Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I write in response to an editorial in the Jan. 31 issue of the Gazette-Journal, titled "It’s tin-foil hat time, again." It paints Del. Bob Marshall as a conspiracy theorist for proposing a state currency of coins minted from precious metals. This currency would be used for settlement of state transactions.

The author should have known that there are 12 other states proposing the same thing. Yet he goes on to say that the last time Virginia printed its own money, Jefferson Davis was president. Del. Marshall never proposed printing money because the Constitution prohibits that. What he proposed was the minting of coins, which is permitted by the Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wallace) 71, 76-78 (1869) and Hagar v. Reclamation District No. 108, 111 U.S. 701, 706 (1884), that the United States may adopt whatever currency they desire for the purpose of performing their sovereign governmental functions, ...