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 Replies: 36 / Views: 3,240 |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
3234 Posts |
If I'm quiet assume you need to keep guessing. I don't want to seem to discouraging by saying "nope" all the time.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2448 Posts |
Just throw in an occasional "Church Lady" comment once in a while.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2448 Posts |
OK, my last shot:  Quote:
The provisions of the Coinage Act were based on a report prepared by Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury. Hamilton suggested coinage that implicitly adopted a decimal system of account: the dollar, "tenth part" of the dollar, and "hundredth part" of the dollar. The Coinage Act provided that "the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars or units, dismes or tenths, cents or hundredths, and milles or thousandths." Concretely, "all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation." Thus a decimal monetary system was created--the first in history for any country! The private sector followed the official shift to a decimal system of accounting within a decade. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3234 Posts |
Carmykle...you definitely score points for trying!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1388 Posts |
I'm gonna guess the Civil War
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2448 Posts |
I was thinking that too until I realized we had already established three mints in the South before the war began. "Common" you guys don't let him stump us!
Edited by carmykle
03/01/2011 5:14 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2448 Posts |
OK, this is really my last guess; the Cherokee trail of tears! All that Wampum out there couldn't have been good for the minting business. Not to mention Jackson hated the American Indians.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857? Maybe it interrupted trade with GB or something.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3234 Posts |
Hint: Think about the other side of the bimetallic standard.
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Valued Member
Guatemala
357 Posts |
Does the answer have anything to do with Gresham's Law?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3234 Posts |
Quote:
Does the answer have anything to do with Gresham's Law?
Yes! Good clue...now, what's the answer? By the way, I need to confess that I shouldn't purport that these two items are THE answer but are two significant events and there are likely some other events that helped (and others might argue are equally or more significant). Edited by Prethen
03/02/2011 1:08 pm
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Valued Member
Guatemala
357 Posts |
Well... The apparently obvious answer is that the Coinage Act of 1834 set an artificially low price for silver on the domestic market, certainly lower than the international market. In consequence, foreign countries could buy our silver at a discount for their own use, and invoke Gresham's Law in the United States.
As the California Gold flooded the market, the legal mandate regarding the bi-metallic standard required domestic silver prices to be raised, to prevent further erosion of silver stockpiles in the U.S.
The Coinage Act of 1857 also removed any incentive for a foreign country to buy up our silver, re-mint it, and in effect, sell it back to us at a profit.
Edited by JMerrick
03/02/2011 1:31 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3234 Posts |
I'll give ya a big hint....1853. Remember the 1857 Act couldn't be successful unless we were already able to start pushing out foreign coins.
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Valued Member
United States
327 Posts |
The act of February 21 1853 reduced the amount of silver in the fractional coins by 6.9 percent, making the face value more than the silver content. Essentially this meant our money became overvalued against the bimetallic standard, but at least people would stop turning it into bullion as soon as it left the mint.
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Valued Member
Guatemala
357 Posts |
Well. Potato chips were invented, and Franklin Pierce became president. While potato chips were, for very good reason, much more popular, Pierce did any number of things that could affect monetary supply. He tried to strong-arm the British out of Central America, buy Cuba from Spain, and was a leading figure in the division between slave holding and abolitionist states and territories, including the "Compromises".
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Replies: 36 / Views: 3,240 |
First Page
Posted 03/01/2011 4:16 pm
