9 min.
The Senate Committee of October 1791
Author’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles discussing the coinage of 1792 and the steps leading up to it. Previous articles, which covered 1776 to October 1791, appeared in Numismatic News beginning with the Dec. 10, 2024 issue.
On Monday, Oct. 31, 1791, the Senate Journal recorded the following: “On motion, Ordered, That Messrs [Robert] Morris, [Rufus] King, [Ralph] Izard, [George] Cabot, and [John] Henry, be a committee to take into consideration the subject of a mint, and to report a bill thereon if they think proper.”
No records have been found detailing the work done by this particular senatorial committee. Still, it is not difficult to determine the principal sources that would have been used in the deliberations. The first would naturally have been the…
