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MONEY - THEN AND NOW Installment X Andrew Jackson & The Mint in New Orleans
My favorite presidents are
Cyrus Griffin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson,
Jefferson Davis and Grover Cleveland. All were strong defenders
of liberty and fought against large central governments. Griffin
was very doubtful that the new constitution would work and insisted
on the bill of rights in order to guard against consolidation
of federal power (How did he know what would happen?). The New Orleans mint was authorized by Jackson in 1835 along with two other smaller Southern mints in North Carolina and Georgia. All three Southern mints struck coins until the War Between the States began. Coinage was always in short supply early in our country's history. The dollar value of silver as defined in the coinage act 1792 was based on the weight of silver in the Spanish milled dollar. The Spanish Dollar was cut into 1/8th pieces or bits for small change. Even today a quarter is sometimes referred to as two bits. The mint was supposed to put more honest coinage into circulation with less dependence on paper money issued by the banks. As late as 1857 foreign coinage was freely circulated in the US along side of US coins because of the shortage of US coins. Until that time the US congress issued various acts authorizing the legal value of foreign coins. In 1857 congress repealed all acts granting legal tender status to any and all foreign coins. The New Orleans mint not only had an interesting beginning but an interesting life as well. Construction was completed
on the New Orleans facility and minting was started in 1838.
The New Orleans mint was operated as a branch mint under the
Philadelphia mint and struck gold and silver coins. Several apartments
were located in the mint building where the superintendent and
other officers of the mint resided. When Louisiana seceded in
January 1861 the State of Louisiana declared itself an independent
sovereign nation and seized the federal forts, lighthouses, customhouses
and the mint. A few months later in March the State of Louisiana
accepted the constitution of the Confederate States of America.
At that time the State of Louisiana signed over use of all the
forts, lighthouses, customhouses and the mint to the newly formed
CSA government. The assay office was reopened in the mint building in 1876 and minting coins was resumed in 1879 and continued until 1909. During that time the New Orleans mint struck coins for foreign governments as well as US coins and US "trade dollars." In 1911 all of the equipment was boxed up and shipped to the Philadelphia mint. The assay office continued on in the old mint building until 1931 when it was moved into the custom house to take advantage of their new vault. The treasury finally closed the New Orleans assay office for good in the 1950's. The old mint building was converted to a federal prison from 1931 to 1943. Afterwards, in 1943 it was used by the Coast Guard for the next 20 years as a receiving station. Around the mid 1960s the feds had finally decided the old building had nothing left to give so they finally donated it to the State of Louisiana almost 100 years after the State had seized it from the feds after secession. In 1979 it was opened to the public as a museum and in the past few years new exhibits were added making the old New Orleans mint a first class museum and preserving an important part of our Southern heritage. You can find out more about the museum at their website. The other two Southern mints never reopened after the war. In 1870 the Carson City mint was organized and operated until 1893. The Denver mint was organized in 1906 shortly before the New Orleans mint was closed for good which ending all minting operations in the South. In the end the Eastern banks
won and all minting operations now (with the exception of a small
number of Silver and Gold Eagle coins) are simply tokens for
small change. Not only did paper win out over specie - but completely
unbacked fiat paper at that. 321gold Inc |
