In 1791, Hamilton submitted the Report on the Establishment of a to the House of Representatives. Many of Hamilton's ideas for this report were from European economists, resolutions from Continental Congress meetings from 1785 and 1786, and from people such as Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson.:197
Because the most circulated coins in the United States at the time were , Hamilton proposed that minting a weighing almost as much as the Spanish peso would be the simplest way to introduce a national currency. Hamilton differed from European monetary policymakers in his desire to overprice gold relative to silver, on the grounds that the United States would always receive an influx of silver from the West Indies.:197Despite his own preference for a monometallic , he ultimately issued a at a fixed 15:1 ratio of silver to gold.:197
Hamilton proposed that the U.S. dollar should have fractional coins using decimals, rather than eighths like the Spanish coinage. This innovation was originally suggested by , with whom Hamilton corresponded after examining one of Morris's coins in 1783. He also desired the minting of small value coins, such as silver ten-cent and copper cent and half-cent pieces, for reducing the cost of living for the poor.:198 One of his main objectives was for the general public to become accustomed to handling money on a frequent basis.:198
By 1792, Hamilton's principles were adopted by Congress, resulting in the , and the creation of the . There was to be a ten-dollar Gold Eagle coin, a silver dollar, and fractional money ranging from one-half to fifty cents. The coining of silver and gold was issued by 1795.
