"Washington, D. C., December 10, 1877.
"Hon. W. B. Allison, U. S. Senate.
"Dear Sir:—Permit me to make an earnest appeal to you to so amend the silver bill that it will not arrest the refunding of our debt or prevent the sale of our four per cent. bonds. I know that upon you must mainly rest the responsibility of this measure, and I believe that you would not do anything that you did not think would advance the public service, whatever pressure might be brought to bear upon you.
"It is now perfectly certain that unless the customs duties and the public debt—as least so much of it as was issued since February, 1873—are excepted, we cannot sell the bonds. The shock to our credit will bring back from abroad United States bonds, and our people will then have a chance to buy the existing bonds and we cannot sell the four per cent. bonds. This will be a grievous loss and damage to the administration and to our party, for which we must be held responsible. You know I have been as much in favor of the silver dollar as anyone, but if it is to be used to raise these difficult questions with public creditors, it will be an unmixed evil.
"I wish I could impress you as I feel about this matter, and I know you would then share in the responsibility, if there is any, in so amending this bill that we can have all that is good out of it without the sure evil that may come from it if it arrests our funding and resumption operations.
"With much respect, yours, etc.
"John Sherman.
The amendments to the Bland bill proposed by Mr. Allison from the committee on finance, completely revolutionized the measure. The Senate committee proposed to strike out these words in the House bill:
"And any owner of silver bullion may deposit the same at any coinage mint or assay office, to be coined into such dollars, for his benefit, upon the same terms and conditions as gold bullion is deposited for coinage under existing laws."
And to insert the following:
"And the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, to purchase, from time to time, at the market price thereof, not less than $2,000,000 per month, nor more than $4,000,000 per month, and cause the same to be coined into such dollars. And any gain or seigniorage arising from this coinage shall be accounted for and paid into the treasury, as provided under existing laws relative to the subsidiary coinage: Provided, that the amount of money at any one time invested in such silver bullion, exclusive of such resulting coin, shall not exceed $5,000,000."
These amendments were agreed to.