bjections advanced against the
higher ratio, both in requiring recoinage and in unduly enlarging the
coins.

The inevitable result of free coinage at a fixed ratio is to expel the
undervalued metal from circulation. There can be but one way to prevent
this, and that is by a system of sliding scale whereby scrupulous
fidelity to the state of the market from day to day may be preserved.
Diurnal recoinages are of course out of the question, but the thing is
nevertheless both easy and practicable.

Let us assume that gold only has hitherto been used as money, that 25.8
grains thereof have been taken to be one dollar, and that it is now
desired to supplement it with the use of silver. Our proposition will
necessarily take this form: If one dollar is equal to 25.8 grains of
gold, it must be equal to as many grains of silver as 25.8 grains of
gold will buy in the open market. Here we must remember that what is
true to-day may not be true to-morrow or a year hence. So many grains of
gold may to-day be worth 412-1/2 grains of silver, to-morrow they may be
worth but 400, and next day, 420. By _fixing the amount_ of silver in
the dollar we thus utter through these coins a new falsehood each day.
_Constant values, not constant weights, is what we are driving at; so
in lieu of the silver coin we must substitute a promise to pay a gold
dollar, or a gold dollar's worth of silver, whatever the state of the
market._ This is what I designate _natural bimetallism_. The silver
dollar and fractional pieces as we now have them may nevertheless
continue in circulation, for the promise can be written into them by
legislation to redeem them, upon surrender, in the same manner as the
paper promises. It is possible that Hamilton and his successors in
office prior to 1837 may have thought of this expedient, but discarded
it as not then feasible. We must remember, however, that they had
serious practical difficulties to contend with, which are now happily
removed. The advantages of the telegraph, the cable, the improved means
of transportation, and our admirable system of market quotations, enable
us now with certainty and ease to determine daily what any given thing
is worth in terms of any other.

In order to make my plan as clear as possible, I shall run the risk of
seeming elementary by following through, step by step, a typical
transaction under it: Let us fancy that the reader, bearing a nugget of
gold in his left hand and another of silve