lars, issued prior
to 1853, was $2,553,000. Subsequent to 1853, and until it was
dropped from our coinage in 1873, the total amount issued was
$5,492,838, and this was almost exclusively for exportation.

By the coinage act approved February 12, 1873, fractional silver
coins were authorized, similar in general character to the coins
of 1853, but with a slight increase in silver in them, to make them
conform exactly to the French coinage, and the old dollar was
replaced by the trade dollar of 420 grains of standard silver.

Much complaint had been made that this was done with the design of
depriving the people of the privilege of paying their debts in a
cheaper money than gold, but it was manifest that this was an error.
No one then did or could foresee the subsequent fall in the market
value of silver. The silver dollar was an unknown coin to the
people, and was not in circulation even on the Pacific slope, where
coin was in common use. The trade dollar of 420 grains was
substituted for the silver dollar of 4121/2 grains because it was
believed that it was better adapted to supersede the Mexican dollar
in the Chinese trade, and experiment proved this to be true. Since
the trade dollar was authorized $30,710,400 had been issued, or
nearly four times the entire issue of old silver dollars since the
foundation of the government. Had not the coinage act of 1873
passed, the United States would have been compelled to suspend the
free coinage of silver dollars, as the Latin nations were, or to
accept silver as the sole coin standard of value.

Since February, 1873, great changes had occurred in the market
value of silver. Prior to that time the silver in the old dollar
was worth more than a gold dollar, while it was worth then, in
1877, about 92 cents. If by law any holder of silver bullion might
deposit in the mint and demand a full legal tender dollar for every
4121/2 grains of standard silver deposited, the result would be
inevitable that as soon as the mints could supply the demand the
silver dollar would, by a financial law as fixed and invariable as
the law of gravitation, become the only standard of value. All
forms of paper money would fall to that standard or below it, and
gold would be demonetized and quoted at a premium equal to its
value in the markets of the world. For a time the run to deposit
bullion at the mint would give to silver an artificial value, of
which the holders and producers of silver b