The Coinage Act of 1873 was a revision of the laws relating to the Mint of the United States. It abolished the right of holders of silver bullion to have their metal struck into fully legal tender dollar coins. The Act of February 12, 1873, with the signature of President Ulysses S. Grant, ended the production of the silver dollar and abolished three low-denomination coins.
About Coinage Act of 1873 in brief
The Coinage Act of 1873 was a revision of the laws relating to the Mint of the United States. It abolished the right of holders of silver bullion to have their metal struck into fully legal tender dollar coins. The act ended bimetallism in the U.S. and placed the nation firmly on the gold standard. The gold standard was explicitly enacted into law in 1900, and was completely abandoned by the U S. in 1971. The Act of February 12, 1873, with the signature of President Ulysses S. Grant, ended the production of the silver dollar and abolished three low-denomination coins. It was denounced by some as the \”Crime of ’73\”, but there is little evidence of corruption in the passage of the act. The Mint Act of 1792 established the Mint, in its first decades, only coined gold and silver in response to deposits of that metal by citizens, returning the bullion in the form of coins. At that time, gold or silver U. S. coins were rarely seen in the nation, as they were heavily exported because of such shifts. In 1834, Congress made a dollar worth slightly less, making them uneconomical to export, and they were seen more often in commerce. With this greater circulation, Congress re-examined the existing statutes relating toThe Mint, and found many provisions to be obsolete. It enacted the Mint Act of 1837, a thorough revise of the statutes relatingto the Mint. New provisions included the establishment of a bullion fund, allowing depositors to be paid without waiting for their metal to go through the coining process. The ratio of value between equivalent weights of gold andSilver was adjusted slightly, allowing coins of both metals to circulate.
Until 1853, depositors could choose to have. their bullion struck into any denomination of silver coins of five cents or above. Until then, silver coins from the dime to the half dollar and other smaller denominations could still be struck into those coins of those denominations. Depositors could still choose to. have silver struck into these denominations, but since there was more than a dollar’s worth of silver in a dollar, it was more profitable to sell the new bullion bullion at above-market prices. This effectively placed the new coins at the top of the new dollar’s price chain. Although the Mint rarely received deposits of silver for striking into silver, after 1853 it purchased new coins using the new lightweight bullion for striking the new dollars. The new coins were called the “silver dollar” and were used to strike the new silver dollars. When silver prices dropped in 1876, producers sought to have theirs struck, only to learn that this was no longer possible. The matter became a major political controversy that lasted the remainder of the century, pitting those who valued the deflationary gold standard against those who believed free coinage of silver to be necessary for economic prosperity. The legislation, in addition to ending the production. of silver dollars, also eliminated the right to have the depositor to have his bullion striking into those denominations of silver.
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