Free coinage

“ With free coinage the market value of the bullion fixes the value of the dollar. The Mexican dollar contains more silver than the American dollar, and yet the Mexican dollar is worth about 78 cents, because in Mexico coinage is free. And the American dollar is worth 100 cents because in the United States coinage is limited. So in all free coinage countries where silver alone is coined it is worth its market value as bullion. In all countries where gold circulates the coinage of silver is limited, but is used as money in even greater amounts than in countries where coinage is free. ”

“ Bryan's strange imaginings have, therefore, proved only that when he speaks of Government purchases of silver, and fixing prices and creating a demand greater than the supply, he simply does not know what free coinage is.
The theory that free silver coinage will make and keep the silver dollar equal in value to the gold dollar rests upon absolutely nothing but Mr. Bryan's incessantly expressed personal belief. Fixed belief is a happy state of the mind. ”

“ Many gold people assumed as beyond controversy that free coinage would drive gold from the country and wreck public credit. Advocates of silver too little heeded the consequences which the mere fear of those evils must entail, impatiently classing such as mentioned them among bond-servants to the money power. ”

“ But because I am so minded, I must oppose to the utmost a policy which, I am convinced, will immeasurably aggravate existing evils. I also know full well that a large majority of those who support free coinage are honest and well-meaning citizens, wishing to do right. ”

“ Will the people of this country, the financiers of this country, the banks, the moneyed men holding $500,000,000 of gold, with a certainty of the free coinage of silver and going to a silver basis, for that is what it means, put their gold in circulation, or will they hoard it? ”

“ What would be the effect of closing the mints and issuing 1,500,000 new coins containing nine-tenths as much gold as the coins above mentioned, assuming that the number of goods exchanged remains the same? Explain clearly. What is the total quantity of such new coins the government can issue and keep in circulation? Explain clearly.
31. A country using gold money as its sole medium of exchange, under free and gratuitous coinage, makes the following change: it imposes a seigniorage charge of ten per cent., but without giving up free coinage or reducing the amount of fine gold in the coin. ”

“ In a country like the United States, however, where checks are often drawn for amounts less than a dollar, and where the bulk of the gold, or standard money, is to be found, not in circulation but in reserves, one need not anticipate that the medium of exchange function would give a big agio to gold coin, even if free coinage ceased. ”

“ About one-third of it is gold, one-third silver and one third paper. One-third of our money is redemption money, and two-thirds is credit money.
"The blunder was made when silver was demonetized. The remedy is to remonetize it, and thereby restore its commercial value. Purchase acts, or any treatment of silver short of free coinage will have no beneficial effect." ”

“ In taking England for his model, Bismarck had not the condition of the toiling masses before his mind, but the glamour of prosperity which surrounded the creditor-barons.
The unprejudiced observer can not fail to perceive that the $370,000,000 coined under the Limited Coinage Act of the United States of 1878, supplementing the gold stock of the western world, postponed great industrial and financial crises. But the elements of these crises are gathering, and, unless relief be soon forthcoming, will burst upon the world with crushing severity. ”

“ For the purpose of honestly liquidating our outstanding coin obligations, we favor the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold, at the ratio of sixteen to one, without consulting any other nation. "Land is the common heritage of the people and should be preserved from monopoly and speculation. All unearned grants of land, subject to forfeiture, should be reclaimed by the Government and no portion of the public domain should hereafter be granted except to actual settlers, continuous use being essential to tenure. ”

“ If, therefore, in a country where coinage is free, as in England, this coinage shall come to be imposed, the money-unit continuing to be affixed as before to the same quantity of the metals, ought to rise in its value; that is, ought to become equal to a greater quantity of every sort of merchandize than before ”

“ If there is one incontestable principle it is that all matters relating to the current coin of any country have their source in the supreme prerogative, and that no one has the right to arrogate to himself the power of circulating a private coinage on which he imprints for his own profit an arbitrary value. ”

“ Were the private people, who carry their gold and silver to the mint, to pay themselves for the coinage, it would add to the value of those metals in the same manner as the fashion does to that of plate. Coined gold and silver would be more valuable than uncoined. The seigniorage, if it was not exorbitant, would add to the bullion the whole value of the duty; because, the government having everywhere the exclusive privilege of coining, no coin can come to market cheaper than they think proper to afford it. ”

“ Congressional legislation organizing the new government had now progressed to the point where it became necessary to re-examine that subject and to make provision for the exercise of the power to coin money, as authorized by the constitution. Pursuant to that power, congress, on April 2d, 1792, passed the act establishing a mint for the purpose of a national coinage, and made provisions, among other things, that coins of gold and silver, of certain fineness and weight, and of certain denominations, value, and descriptions, should be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint. ”

“ But if we understand by currency the legal money of the country, and that which constitutes a lawful tender for debts, and is the statute measure of value, then, undoubtedly, nothing is included but gold and silver. Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no legal tender, in this country, under the authority of this government or any other, but gold and silver, either the coinage of our own mints, or foreign coins, at rates regulated by Congress. ”

