The most important measure of property for Americans is the dollar — and we let it float.

The creation of the dollar, and the status of the dollar as legal tender, is a matter of fiat.

Its value is adjusted by the mandarins at the Federal Reserve, depending on variables they only somtimes share with the rest of the world.

The framer’s of the Constituion, who granted Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value, would be floored by the existence and workings of the Fed.

At the Second United States Congress, they set the value of the dollar at 371-1/8 grains of pure silver in the Coinage Act of 1792. The law said a dollar also could be the free-market equivalent in gold.

In contrast, the Fed could care less about how many grains of silver or gold are behind the dollar.

During a recent plunge, the dollar was valued at less than 1/1400th an ounce of gold.

The failure to maintain a steady value behind the dollar on the federal level, has prompted stirrings by some states to set up a commitee to study the question of how they can set up monetary systems based on gold and silver coins.

Constancy has value and the return to a gold standard is overdue.