silver. So long as this can be done, silver (the cheapest money) will be presented at the mint, and gold (the dearest money) will become an article of merchandise too valuable to be used as money when the cheaper silver is legally as good. The best money, therefore, disappears from circulation, as it did in the United States before 1820, owing to the fall in the value of silver. It is to be said, that it has been seriously urged by some writers that silver did not fall, but that gold rose, in value, owing to the demand of England for resumption in 1819.237 Chronology kills this view; for the change in the value of silver began too early to have been due to English measures, even if conclusive reasons have not been given above why silver should naturally have fallen in value.
II. The change in the relative values of gold and silver finally forced the United States to change their mint ratio in 1834.