominations and metals were worked out by Jefferson while the economic and administrative system was developed by Hamilton. Of course neither of these men worked alone.

Jefferson had spent considerable time in France which had taken the lead in creating coins and measurements based on multiples of 10. The US was unfortunately firmly wedded to the British measurement system but Jefferson was mostly successful in persuading Congress to adopt decimal coinage. Initially the units were to be mills, cents, dimes, dollars, eagles, and unions. Each was to be worth 10 of its next-smallest predecessor. Except for the smallest coin, the mill, there would also be half-unit denominations: half cents, half dimes, etc.

The mill proved to be too small a unit to be practical; no mill-denominated coins were put into general circulation. The denomination survives today as part of tax calculations requiring amounts less than one cent. Common usage soon simplified calculations to just cents and dollars, although the dime remains as the name of our familiar 10-cent coin. The $100 union represented a significant amount of money at the time so like the mill it was never issued as a coin.

Spanish coins also circulated widely during the colonial period and were effectively interchangeable with British and other currencies. Spanish coins were based on multiples of 8 instead of 10, so two exceptions were made in Jefferson's decimal system to avoid problems with change-making: the quarter-dollar and quarter-eagle were added. Spanish coins remained legal tender until 1857, by which point the two non-decimal denominations were deeply entrenched. Quarter-eagles were abolished in 1933, but the 25¢ coin remains an anomaly in American coinage compared to other countries' systems that use 20¢ coins.

Answer 2

Erostathus