It is a well-known fact that in countries in which the national debt is properly funded, and an object of established confidence, it answers most of the purposes of money. Transfers of stock, or public debt, are there equivalent to payments in specie; or, in other words, stock, in the principal transactions of business, passes current as specie. The same thing would, in all probability, happen here, under the like circumstances.

Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, Prepared in Obedience to the Act of the 10th May, 1800 (ed. 1828)