Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1885 — Coin Standards of the United States. [ARTICLE]

Coin Standards of the United States.

The coinage law of 1792 provided for three gold coins, the eagle, half-eagle, and quarter eagle. It provided for the silver dollar as above mentioned,which was to weigh 416 grains, and be "the unit of Federal money.” In 1837 a code of mint laws, drawn by Mr. E. M. Patterson, the director of the mint, and adopted by Con press, reducing the weight of the silver dollar to 412-J grains, and the smaller silver coins in proportion, and for both metals the standard of fineness used in the mint of France was adopted. The gold dollar was first coined under the act of Congress passed March 3, 1840. By an act of February 21, 1853, an important change was made in our coinage. By the laws (previously existing both the gold and silver except the 3cent pieces) were a legal»tender to any amount. At the ratio of silver to gqld of 16 to 1, silver was of less value in the United States than in Europe, and our silver coins were exported in large quantities. To prevent this the act mentioned placed a seignorage, or mint tax upon silver, reduced the halfdollar and smaller coins in weight) and took from the subsidiary silver coins their legal tender quality excepting in small amounts. The silver dollar of 4121 grains was not included in this change. The mint was no longer to eoin silver for individuals, but to purchase the metal at its market price and manufacture coins, on • government account. The effect of this change was to give to the silver coin of this country a current value sufficiently above its'market price as bullion to prevent its exportation, and at the same time to make silver money subsidiary to gold. The silver dollar, however, .being still legal tender to any amount, and being heavier than a dollar’s worth of small coins, stood at a premium of from 103 to 105. By the coinage act of 1873, prepared under the direction ofJohu J. Knox, Comptroller of the Currency, the coinage of the silver dollar of 4124 grains was dropped, and in its place was substituted the dollar of 420 grains, called the "trade dollar,” since it was intended only for the convenience of our trade with Mexico and the Central American States, China, and Japan,and was never much used in this country excepting on the Pacific coast. The act o 1875 also provided that Silver money should only be a “legal tender at its’nominal value for any amount not exceeding $5 in any one payment” Thia restriction, together with the

omission of the old silver dollars from the list of authorized coins, resulted in the demonetization of of which so much was said when its effects began to be understood. By the “silver bill" of 1877 the dollar of 412| grains was restored to the coinage and again made legal tender. In using the word “standard" in the article to which our querist above refers we had reference simply to the fact that gold, having the highest bullion value of the two metals. would naturally regulate the value of silver as bullion. As coin, silver and gold are of equal value, $1 in gold being exchangeable for $1 in silver at any time—or either of them for $1 in paper—as legal tender of the United States.— lnter Ocean.