“ The Government might attempt to obtain a profit by the transaction, and might lay on a seignorage calculated for that purpose; but whatever they took for coinage beyond its expenses, would be so much profit on private coining. Coining, though not so easy an operation as melting, is far from a difficult one, and, when the coin produced is of full weight and standard fineness, is very difficult to detect. If, therefore, a profit could be made by coining good money, it would certainly be done: and the attempt to make seignorage a source of revenue would be defeated. ”

“ The actual quantity of money which it coins, in relation to its real property, is therefore only of consequence for convenience of exchange; but the proportion in which this quantity of money is divided among individuals expresses their various rights to greater or less proportions of the national property, and must not, therefore, be tampered with. The government may at any time, with perfect justice, double its issue of coinage, if it gives every man who has ten pounds in his pocket another ten pounds, and every man who had ten pence another ten pence ”

“ Conduit, Sir Isaac Newton’s successor in the mint, has proposed, in direct contradiction to the laws now in being, that all the bullion imported into the kingdom should be carried into the mint to be coined; and only coin allowed to be exported. “The height, he says, of paper-credit is the strongest argument for trying this and every other method that is likely to increase the coinage. For whilst paper-credit does in a great measure the business of money at home, Merchants and Bankers are not under a necessity, as they were formerly, of coining a quantity of specie for their home trade ”

“ The expence, therefore, of providing the metals should be thrown upon those who want coin; and the mint should be obliged to convert gold and silver into coin, upon the demander’s paying the coinage.
This coin loaded with the price of coinage, never will be sent abroad to pay a foreign balance; never will be locked up in banks, which will have little occasion for it. It will, therefore, remain in circulation, and serve those purposes for which the inhabitants think fit to employ it. ”

“ Not only does the government fix the weight and fineness of the coins, but it assumes the right to make the coins, and in some cases to limit the coinage to a certain amount, or to stop coining altogether. ”

“ It is in all countries exercised by the government. In the United States, so far as it relates to the precious metals, it is vested in Congress by the grant of the power to coin money. But can a power to impart these qualities to notes, or promises to pay money, when offered in discharge of pre-existing debts, be derived from the coinage power, or from any other power expressly given?
It is certainly not the same power as the power to coin money. Nor is it in any reasonable or satisfactory sense an appropriate or plainly adapted means to the exercise of that power. ”

“ The answer is that coinage is a government monopoly, and though the copper in five cents is not worth a nickel, and the nickel in twenty pieces is not worth a silver dollar, and the silver in sixteen dollars is not worth sixteen dollars in gold, yet, as the government coins them, and receives them, and maintains them at par with gold coin, they are, for all purposes, money equal to each other, and wherever they go, even into foreign countries, they are received and paid out as equivalents. ”

“ And whereas, contrary to the letter and meaning of the said patent, the said Wood hath declared that every person shall be obliged to take five-pence half-penny of his coin in every payment: And whereas the House of Commons and Privy Council have severally addressed his most sacred majesty representing the ill consequences which the said coinage may have upon this kingdom: And lastly, whereas it is universally agreed, that the whole nation to a man (except Mr. Wood and his confederates) are in the utmost apprehensions of the ruinous consequences that must follow from the said coinage. ”

“ As a necessary consequence, labor lacks employment, and suffering and distress are visited upon a portion of our fellow-citizens especially entitled to the careful consideration of those charged with the duties of legislation. No interest appeals to us so strongly for a safe and stable currency as the vast army of the unemployed. I recommend the suspension of the compulsory coinage of silver dollars, directed by the law passed in February, 1878. ”

“ The necessity for such an addition to the silver currency of the nation as is compelled by the silver-coinage act is negatived by the fact that up to the present time only about 50,000,000 of the silver dollars so coined have actually found their way into circulation, leaving more than 165,000,000 in the possession of the Government, the custody of which has entailed a considerable expense for the construction of vaults for its deposit. ”

“ Steamships and railroads carry letters half round the globe for a price too trivial to be paid for delivering a message round the corner. The old, awkward methods of making payments have given way to a tolerably uniform system of coinage. Instead of each petty principality and each town having its own coins, as was common, especially in Germany and Italy, before the nineteenth century, all coins are now issued by the national central governments. ”

“ If, therefore, a nation does really desire to avoid an expence to the mint, they must make it the interest of merchants to export every other thing preferably to their own coin. This is done by imposing a duty upon the coinage; and this will either prevent its going out unnecessarily, or if it be necessary to export it, the coin will return in the payments made to the nation, in consequence of its advanced value above any other bullion which can be sent. ”

“ Like other incidents of sovereignty, coinage is reserved rightfully to the Government, and on this account is little appreciated in its true character. People sometimes err in not seeing that the delicate laws applicable to this subject must not be strained to interfere with the proper regulation of the value of gold when it has become a principal article of commerce. ”