Copper Quotes
Jefferson was worried that the Federal Government would get too expansive and justify almost any activity using the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. In this example, he goes from the responsibility for National Defense which is clearly Federal down to the hiring of the miners to produce the copper to arm the ships and shipbuilding which he thought were NOT legitimate Federal activities. He was right in the sense that the Commerce Clause did justify major Federal expansion, but at the times of the expansions and now most Americans thought that the expansions were useful and necessary. Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were on opposite sides of the degree of expansion that was desirable.
This coin was by this law to be a silver coin of a certain weight. However, in the Civil War, the Union was short of silver and started making the coins in an alloy of copper and nickel and were then called “nickels” to differentiate them from the half-dimes. We never went back to silver nickels and they remain with us today.
This was one of the first Canadian political concerns about a multinational corporation and its patriotism and duty to its home nation and region. International Nickel Company was selling Canadian Copper and Nickel to Germany, Italy and other enemies. This is an old story. In America, New England merchants sold beef and other produce to the British during the War of 1812. While America was arming England at the beginning of WWII, IBM was supplying and servicing strategic data processing equipment through its European subsidiaries. A few American companies sold strategic materials to Iraq when they were working on weapons of mass destruction at the beginning of the 21st century. However, International Nickel was one of the first real Multinational Companies which fundamentally had no loyalty to any nation.
