Central banking in the United States has a long and controversial history dating back to the earliest days of the republic. One of the most widely presented arguments against a central bank has been that the U.S. Constitution does not expressly grant the federal government power to charter a bank. Recently, this issue has received new scrutiny in response to the actions taken by the Federal Reserve System to address the financial crisis of 2007-09: lending more than $1.5 trillion to financial institutions, buying $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities to stabilize the economy, and implementing other nontraditional forms of monetary policy. The authors briefly examine the early days of central banking in the United States and use that discussion as a basis to understand the Fed today, especially the characteristics of political independence, accountability, and constitutionality. (Contains 7 notes and 4 online resources.)