Nor has the United States been less favored.

The names of Morris, Hamilton, Gallatin, and Chase shine with equal lustre.
Morris, the Financier of the Revolution, was called to the administration of the money department of the United States government when there was no money to administer.

Before his appointment as "Financier" the expenses of the government, military and civil, had been met by expedients; by foreign loans, lotteries, and loan office certificates; finally by continental money, or, more properly speaking, bills of credit emitted by authority of Congress and made legal tender by joint action of Congress and the several States.

The relation of coin to paper in this motley currency appears in the appendix to the "Journal of Congress" for the year 1778, when the government paid out in fourteen issues of paper currency, $62,154,842; in specie, $78,666; in French livres, $28,525.[10] The power of taxation was jealously withheld by the States, and Congress could not go beyond recommending to them to levy taxes for the withdrawal of the bills emitted by it for their quotas, _pari passu_ with their issue.

When the entire scheme of paper money failed, the necessary supplies for the army were levied in kind.