In August 1786, when the Confederation government finally got around to considering a mint and coinage, the legislators decided that a silver half dollar should be one of the coins struck by the new country. This ambitious plan, however, did not succeed because the authorities did not have the money to begin operations or even to erect a mint building.
The half dollar was important due to the fact that the proposed table of coinage was based on the Spanish system. The latter had a piece of 8 reales in silver, generally referred to as a dollar in the United States. The 4 reales was thus equivalent to 50 cents in the new scheme of things and, as such, was to be a very important coin in the early economy of this country.
Alexander Hamilton’s famous January 1791 report to Congress on the establishment of a mint would lead directly to the new American monetary system but, oddly enough, Hamilton did not suggest a half dollar. In fact he recommended only two silver coins: the dime and the dollar. When the final mint law was enacted by Congress in late March 1792, however, the half dollar was included and has been with us ever since.
It is one thing to pass a law and quite another to put it into effect, especially one of this magnitude. During the rest of 1792, the first
