nd actively
supported the bill, was thoroughly refuted.

Senator Beck, chafed by his defeat, on the 13th of March made in
the Senate a three hours' speech in support of his position.
Instead of going to the public records and showing by them whether
or not the law was put through the Senate in a secret way, he quoted
what several Senators and Members said they did not know, what
Grant did not know, a mode of argument that if of effect would
invalidate the great body of the legislation of Congress.

I replied in a speech occupying less than half an hour, producing
the original bill as it came from the treasury department with the
dollar omitted from the silver coins, with the report of the
Secretary of the Treasury calling attention to its omission, and
the opinion of Knox, LInderman, Patterson, Elliott, all of whom
were prominent officers of the treasury department in charge of
currency and coinage, giving fully the reasons why the old silver
dollar was omitted. I also quoted from the records of each House
of Congress, showing that special attention was called to the
omission of the old silver dollar by Mr. Hooper, having charge of
the bill. The House of Representatives, in compliance with the
advice of Comptroller Knox, did authorize in its bill, which it
passed, a subsidiary dollar containing 384 grains of standard
silver, the same weight as two half dollars, but these dollars
were, like the subsidiary fractional coins, a legal tender for only
five dollars. When this bill came to the Senate it was thoroughly
debated. The legislature of California petitioned Congress for a
silver dollar weighing more than the Mexican dollar instead of the
subsidiary dollar provided for by the House. In compliance with
this petition, the Senate so amended the bill as to authorize the
owner of silver bullion to deposit the same at any mint, to be
formed into bars or into dollars of the weight of 420 grains,
designated as "trade dollars." These dollars were intended solely
for the foreign trade, and were worth in the market only the value
of 420 grains of standard silver. It was the dollar desired by
the silver producing states, and but for the rapid decline in the
price of silver, which made this dollar worth less than its face
in gold, the mint would probably be coining them to-day; but before
the mint was closed to their coinage more than 35,000,000 pieces
had been made. No unprejudiced persons could claim that the charges