Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1878 — How Silver was Demonetized. [ARTICLE]

How Silver was Demonetized.

Senator Thurman, of Ohio, spoke a few words in behalf of the Silver bill in reply to Judge Edmunds’ three-hour Shylock harangue against it, from which we make this extract: ' Senator after Senator had declared that the aci, of 1873 demonetized the silver dollar. It did no such thin". The silver dollar was demonetized by the Revised Statutes, but they were not intended to change any existing law. They were simply a compilation of the laws as they existed at the date of the adoption of tbo statutes. The silver dollar of 412% grains was a fu’l legal tender for all purposes, and had not been legally demonetized. The argument had been made that silver dollars were not in existence at that time, and therefore the bondholders did not expect to be paid in silver. As well might such an argument be made against gold, because there was but little of that coin in use. The Coinage act of 1873 was a step in the direction of demonetizing silver, but it was not actually demonetised until the adoption of the Revised Statutes m 1874. It had been argued that injustice would be done to those who purchased bonds since 1873 if the Government should pay its bonds in silver, but he (Mr. Thurman) would endeavor to show, when the bill itself should come up for consideration, that the payment of the bonds in silver would not do injustice to any one. The goldites try hard to conceal from the public the rascality practiced clandestinely by the statute revisers in 1874 in sneaking in a section which demonetized tbs old silver dollar,— Chicago Tribune.