More than being based on shillings, dollars, etc., the "Newly" Independent America wanted their monetary system most definitely based on the .10Point Decimal System! Not only would this create a much more logical cash system, but it was a way for our Founding Fathers to completely do away w/everything relating to their European relatives altogether!

The American revolutionaries, eager to depart from the practice of European monarchies, found no charm in coins called crowns and sovereigns, bearing portraits of British monarchs. The Spanish milled dollar was a popular coin in the American colonies, but the Spanish dollar was subdivided into eight reales. In 1782 Robert Morris, U.S. superintendent of finance, sent a report to the Congress of Confederation recommending that the states coin their own money as a substitute for the medley of foreign coins then circulating, and that the state coinage systems uniformly follow a decimal system.

The reasons for preferring the decimal system were: that it was desirable that money should be increased in the decimal Ratio, by that means all calculations of Interest, exchange, insurance and the like are rendered much more simple and accurate, and of course, more within the power of the mass of people. Whenever such things require much labor, time and reflection, the greater number, who do not know, are made the dupes of the lessor number who do.

Thomas Jefferson forwarded the idea that the hundredth part of the dollar be called a cent, after the Latin word for “one hundred,” and that the tenth of the dollar be called a dime, which means “tenth’ in Latin. Alexander Hamilton incorporated these ideas into his Report on the Establishment of a Mint, and the Coinage Act of 1792 called for the adoption of a decimal currency system in the United States. Because the Russian currency system made use of coins outside the decimal system, the United States can boast of the first completely decimal currency system.

The arguments favoring the decimal system impressed the revolutionary imagination of France, and on 7 October 1793 the French revolutionary government replaced the coinage system of the Bourbon dynasty with a decimal currency system. In 1795 the French revolutionary government changed the name of the livre to the franc, which equaled the sum of 100 centimes.

The conquest of Napoleon helped launch the decimal system in Europe, where it spread rapidly during the nineteenth century. England held out until 1971, becoming one of the last countries to adopt a decimal currency system. A pound now equals 100 pence, instead of 240 pence.

Though, still in 1814, there were many types of currencies still being used throughout America, the new system based totally on the .10 Decimal System was the one that was slowly becoming the sole monetary system of the entire country. Of course, this NEW System was to include the dollar, the cent, the dime, etc.

Hope this helps!