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The Specie Circular is a United States presidential executive order issued by President Andrew Jackson on 11 July 1836 pursuant to the Coinage Act of 1834. It required payment for government land to be in gold and silver (specie). [ 1 ]
Two domestic policies exacerbated an already volatile situation. The Specie Circular of 1836 mandated that western lands could be purchased only with gold and silver coin, instead of bank loans. The circular was an executive order issued by Jackson and favored by Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and other hard-money advocates. Its intent ...
Hard money policies support a specie standard, usually gold or silver, typically implemented with representative money. In 1836, when President Andrew Jackson's veto of the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States took effect, he issued the Specie Circular, an executive order that all public lands had to be purchased with hard money.
Benton was an unflagging advocate for "hard money", that is gold coin (specie) or bullion as money—as opposed to paper money "backed" by gold as in a "gold standard". "Soft" (i.e. paper or credit) currency, in his opinion, favored rich urban Easterners at the expense of the small farmers and tradespeople of the West.
Eventually, the way that all of the government's funds were spread throughout the country because of pet banks made it so that it was near impossible to mobilize the remaining money in the specie reserves, which were the reserves of gold and silver created by the Specie Circular. [10]
Specie may refer to: Coins or other metal money in mass circulation; Bullion coins; Hard money (policy) Commodity money; Specie Circular, ...
Van Buren blamed the economic collapse on greedy American and foreign business and financial institutions, as well as the over-extension of credit by U.S. banks. Whig leaders in Congress blamed the Democrats, along with Andrew Jackson's economic policies, [156] specifically his 1836 Specie Circular. Cries of "rescind the circular!"
The Whigs attacked Jackson's specie circular and demanded recharter of the Bank. Democrats defended the circular and blamed the panic on greedy speculators. Jackson insisted that the circular was necessary because allowing land to be purchased with paper would only fuel speculator greed more, thereby worsening the crisis.