In 1862, Congress made paper money legal tender for all debts. What started as a way of paying for the Civil War ended up transforming the American economy.
Desperate for funds during the Civil War, the U.S. government made ‘greenbacks’ legal tender and changed the future of financeEarly in the Civil War, a New York congressman named Elbridge Spaulding had a terrible thought. What if the government were to print pieces of paper and call them money? Paper bills existed, of course, issued by scores of private banks. But they were only IOUs; they had no legal standing. As such, merchants and others could refuse them or mark them down.
Spaulding meant for his paper to be “legal tender”—valid for all debts and obligations, like gold and silver. It would be paper that none could refuse. This would give the Lincoln government what it desperately needed even more than troops—a currency to pay for the war.
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