the united states printed some paper currency in the colonial period and during the civil war, but they had a bad experience with it in the colonial period, and the civil war currency was just a temporary war measure. ‘bank notes’ were issued by banks, and you might get run out of town trying to pay people with them, since they became worthless if the bank went under. gen’l jackson and people like him called them ‘shinplasters’ and wouldn’t touch em with a ten foot pole

i think it wasn’t until the 1880s that the u.s. gummint began to issue paper money on a regular basis