A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U.S. Having been current for over 100 years, they were issued for longer than any other form of U.S. paper money. They were known popularly as "greenbacks" in their heyday, a name inherited from the Demand Notes that they replaced in 1862. Often called Legal Tender Notes, they were called United States Notes by the First Legal Tender Act, which authorized them as a form of fiat currency. During the 1860's the so-called second obligation on the reverse of the notes stated:
This Note is Legal Tender for All Debts Public and Private Except Duties On Imports And Interest On The Public Debt; And Is Redeemable In Payment Of All Loans Made To The United States.
They were originally issued directly into circulation by the U.S. Treasury to pay expenses incurred by the Union during the American Civil War. Over the next century, the legislation governing these notes was modified many times and numerous versions have been issued by the Treasury.
United States Notes that were issued in the large-size format, before 1929, differ dramatically in appearance when compared to modern American currency, but those issued in the small-size format, starting in 1929, are very similar to contemporary Federal Reserve Notes with the highly visible distinction of having red U.S. Treasury Seals and serial numbers in place of green ones.
Existing United States Notes remain valid currency in the United States. However, since no United States Notes have been issued since January 1971, they are vanishingly rare in circulation.
Read more about United States Note: Comparison To Federal Reserve Notes, Characteristics, Public Debt of The United States, Politics and Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or note:
“Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)