however, so great was the then disparity in value between gold and
silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, Congress did not venture to give back to
the white metal the right of free coinage, but instead required the
Secretary of the Treasury to purchase monthly not less than $2,000,000
worth of silver and coin it into dollars.

The act was disapproved by President Hayes, but immediately passed over
his veto, February 28, 1878. The advocates of gold monometallism
believed that the issue of these dollars would speedily drive gold from
the country. Owing to the limitation of the new coinage no such effect
was experienced, and the silver dollars, or the certificates
representing them, floated at par with gold, which, indeed, far from
leaving the country, was imported in vast amounts nearly every year.
After 1880 the money in circulation in the United States was gold coin,
silver coin gold certificates, greenbacks or United States notes, and
the notes of the national banks. The so-called Sherman Law, of 1890,
added a new category, the treasury notes issued in payment for silver
bullion. It stopped the compulsory coinage of full-tender silver, though
continuing and much increasing the purchase of silver bullion by the
Government. The repeal of the purchase clause of this law, in 1893, put
an end to the acquisition of silver by the United States.

[1879]

January 1, 1879, the next year after the silver bill was passed, the
United States, under the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, began again
the payment, which had been suspended ever since 1862, of specie in
liquidation of greenbacks. The possibility of this had been under
discussion for some years, and was disbelieved in by many thoughtful
financiers and public men. The credit of the momentous step was mostly
due to John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinet of
President Hayes. He believed resumption to be as possible as it was
important. By the sale of 4-1/2 per cent. bonds redeemable in 1891, he
had accumulated before the appointed day $ 138,000,000 of coin, nearly
all in gold, amounting to about forty per cent. of the greenbacks then
outstanding.

Resumption proved easier than even he anticipated. The greenbacks had
risen to par--the first time in seventeen years--December 18th,
thirteen days before the date fixed for beginning gold payments, and
when the day arrived only straggling applications for coin were made,
less in amount than was asked for in greenback