PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. go 



A few merchants in California and New York, however, had occa- 

 sion to use small quantities of these dollars for export to China, 

 and to a very small extent to some of the small colonies of the 

 West Indies, and even to South America. Hence the mint re- 

 ports show the coinage of a few hundred thousand silver dollars 

 each year from 1841 to 1873. In revising the coinage laws it 

 was considered advisable to omit the old silver dollar from the 

 list of coins and substitute the trade dollar, which was slightly 

 heavier and more valuable, and which would be received much 

 more freely by the Chinese, thus giving a good market for some 

 of the silver from the western mines. The new trade dollars 

 were made legal tender only to the amount of five dollars, and 

 thus the silver dollar as money of unlimited tender, and as a 

 standard of value, disappeared from the statute book. 



The amount and energetic character of the denunciation which 

 has been fulminated against the authors of the action which 

 definitively abolished the silver dollar is something amazing. 

 Never was denunciation more unreasonable and unjustifiable. 

 It was dropped because it was obsolete ; nobody had any use 

 for it except a few merchants dealing with China ; and for their 

 especial accommodation the trade dollar was provided and proved 

 to be a much more desirable article. Its omission from the list 

 of coins had at the time no more significance than the omission 

 to provide for any other thing which had ceased to be functional. 

 It was said to have been demonetized by stealth. That it 

 attracted no attention at the time is doubtless true. Why should 

 it have attracted attention ? It had no more importance as to 

 existing facts than the omission to provide for the coining of old 

 Hebrew shekels or Roman sesterces. It is said that it " took 

 away a right and a privilege." What right ; and what privilege ? 

 Was it the I'ight and privilege of sending silver to the mint to 

 be coined into dollars worth three per cent, less as money than 

 as bullion in order to pay debts with them ? A man who wanted 

 such a privilege or demanded such a right would then have stood 

 in need of a supervisor. The mints had been open to the world 

 for forty years, and it is not probable that a single humap being 

 had in that time sent a pound of silver there to be turned into 

 dollars for purposes of legal tender. No — : this was not what 

 was desired. The privilege which was withheld was the pri- 

 vilege of paying with silver, debts which had been contracted 

 in gold, after silver had fallen from twelve to twenty per cent, in 

 value. The equity, morality, and policy of attempting to enfoi'ce 

 such payments will be discussed presently. 



The fall in the gold price of silver within the last six years is 

 undoubtedly the most remarkable event in the history of the 

 precious metals. The causes are now tolerably well known, viz : 

 the demonetization of silver by the European nations, the inability 

 of India to absorb its usual annual supply, and the greatly in- 

 creased production of the American mines. It is claimed by 



