Regarding the first question, at issue was not the federal government's right to coin or originate US money. Rather, the constitutional issue was and still is that, through the Federal Reserve Act, the federal government purported to delegate its power to create U.S. money to the private banks that comprise the Federal Reserve System. In delegating that power, Congress (and, by the 1980s, the Fed itself) lost control over the money supply, the quantity of which determines the value or purchasing power of any unit thereof. Thus, the argument goes, Congress is no longer able to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to the public to regulate the value of our money, the vast majority of which private banks (and, by the 2000s, shadow banks) create through private-interest-bearing debt.