The Constitution requires gold and silver money.
Last checked · Aug 26, 2026
What the record actually says
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 forbids a state from coining money, emitting bills of credit, or making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 separately gives Congress power to coin money and regulate the value of United States and foreign coin. The cited text restricts what states may make legal tender; it does not impose a general gold-and-silver-only rule on Congress or require every form of money in the United States to be gold or silver.
Why it matters to ordinary people
A state-level legal-tender restriction is often sold as a complete constitutional guarantee of hard money. It is not. Treating it as one can replace the difficult work of defending people's monetary choice with a slogan the primary text does not carry.
How it is usually mis-stated
“The Constitution says all United States money must be backed by gold or silver.”
The text says nothing about a backing ratio and the gold-and-silver tender restriction is addressed to states.
“Congress is constitutionally forbidden to create anything except gold and silver coin as money.”
The reviewed clauses give Congress a coinage power and separately restrain state legal-tender action; they do not state that federal prohibition.
The primary record
Contradicts · Sep 17, 1787
Constitution of the United States: Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 and Section 10, Clause 1Article I, Section 10, Clause 1; restriction addressed to states
Qualifies · Sep 17, 1787
Constitution of the United States: Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 and Section 10, Clause 1Article I, Section 8, Clause 5; power granted to Congress
The strongest account that disagrees
The currently approved five-document Tier A corpus contains no separate source that changes the grammatical subject of Article I, Section 10 from the states to Congress. This verdict is limited to what the cited clauses expressly require and does not resolve every constitutional argument about federal monetary powers.
A claim may only be marked verified, verified with precision, or false when at least one primary record supports that verdict. Commentary and analysis, however respected, never settle a factual claim. A claim about monetary history or monetary theory may not reach a settled status until the strongest opposing account has been recorded, or until the search for one has been described and come back empty. A status change is recorded as a dated correction on the claim and every published piece that relied on it is re-checked.