COINAGE AND CURRENCY IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE PERENNIAL . CONTEST FOR SOUND MONEY · BY A. BARTON HEPBURN, LL.D. EX-COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY, EX-SUPERINTENDENT LIF UNIVEROHA F CALIFORN New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903 All rights reserved This Volume is inscribed to the Memory of ALEXANDER HAMILTON Patriot, Soldier, Financier, Statesman, Creative out guiding precedent, he evolved principles and 1 PREFACE “OF making many books there is no end," and yet this volume seems to possess features which justify its creation. The general subject of this history has, in its different phases, been treated by many authors; but I believe there is no one work of convenient size and popular character covering the history of the coinage and currency of the United States, with data and details in chronological order, available as a book of reference. The crucial questions relating to coinage and currency which have involved the material and political interests of the country so largely throughout its history, and especially for the past quarter of a century, and the honest difference which many people have experienced in reaching right conclusions, demonstrate the present need of such a work. Most important currency questions remain to be solved, and this volume seeks to furnish a busy public, in convenient form, the experience of the past to aid in such solution. The aim has been to place before the reader original data, so as to enable him to examine the same and reach his own conclusions. A documentary history pure and simple would be so voluminous as to possess little value save to the student and economist. A narrative history would amount to a treatise embodying largely |