Excerpt from Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1905 The silver dollar was originally authorized by the act of April 2, 1792, the first coinage act of the United States. The first dollar pieces were struck at the mint in Philadelphia in 1793. At that time the French and Spanish coins were a legal tender in the United States and in common circulation. As they were more or less abraded they drove the new and full-weight coins out of circulation and caused them to be exported almost as they left the mint. As a result of this movement President Madison issued the following order. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.