 Grant's Treasury Secretary, George S. Boutwell, sent Sherman (who was by now Senate Finance Committee Chairman) a draft of what would become the Coinage Act of 1873. The list of legal coins duplicated that of the previous coinage act, leaving off only the silver dollar and two smaller coins. The rationale given in the Treasury report accompanying the draft bill was that to mint a gold dollar and a silver dollar with different intrinsic values was problematic; as the silver dollar did not circulate and the gold did, it made sense to drop the unused coin. Opponents of the bill would later call this omission the "Crime of' 73," and would mean it quite literally, circulating tales of widespread bribery of Congressmen by foreign agents. Sherman emphasized in his memoirs that the bill was openly debated for several years and passed both Houses with overwhelming support and that, given the continued circulation of smaller silver coins at the same 16: 1 ratio, nothing had been "demonetized," as his opponents claimed. Silver was still legal tender, but only for sums up to five dollars. On the other hand, later scholars have suggested that Sherman and others wished to demonetize silver for years and move the country onto a gold-only standard of currency — not for some corrupt gain, but because they believed it was the path to a strong, secure currency.
