Gold, Silver and the Coinage of the Silver Dollar. 277 



The fall of Sedan, in 1870, and the capitulation of Paris to the Ger- 

 man army cost France two of her richest provinces, and a thousand 

 million dollars gold values, as ransom. Germany, with full coffers, 

 resolved to reform her monetary system and to adopt the single gold 

 standard in place of her previous standard of silver. This led her in 

 1876 to throw upon the market immense amounts of silver, the old 

 stock in circulation, which the government had redeemed with the 

 purpose of clearing up the silver coinage. France, moved no doubt by 

 resentment quite human under 1 he circumstances, closed her mint to 

 the coinage of silver; which action was followed by all the States of 

 the Latin Union. The mints of the United States were already closed 

 against the free coinage of silver, by the Coinage Act of February 12, 

 1873. There was therefore no bi-metallic nation with mints open to 

 the coinage of silver, from which Germany could procure gold in 

 exchange for it. If o other resource was open but the London market. 

 The only customer of the London market was that great absorbent of 

 all surplus silver for ages,— the Orient. But the supply exceeded the 

 demand, and the price declined in consequence. From about 60d per 

 ounce of pure silver as its usual value, the price, in 1874, ran down to 

 57id; in 1875, to 55^d; and in 1876, to 46|d— -thus in four years 

 showing a loss of more than one-fifth of its usual value. 



The commercial world was agitated by the threatened revolution. 

 Europe was alarmed. Germany slackened, and finally suspended her 

 silver sales. Brother Jonathan, with his eye to the "main chance" 

 looked about to see if the situation could not be in some manner turned 

 to his advantage. 



Two parties in the country were especially concerned i-n the issue. 

 The Greenback party had been and were active and noisy in the claim 

 that the national bonds could justly be paid in bits of printed paper 

 declaring that they were each $100 or $1,000 more or less, and that it 

 was the height of impudenee ami injustice on the part of the public 

 creditor to demand any thing better. The large interest in the 

 country connected with silver mining felt severely the decline in silver, 

 affecting seriously their "revenues. The Greenback party was able to 

 see the clear indications of defeat casting its shadow upon their hopes, 

 in the general progress of the c< umtry in preparation for the resumption 

 of specie payments. The silver mining interests were easily led to con- 

 clude that if the " Dollar of the Fathers" could be minted without 

 limit, it would aid much their silver enterprises and afford them a 

 sure market at a stable price. What more natural than that these two 



