The Morning herald., 1876-08-16
FOR SHERIFF,
ISAAC GRUB.
FOR CORONER
DAVID G. ROSE.
THE SILVER QUESTION.

THE SILVER QUESTION.
The legal aspect Of the question of mon
etizing the silver dollar is strangely mis-
understood and or so rarely adverted to,
that statement of the law as it stands
may be interesting. It will be seen that
there is no necessity to pass an act Of Con-
gress, to make a silver dollar fair and
honest payment for any debt, national,
State, municipal or personal, unless coin
Of some Kind is denominated in the instru-
ment which contains the covenants of
the contract.
A little attention to the course of lsgis-
lation upon the currency will enable one
to have fixed opinions upon the silver
question,
By the act of Congress Of April 2, 1892,
there were no gold dollars or units; but
dollars or units were to be of silver,
leach to be the value Of a Spanish milled
dollar as the same is now current, and to
contain 4l6 grains of standard" that is
nine-tenths pure silver and one-tenth cop
per; and the act declared that "ff.een
pounds of pure silver (in coin) shall be of
equal value in all payments with one pound
weight of pure gold lin conn.,"
The only gold coins by that act were
eagles, containing 27o grains standard
gold of the valse of ten silver dollars or
units; half eagles, containing l25 grains
of the value of five dollars, and quarter
eagles, containing 624 grains Of standard
gold, and standard gold was to contain
nine-tenths pure gold and one-tenth of sill
yer and copper, the silver not to exceed
half of the alloy. For 81 years there were
no gold dollars or units. The only dollar
or unit of value was silver. There was
also half and quarter dollars, dimes and
half dimes, and they were made legal ten
ders.
We pass over forty-6ve years, and upon
the fifth of July 1887, Congress again leg
islated upon the financial question, and
reduced the weight Of silver dollars to
4l2A grains, half dollars to POSI-, quarter
dollars to lO3s, the dime to All, and the
half dime to 2Os grains, and by the tenth
section the law declared that dollars, half
dollars and quarter dollars should be illegal
tenders Of payment, according to their
nominal value, for any sums whatever
1t thus appears from the language Of
the act of Congress that Notwithstanding
the reduction of the weight Of silver coin
it remained legal money. Congress cor
respondingly reduced the weight Of gold
coin by the same act.
Telve years afterwards, March 8, 1s49,
after the opening of the mines in Califor-
mia, Congress for the first time provided
for the coinage of the gold dollar and the
double eagle, and declared expressly that
"for all sums whatever the double eagle
shall be legal tender for 500, and the
gold dollar shall be legal tender for ST."
BY the act Of February 81, 1851, Con-
gress reduced the weight Of the half dol
from 2O6i grains to 1872 grains, and de-
clared that the quarter dollar, dime and
half dime should be respectively one-half,
one-ffth and one-tenth the weight of the
half dollar, and that thereafter the halt
dollar, quarter dollar, dime and half dime
should "be legal tenders in payment Of
debts for all sums not exceeding S."
This act demenetized half und quarter
dollars, dimes and half dimes, for all debts
over S.. The reason was obvious, the frac-
tional part ofa silver dollar was lessened in
value, but the dollor was untouched, and
continued to be, and still continued to be
legal tender Of payment for any sum
whatever," according to the terms Of the
act Of July 9th, 1887. We could not see
how any creditor could complain Of re-
osiving payment for his debt in silver dol.