>>8254564 moar from https://deanclancy.com/the-constitutions-seven-money-clauses/
Definition: ‘Regulate the Value’
The term ‘power to regulate the value thereof,’ with respect to ‘coined’ money, means simply the power to adjust the amount of gold in U.S. gold coins, in order to keep both gold and silver money in circulation — that is, to counteract Gresham’s Law. (Indeed, because of the Legal Tender Clause, this is not just a power but a duty.) Additionally this power allows Congress to adjust the Mint exchange rates of foreign specie coins vis-à-vis their U.S. equivalents. Importantly, this power does not allow Congress to arbitrarily redefine the value of the dollar any way it pleases.
Definition: ‘Currency’
The term ‘currency,’ as I use it here, is synonymous with banknotes — paper money. When banknotes are backed by specie or some other commodity, they may be regarded as honest money. When unbacked by anything of value, I call them ‘fiat money.’ The Constitution refers to fiat money as ‘bills of credit.’
Definition: ‘Legal Tender’
The term ‘legal tender’ means a specific kind of coin or currency that the government requires creditors to accept in payment of debts. (‘Public’ debts can refer to government taxes, fines, and the like.) Under the Constitution, only gold and silver coins may be required to be used as legal tender (‘a tender in payment of debts’). Today in the United States, legal tender is statutorily defined as all coins and currency issued by the United States Treasury or the Federal Reserve System, including fiat money coins and notes. As we shall see when we get to the term ‘fiat money,’ this definition exceeds Congress’s power under the Constitution. The existing legal tender law (31 U.S.C. 5103), first passed in 1862, declares Federal Reserve Notes to be legal tender. But such notes are not legal tender in the constitutional sense, because they are fiat money and bills of credit, which the Constitution forbids.
The Founders intended that only gold and silver coins, and notes freely redeemable in and fully backed by such coins, may serve as legal tender in the United States. And they put this intention into the constitutional text. Therefore, honest money is not just a good idea, it’s the law!
Definition: ‘Fiat Money’
The term ‘fiat money’ means currency with legal-tender status that is not backed by anything of value.
Fiat money retains its value only so long as its users have confidence that its issuer (the government) will faithfully repay its debts. When that confidence evaporates, fiat money begins to lose value and can even becomes worthless.
The Supreme Court, in its famous Legal Tender and Gold Clause Cases, ruled that Congress has ‘plenary power’ to issue fiat money and dictate its value, pursuant to its power to ‘regulate the value’ of foreign and domestic coin. This interpretation is erroneous. Congress has no such ‘plenary’ power. Its power to regulate the value of gold and silver coins is a limited power that exists for the limited purpose of ensuring that both kinds of coin remain in circulation, that is, to counteract Gresham’s Law.
In these famous rulings, the Court made the incorrect assumption that the people had endowed their federal government with attributes of ‘national sovereignty’ like those found in European governments. That assumption has no grounding in the constitutional text and turns the American Revolution on its head. The whole point of the Revolution, indeed its greatest achievement, was to deny the existence of ‘sovereignty’ in the ‘rulers’ and recognize it in the people, considered as individuals. ‘All men are created equal’ — even you, King George! From which it follows that government must be by consent, and the power of the rulers (understood as the people’s servants) must be limited. Congress’s powers are of course limited in myriad ways. Among these are the five monetary rules that derive from the Constitution’s seven money clauses.
To be absolutely clear (for the true pedant), the Constitution does permit paper currency to serve as legal tender. But that currency must be backed by gold or silver coin. /6