Specie Circular

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SPECIE CIRCULAR

SPECIE CIRCULAR. Consistent with President Andrew Jackson's effort to make specie ("in coin") the chief form of money in circulation, the Treasury Department issued several circulars. The first, issued November 1834, ordered collectors of customs and receivers of public money to refuse any form of money not described by an 1816 congressional resolution, particularly drafts of branches of the Bank of the United States. In April 1835, a second circular directed collectors to accept only gold and silver for all payments of less than ten dollars. The third, of July 1836, directed that nothing but gold or silver should be accepted as payment for public land. By curbing land speculation, the specie circular of 1836 probably hastened the panic of 1837.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rousseau, Peter L. Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic of 1837. Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2000.

Erik McKinleyEriksson/a. r.

See alsoCurrency and Coinage ; Financial Panics ; Hard Money ; Legal Tender ; Money ; Specie Payments, Suspension and Resumption of .

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