america's favorite f-words: "founding fathers"

[rone]

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

The question i have is, what does twenty 1789 dollars come out to be in today's currency?

Oh, and another question: why twenty dollars?

Comments

[rwx.livejournal.com]

i'd guess that it'd be about 450USD.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Is that an educated guess or PFA?

[rwx.livejournal.com]

educated guess. I'M A LIBERRIAN.

Althought it should be noted that there are like 10 or so different ways to compare the value of money and that's one of the common ones (consumer price index.)

If you did it through something like relative income of an average person, you'd probably get a wildly different number, probably between 8K - 10K due to the fact that most americans lived on farmishes and grew their own foodish at that point.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I salute your work, sir.