Washington established a phony silver standard (like the phony gold standard during the first 20 years of the Fed) and it was in effect until Jefferson ended it (in 1807 or 1808 IIRC). However, there is something I don't understand... did he just have the central bank print money that was legal tender, or was it not legal tender?
I'm asking because I'm not sure what the purpose of the act was and I can't find anything about it, other than "that he ended the silver standard". I know that one year before he suspended the phony silver standard, he had signed an act that allowed the Spanish milled dollar to be used or something like that.
By 1811, FBUS was gone, and I assume Madison used greenbacks (i.e., U.S. Notes) for the war of 1812. The phony silver standard wasn't reinstated until Monroe was President and it lasted until Jackson issued his specie circular which made him the first president who enacted true hard money policies Pierce ruined it when he signed into law the Coinage Act of 1857.
Without opening a few books I cannot answer this exactly. (I can't do that until later.)
But, most of the U.S. metals history is various administrations banning the importation of various silver and gold coins from various places around the world.
I found this.
I've been thinking about this for a long time, and Jefferson's repeal of the Silver Standard Act was to legalize competing currencies... it phased out FBUS and it emptied the central banking system of its silver because it would be spent into circulation.
I can only conclude that he was different than Jackson on monetary issues, because Jackson favored the govt collecting revenues in gold, Jefferson favored the govt printing its own money but did not favor any national centralization of monetary power.
John Tyler actually had the best and most finalized solution to the issue... he favored the States holding the federal govt's money (when he got rid of the Independent Treasury System, he ended the Jacksonian Democrats' ban on free market fiduciary media) over the ITS, or at least the "pet banks" was what was automatically reverted to when he got rid of the ITS. However, Polk re-established the Independent Treasury and then Pierce finally paved the way for the greenback system when he nationalized gold coinage... the Panic of 1857 was largely due to the inflation and the govt having a surplus of gold in the Independent Treasury created by the national gold tender legislation signed by Pierce.
All of that said, the Articles of Confederation was better on money than the Constitution is... the State has a loophole in that it can create war when it doesn't want to allow free market money. The Constitution inherently doesn't allow for free market money (at least not for long) and that's a huge problem.