Definition
SPECIE has two related but distinct legal meanings that researchers must distinguish by context.
1. Coined money. Specie refers to metallic currency — coin of the precious metals, typically gold or silver — stamped by government authority with a designated weight, fineness, and value. It is the physical, intrinsic-value form of money, as opposed to paper currency, banknotes, or other fiduciary instruments.
2. Performance in specie. When used in connection with contracts or obligations, "in specie" (or "performance in specie") means performance strictly according to the exact terms agreed upon — in the very thing or manner specified, not a substitute or equivalent. A court ordering specific performance is ordering performance in specie.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Specie" in ordinary usage refers to money in the form of coins made from precious metal with intrinsic value — essentially the same as the primary legal meaning. The Latin phrase "in specie" is also noted in the sense of type or kind.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's traces the word to the Latin ablative of species (sort, kind), and explains "in specie" as meaning "in kind," "specifically," or "in its own form." Webster's illustrates the phrase with both general usage and the legal sense of exact contractual performance.
The gap worth flagging: In ordinary modern English, "specie" almost always means coined precious-metal money, full stop. The contractual sense — performance in specie — is a legal term of art that has no real foothold in common English usage today. A researcher encountering "in specie" in a historical commercial or equity document must determine which meaning is operative. The two senses are related (both involve receiving the very thing, not a substitute), but the context — monetary transactions versus contractual obligations — is decisive.
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Common Confusion
SPECIE vs. SPECIES: These are not interchangeable. "Species" is the nominative Latin form; "specie" is an ablative form used in fixed phrases (in specie). Modern legal writers sometimes incorrectly write "species" where "specie" is intended. In zoological and statutory contexts (e.g., the Endangered Species Act), "species" is the correct and unrelated term.
SPECIE vs. CURRENCY: In historical monetary law, specie and currency were deliberately contrasted. Currency encompassed banknotes, Treasury notes, and other paper instruments; specie referred exclusively to metallic coin. This distinction carried enormous legal weight during periods when paper money's enforceability was in dispute — particularly around Civil War-era legal tender controversies.
SPECIE vs. SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE: Performance in specie and the doctrine of specific performance are related conceptually but are not synonyms. Performance in specie emphasizes strict adherence to exact contractual terms. Specific performance is the equitable remedy a court may order. Not every instance of "specific performance" involves the phrase "in specie," and historical usage of "in specie" in equity documents should not automatically be read as invoking the modern equitable remedy doctrine.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term does real navigational work in two distinct bodies of historical law, and conflating them causes research errors.
In monetary and commercial law research, specie appears most heavily in sources from the colonial period through the late nineteenth century. The legal status of specie payments — whether a debtor could satisfy an obligation in paper notes rather than coin — was a central controversy in American constitutional and commercial law. The suspension of specie payments by banks, specie payment resumption acts, and the enforceability of gold clauses in contracts are all live research threads in this period. Researchers working in antebellum banking law, Reconstruction-era monetary debates, or early federal fiscal policy will encounter "specie" constantly and need to understand the legal stakes of the specie/paper distinction.
In equity and contract law research, "performance in specie" appears in chancery records, equity treatises, and contract documents across both English and American jurisdictions. When reading historical equity opinions or pleadings, the phrase signals that a party is demanding the exact thing bargained for — land, a specific chattel, a particular act — not damages. This sense connects directly to research on the development of specific performance as an equitable remedy.
Historical sources do not always distinguish the two meanings cleanly. A document referencing "payment in specie" in a commercial context means coin; the same phrase in an equity pleading may mean strict performance. Vocabulary has drifted: twentieth-century legal sources use "specie" primarily in the monetary sense, while the contractual sense has largely been absorbed into the language of specific performance without retaining the "in specie" phrasing.
Researchers should also be alert to jurisdictional nuance: English equity sources treat "in specie" in the contractual sense more extensively than most American sources, which adopted the terminology unevenly.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries converge on the monetary definition but handle the contractual sense unevenly.
Black's first edition leads with the monetary definition (metallic coin of weight, fineness, and government stamp) and only gestures toward the contractual meaning in passing, noting that "performance in specie" means strictly according to exact terms. The second edition expands the monetary definition with case citations and adds slightly more substance to the "in specie" contractual note — though the treatment remains brief. Anderson's Dictionary focuses entirely on the monetary definition, characterizing specie as metallic money issued by public authority and explicitly contrasting it with paper money, without addressing the contractual sense at all.
None of the historical dictionaries gives the contractual sense of "in specie" the depth it warrants given how frequently the phrase appears in equity practice. Researchers relying solely on these sources for the contractual meaning will find inadequate guidance. For that sense, treatises on equity jurisprudence and specific performance will be more instructive than any of the standard legal dictionaries of this period.
The historical sources agree in treating specie as a term anchored to precious-metal coinage — there is no significant divergence among them on that point. What they collectively underemphasize is the degree to which the specie/paper distinction was legally contested and consequential throughout the nineteenth century, not merely a definitional matter.
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Jurisdictional Note
The legal significance of specie was felt most acutely in American federal law during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, when the constitutionality of paper legal tender was litigated to the Supreme Court. English law developed the "in specie" contractual usage more extensively in equity jurisprudence, and researchers working in cross-Atlantic commercial or equity sources should expect some terminological asymmetry between English and American usage.
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