The Federal Reserve Act ended gold redeemability.
Last checked · Aug 27, 2026
What the record actually says
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did not end gold redeemability. Section 16 authorized Federal Reserve notes as obligations of the United States, made them receivable by banks and for federal dues, and required redemption in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at a Federal Reserve bank.
Why it matters to ordinary people
Calling 1913 the instant birth of irredeemable money hides two different changes: centralizing note issuance and later closing monetary exit through gold. People lost different rights at different times, and the timeline matters when judging who acquired veto power over money.
How it is usually mis-stated
“The Federal Reserve made the dollar irredeemable fiat money in 1913.”
The original Act centralized a new note mechanism but Section 16 still required gold redemption on demand.
“Federal Reserve notes were unbacked paper from their first issue.”
The enacted 1913 text required collateral and a gold reserve as well as redemption; later monetary changes must be analyzed separately.
The primary record
Contradicts · Dec 23, 1913
Federal Reserve Act of 1913Section 16, 38 Stat. 265; Federal reserve note receivability and redemption
The strongest account that disagrees
The verdict is confined to what the enacted 1913 statute required. The approved Tier A corpus contains no source disputing Section 16's express gold-redemption language; later suspensions, amendments and current legal-tender rules are outside this claim.
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.