metal, which their fathers
once possessed; which the subjects of European kings now possess;
which the citizens of the young republics to the south all possess;
which even the free negroes of San Domingo possess; but of which
the yeomanry of America have been deprived for more than twenty
years, and will be deprived forever, unless they discover the cause
of the evil and apply the remedy to its root."

By the act of 1834, superadded to by the act of 1837, the ratio of
sixteen to one instead of fifteen to one was adopted. The result
was that gold coins were largely introduced and circulated; but as
sixteen ounces of silver were worth more than one ounce of gold,
the silver coins disappeared, except the depreciated silver coin
of other countries, then a legal tender. To correct this evil,
Congress, on the 21st of February, 1853, provided for the purchase
of silver bullion by the government, to be coined by it and not
for the owners of the bullion. That was the first time the government
had ever undertaken to buy bullion for coinage purposes. It provided
for the purchase of silver bullion and the coinage of subsidiary
silver coins at the ratio of less than fifteen to one. No mention
was made of the dollar in the act of 1853. It had fallen into
disuse and when coined was exported, being more valuable as bullion
than as coin.

As the value of the minor coins was less that gold at the coinage
ratio, they were limited as a legal tender to five dollars in any
one payment. They were, in fact, a subsidiary coin made on government
account, and, from their convenience and necessity, were maintained
in circulation. They were similar to the coins now in use, revived
and re-enacted by the resumption act of 1875.

It was not the intention of the framers of this law to demonetize
silver, because they were openly avowed bimetallists, but it limited
coinage to silver bought by the government at market price. They
saw, in this expedient, a way in which silver could be more generally
utilized than in any other. Mr. R. M. T. Hunter, an avowed
bimetallist, in a report to the United States Senate, said:

"The mischief would be great indeed if all the world were to adopt
but one of the precious metals as the standard of value. To adopt
gold alone would diminish the specie currency more than one-half;
and the reduction the other way, should silver be taken as the only
standard, would be large enough to prove highly disastrous to