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



forces should join in advocacy of the dollar coinage! Here, under the 

 semblance of patriotism, the grudge and envy of the one, and the 

 cupidity of the other, were each promised gratification. Hence, the 

 crusade of 187G to 1878, for the restoration of the "Dollar of the 

 Fathers." 



A little digression will here be pardoned, to pay our respects to the 

 Dollar of the Fathers. The United States silver dollar was authorized 

 by the act of April, 1792, establishing the mint. It contained the 

 same quantity of pure silver as the dollar now coined under the act 

 of 1878.* But when we are truthfully told that prior to the recoin- 

 age act of February 2 s, 18;s. <1 tiring eighty-six years, the total coinage 

 of such dollar amounted only to $8,045,838;— asum insufficient, if the 

 whole eighty-six years' product is put together, to pay off a single ten 

 million U. S. bond call — that over $3,567,000 of this sum was coined 

 during the suspension of specie payment, and only three or four years 

 prior to 1873, to answer the call of owners of silver to ship the dollars 

 to China, and that since 1834, our rates of coinage have been such as 

 to offer a premium of 3 1-3 per cent for the export of these dollars to 

 the mints of the Latin Union; our veneration for the " Dollar of the 

 Fathers," is somewhat abated. The fact seems to be that the dollar 

 went into the melting pot for silver-plate, or into cabinets of coins, or 

 was exported about as fast as coined. And it may truthfully be said 

 never to have been a part of the circulation of the country, f 



The statement was made in 1877 or '78, during the discussions upon the 

 restoration of the dollar, that intelligent merchants of fifty years of age 

 could be found, who had spent their whole lives in business, and hand- 

 ling money every day, who had never seen an American Silver Dollar, 

 and did not know the coin. I have no doubt of the truth of the state- 

 ment, from my own knowledge and experience of business during the 



So much for the Dollar of our Fathers! We will now consider the 

 Dollar of the Sons! 



The coinage act of 1853, depreciating the weight, and limiting the 

 legal-tender power of the fractional silver coinage, practically estab- 

 lished the gold standard. This act left the silver dollar standing in the 

 statutes precisely as it had done. While it so existed in the statutes 



