The Founders made debasement a capital crime.

What the record actually says

Section 19 of the Coinage Act of 1792 made it a felony punishable by death for an officer or person employed at the United States Mint, acting for profit or with fraudulent intent, to debase coins or embezzle metals or coins entrusted to the Mint. It did not prescribe that penalty for legislators, executive policymakers, monetary officials generally, or every act later described as currency debasement.

Why it matters to ordinary people

The slogan sounds like a sweeping promise that monetary policymakers once faced personal consequences. The primary record is narrower: it protected people from fraudulent Mint misconduct, but it did not put every official who changed monetary policy under a capital statute.

How it is usually mis-stated

• “The Founders imposed the death penalty on politicians who debased the currency.”

  Section 19 names officers and persons employed at the Mint, not legislators or policymakers generally.

• “Any monetary debasement was a capital crime in 1792.”

  The statute specifies fraudulent misconduct involving coins and property at the Mint.

The primary record

1. Qualifies · Apr 2, 1792

   Coinage Act of 1792

   Section 19, 1 Stat. 250; penalty applied to officers or persons employed at the Mint

The strongest account that disagrees

The currently approved five-document Tier A corpus contains no separate account disputing whom Section 19 names. This verdict is confined to the statute's express employment, intent, offense, and penalty language; it does not claim that every use of the modern word debasement fell within the Act.