<span>In 1832, President Andrew Jackson refused to re-charter the Bank of the United States, opting instead to deposit government funds in select state or “pet' banks. The state banks, facing little regulation, freely loaned paper money to virtually anyone who asked for it. A flurry of land speculation and inflation followed. To curtail these alarming trends, Jackson issued the Species Circular on July 11, 1836. The executive order meant that federal land could no longer be bought with paper money, but only with gold or silver. In Jackson's view, this “hard' money was the only currency that could be trusted.</span>
