The American War of Independence was financed by the various states issuing debt. The Continental Congress which had met in 1776 to issue the Declaration of Independence, also issued a paper currency called the Continental Dollar. The new debts were issued in this currency.

By the time the war ended and George Washington took office in 1789, the Continental Dollar was pretty worthless and the population were actually using Spanish pieces of eight for commerce. (I can't help wondering whether the $ sign is really meant to be an 8).

![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg/800px-Alexander_Hamilton_portrait_by_John_Trumbull_1806.jpg)

Alexander Hamilton, who was Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, proposed two solutions. An "Assumption" where the Federal government would assume the debts incurred by the states during the war, and the setting up of a central bank, known as the First Bank which would issue brand new sound currency, the US dollar which would be legal tender.

We are led to believe this was a tortuous process, but for all the heated arguing, it got resolved really fast in the Compromise of 1790, where Jefferson and Madison conceded Hamilton's idea of Assumption in return for locating the new capital city in the south. (The Southern states had initially resisted the Assumption because they had already worked to pay off their war debts, so the main beneficiary of the Assumption were what they thought of as those feckless damn yankees).

Likewise Congress legislated to set up the First Bank promptly, and it opened it's doors in 1791.

So within two years of the peace, the foundations were in place. 

Contrast with the euro: It's been in existence now since 1999, and is still no nearer fiscal consolidation. The Germans continue to rail at the feckless southerners and there isn't anything the southerners can offer as part of a deal because the capital of the eurozone is already in the north (Frankfurt where the ECB is located).

Perhaps the real reason Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson came to a compromise so quickly is that they'd spent the previous decade as comrades in arms. Whereas most of the eurozone has little effection for each other, scratch the surface and the sores of World War II still fester. There is no underlying affection or solidarity. They're locked into the euro mainly because they think that if they are separate they'll go to war. In other words the euro for formed for negative reasons not positive ones.