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Us mint first coins11/21/2023 The Fifty-First Congress passed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1890, which increased the amount of silver the Treasury was required to purchase to 4.5 million ounces per month. The resulting silver coins were known as Morgan dollars, named after the engraver of the design, George T. Hayes to pass the Bland-Allison Act, which required the Treasury to purchase silver and mint it for circulation as dollar coins. Only about five years later, in 1878, Congress overrode a veto from President Rutherford B. Grant signed into law the Coinage Act of 1873, which prevented miners and other bullion holders from continuing to take their silver to the Mint to be coined into US dollars. Īs the young republic matured, concerns related to metal and coinage did not lose their central position in American political life. In 1787, Congress authorized the production of copper “Fugio” cents, with an obverse depicting a sundial and a memorable motto: “MIND YOUR BUSINESS.” When the states ratified the Constitution in 1788, debate continued over the future of coinage in the young republic. Such an arrangement, in addition to the foreign coins still in circulation, did little to promote efficient commerce among the states. Even tobacco was used as money in colonial Virginia, as were grain, fish, and furs in colonial New England.Īfter the Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States was loosely held together by the Articles of Confederation, which allowed states to manufacture their own coins and establish values for them. Livestock and produce also helped facilitate commercial activity. Due to an insufficient supply of coins in smaller denominations, people would occasionally cut this coin into smaller pieces. Spanish milled dollars were popular thanks to the consistency in the amount of silver in their composition. For example, British pounds and German thalers changed hands, along with some coins the colonies produced themselves. In the years before independence, several different kinds of coins circulated in the colonies. Coins in the Colonies and the Early Republic (and Beyond)
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