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No. 96. Coinage Act

February 12, 1873

THE need of a revision of the laws relating to the mints, assay offices, and coinage was suggested as early as 1866, and April 25, 1870, a report on the subject, prepared by John Jay Knox, comptroller of the currency, was submitted to Congress, together with the draft of a bill. A bill in accordance with this report was reported in the Senate, December 19, 1870, by Sherman, and passed that body January 10, 1871. A substitute reported in the House February 25 was recommitted. A second bill to the same effect was introduced in the House, March 3, by William D. Kelley of Pennsylvania, and referred to the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures. The bill was not reported until January 9, 1872, and the next day was recommitted. A bill with similar title was reported, February 9, by Hooper of Massachusetts, and also recommitted. The latter bill was taken up April 9, and May 27 a substitute offered by Hooper was passed under suspension of the rules. The Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Finance, and the session closed without further action. December 16 the bill was reported in the Senate, further amendments being reported January 7, 1873. The bill was taken up on the 17th, and passed with amendments the same day. The final form of the bill was the work of a conference committee. The omission of the standard silver dollar of 412 grains from the list of coins led later to the charge that the act aimed to demonetize silver, and caused the advocates of silver to refer to the act as the "crime of 1873." Only those sections of the act giving the list of coins are inserted here.

REFERENCES. - Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVII, 424-436, passim. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 41st Cong., 3d Sess., and 42d Cong., and the Cong. Record; see also the Record, 53d Cong., Ist Sess., pp. 1219-1224. Knox's report is Senate Misc. Doc. 132, 41st Cong., 2d Sess.; the correspondence connected with it is in House Exec. Doc. 307. On the act see Dewey, Financial History, 403-405, and references there given; Sherman, Recollections, II, 1063-1065; White, Money and Banking, 213–223. An Act revising and amending the Laws relative to the Mints, Assay-offices, and Coinage of the United States.

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SEC. 14. That the gold coins of the United States shall be a one-dollar piece, which, at the standard weight of twenty-five and eight-tenths grains, shall be the unit of value; a quarter-eagle, or two-and-a-half dollar piece; a three-dollar piece; a half-eagle,

or five-dollar piece; an eagle, or ten-dollar piece; and a double eagle, or twenty-dollar piece. And the standard weight of the gold dollar shall be twenty-five and eight-tenths grains; of the quarter-eagle, or two-and-a-half dollar piece, sixty-four and a half grains; of the three-dollar piece, seventy-seven and four-tenths grains; of the half-eagle, or five-dollar piece, one hundred and twenty-nine grains; of the eagle, or ten-dollar piece, two hundred and fifty-eight grains; of the double-eagle, or twenty-dollar piece, five hundred and sixteen grains; which coins shall be a legal tender in all payments at their nominal value when not below the standard weight and limit of tolerance provided in this act for the single piece, and, when reduced in weight, below said standard and tolerance, shall be a legal tender at valuation in proportion to their actual weight; and any gold coin of the United States, if reduced in weight by natural abrasion not more than one-half of one per centum below the standard weight prescribed by law, after a circulation of twenty years, as shown by its date of coinage, and at a ratable proportion for any period less than twenty years, shall be received at their nominal value by the United States treasury and its offices, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe for the protection of the government against fraudulent abrasion or other practices; and any gold coins in the treasury of the United States reduced in weight below this limit of abrasion shall be recoined.

SEC. 15. That the silver coins of the United States shall be a trade-dollar, a half-dollar, or fifty-cent piece, a quarter-dollar, or twenty-five-cent piece, a dime, or ten-cent piece; and the weight of the trade-dollar shall be four hundred and twenty grains troy; the weight of the half-dollar shall be twelve grams (grammes) and one-half of a gram, (gramme ;) the quarter-dollar and the dime shall be respectively, one-half and one-fifth of the weight of said half-dollar; and said coins shall be a legal tender at their nominal value for any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one payment.

SEC. 16. That the minor coins of the United States shall be a five-cent piece, a three-cent piece, and a one-cent piece, and the alloy for the five and three cent pieces shall be of copper and

nickel, to be composed of three-fourths copper and one-fourth nickel, and the alloy of the one-cent piece shall be ninety-five per centum of copper and five per centum of tin and zinc, in such proportions as shall be determined by the director of the mint. The weight of the piece of five cents shall be seventy-seven and sixteen-hundredths grains, troy; of the three-cent piece, thirty grains; and of the one-cent piece, forty-eight grains; which coins shall be a legal tender, at their nominal value, for any amount not exceeding twenty-five cents in any one payment.

