Revised Statutes of the United States
be, and hereby is, amended to read as follows:

"The silver coins of the United States, except the trade dollar,
shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not
exceeding five dollars in any one payment."

This simple bill was made the text of a long debate in the Senate
that continued during the greater part of that session. The
provision that "the trade dollar shall not hereafter be a legal
tender" was transferred to the joint resolution already mentioned
which became a law on the 22nd of July.

In my speech on Mr. Sargent's bill I said:

"This bill proposes to restore the old silver dollar, and with it
and the subsidiary coins of the United States to redeem the United
States notes and fractional currency. The dollar to be restored
is the same dollar that had existed from 1792 to 1873; and the
subsidiary coins to be issued are the same in form and value as
have been issued since 1853. I have already stated in my remarks,
made on the 11th of April last, the history of these silver coins
and the relation of silver and gold to each other, not only in the
United States, but in the countries with which we have the most
extensive commercial relations.

"The two main questions are:

* * * * *

"First. Shall silver coin be exchanged for United States notes as
well as for fractional currency? And,

"Second. Is it wise to recoin the old silver dollar with a view
to exchange it for United States notes?"

In this speech I favored the restoration of the silver dollar of
the precise character and description of the dollar that existed
from 1792 to 1873, but, as the market value of the silver in this
dollar had greatly fallen, I insisted that the dollar should be
coined from bullion purchased by the government at market price,
so that the people of the United States would receive the difference
between the cost of the bullion and the face value of the coin,
the same principle that was adopted in what is known as the Bland-
Allison act of 1878. I did not, however, propose the full legal
tender quality that was given to the dollar by the act when adopted,
but that it should be placed among the other silver coins, and be
a legal tender only for twenty dollars.

The plan proposed by me was to set aside a portion of the surplus
revenue or sinking fund of each year applicable to the payment of
the public debt, for the purchase of silver bullion to be coined
int