Gold, Silver and the Coinage of the Silver Dollar. 281 



1872 — three years, called the special attention of Congress to the bill. 

 It was reported favorably in both the Senate and the House in the 

 Forty-first Congress, and was fully debated in both houses. It passed 

 the Senate by a vote of 36 to 14. 



Not becoming a law in the Forty-first Congress it was introduced 

 into the Forty-second. Mr. W. D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, was chair- 

 man of the House committee on coinage of both tho Forty-first and 

 Forty-second Congress. In introducing the bill to the Forty-second 

 Congress, he said it had "secured as careful attention as I have ever 

 known a committee to bestow on any measure." 



The bill was thus fully debated in both Houses of both Congresses,— 

 on several occasions occupying two days together. It was printed for 

 the use of Congress no less than eleven times and twice further in 

 reports of the comptroller of the currency. The fact of its dropping 

 the coinage of the silver dollar was frequently alluded to in debate, but 

 no member of Congress expressed dissent.* It passed in the House of 

 Representatives with but thirteen negative votes on the 27th of May, 

 1872. It was not passed in the Senate until the 17th of January, 1873, 

 and then Avith some amendment not concurred in by the House which 

 led to a committee of conference, and its final passage was delayed 

 until the 12th of February, 1873 — nearly nine months after its second 

 passage in the House, and after having been before Congress for three 



Notwithstanding the complete and overwhelming refutation which 

 the facts give to the charge of surreptitious and secret passage of this 

 act, the charge is still repeated and is widely believed. So intelligent 

 and able a writer as Judge Robert W. Hughes, of the United States 

 District Court of Virginia, in a recent work on the silver question says: 

 < When passed, the act was not read except by its title, and it is 

 notorious that this transcendent change in the money system of the 

 country, affecting its most vital interests, was carried through Congress 

 without the knowledge or observation of the country." J 



It has become the custom of the advocates of the continued coinage 



* The bill was frequently considered by the Finance Committee of the Senate 

 and the Coinage Committee of the House, during five different sessions of Congress. 

 It was repeatedly read in full in both Houses. The debates upon it in the Senate 



seventy d eiffht*eolw:,;ri-- II. V. !'.....- Resumption and the Silver Question, p. 121. 

 See also Upton', Monev in Politic. ,, .-. 



f For full history of the origin and the action of Congress upon the bill which 

 became the Coinage Act ..t tic- 12th <>t tVhruarv. 1*7:5. see report of the Comp- 

 Carr ' - l*7i! ' -»S 55 and pp 1(50-165. 



t The American Dollar. By Robt. W. Hughes, Richmond, Va., p. 74. 