SEC. 17. That no coins, either of gold, silver, or minor coinage, shall hereafter be issued from the mint other than those of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth.

No. 97. Act regarding United States Notes and National Bank Currency

June 20, 1874

A BILL "to amend the several acts providing a national currency and to establish free banking" was reported in the House, January 29, 1874, by Maynard of Tennessee, from the Committee on Banking and Currency, as a substitute for various bills previously referred to the committee. April 10 a substitute amendment was agreed to by a vote of 149 to 95, 46 not voting, and the next day the amended bill passed the House, the final vote being 129 to 116, 45 not voting. A substitute was reported in the Senate May 6, and was agreed to with various amendments on the 14th, the vote on the passage of the bill being 25 to 19. The House, by a vote of 70 to 164, disagreed to the Senate amendments. June 13 the report of a conference committee proposing the House substitute was agreed to by the Senate by a vote of 32 to 23, but rejected by the House by a vote of 108 to 146, 35 not voting. A second report was accepted June 20, in the House by a vote of 221 to 40, 28 not voting, in the Senate by a vote of 43 to 19.

REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVIII, 123–125. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 43d Cong., Ist Sess., and the Cong. Record. An abstract of the original House bill is in the Record for January 29; the text of the Senate substitute, ibid., May 6. For Sherman's opinion of the act see his Recollections, I, 508.

An act fixing the amount of United States notes, providing for a redistribution of the national-bank currency, and for other purposes.

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Be it enacted.. That the act entitled "An act to provide a national currency secured by a pledge of United States bonds, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof," approved June third, eighteen hundred and sixty four, shall hereafter be known as "the national-bank act."

SEC. 2. That section thirty-one of "the national-bank act" be so amended that the several associations therein provided for shall not hereafter be required to keep on hand any amount of money whatever, by reason of the amount of their respective circulations; but the moneys required by said section to be kept at all times on hand shall be determined by the amount of deposits in all respects, as provided for in the said section.

SEC. 3. That every association organized, or to be organized, under the provisions of the said act, and of the several acts amendatory thereof, shall at all times keep and have on deposit in the treasury of the United States, in lawful money of the United States, a sum equal to five per centum of its circulation, to be held and used for the redemption of such circulation; which sum shall be counted as a part of its lawful reserve, as provided in section two of this act; and when the circulating notes of any such associations, assorted or unassorted, shall be presented for redemption, in sums of one thousand dollars, or any multiple thereof, to the Treasurer of the United States, the same shall be redeemed in United States notes. All notes So redeemed shall be charged by the Treasurer of the United States to the respective associations issuing the same, and he shall notify them severally, on the first day of each month, or oftener, at his discretion, of the amount of such redemptions; and whenever such redemptions for any association shall amount to the sum of five hundred dollars, such association so notified shall forthwith deposit with the Treasurer of the United States a sum in United States notes equal to the amount of its circulatingnotes so redeemed. And all notes of national banks worn, defaced, mutilated, or otherwise unfit for circulation shall, when

received by any assistant treasurer, or at any designated depository of the United States, be forwarded to the Treasurer of the United States for redemption as provided herein. And when such redemptions have been so re-imbursed, the circulating-notes so redeemed shall be forwarded to the respective associations by which they were issued; but if any of such notes are worn, mutilated, defaced, or rendered otherwise unfit for use, they shall be forwarded to the Comptroller of the Currency and destroyed and replaced as now provided by law: Provided, That each of said associations shall re-imburse to the Treasury the charges for transportation, and the costs for assorting such notes; and the associations hereafter organized shall also severally re-imburse to the Treasury the cost of engraving such plates as shall be ordered by each association respectively; and the amount assessed upon each association shall be in proportion to the circulation redeemed, and be charged to the fund on deposit with the Treasurer: And provided further, That so much of section thirty-two of said national-bank act requiring or permitting the redemption of its circulating notes elsewhere than at its own counter, except as provided for in this section, is hereby repealed.

SEC. 4. That any association organized under this act, or any of the acts of which this is an amendment, desiring to withdraw its circulating notes, in whole or in part, may, upon the deposit of lawful money with the Treasurer of the United States in sums of not less than nine thousand dollars, take up the bonds which said association has on deposit with the Treasurer for the security of such circulating-notes; which bonds shall be assigned to the bank in the manner specified in the nineteenth section of the national-bank act; and the outstanding notes of said association, to an amount equal to the legal-tender notes deposited, shall be redeemed at the Treasury of the United States, and destroyed as now provided by law: Provided, That the amount of the bonds on deposit for circulation shall not be reduced below fifty thousand dollars.

SEC. 5. [Charter numbers of associations to be printed on national-bank notes.]

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