The Greenback agitation, rising about 1868 and stimulated by the panic of 1873, had not subsided when Hayes became President. It had lost much of its force, but there continued throughout the West, in both parties, a spirit that encouraged inflation of every sort. In Congress there were repeated efforts to repeal the Resumption Act of 1875, which the Democratic platform had denounced the next year. And when a sudden increase in the production of silver reduced its price, a silver inflation movement was placed beside the Greenback movement. The United States had used almost no silver coin between 1834 and 1862 because the coinage ratio, sixteen to one, undervalued silver and made it wasteful to coin it. No specie was used as currency between 1862 and 1879, and the relative market prices of bullion remained close to their usual average until the year of panic. During the seventies the price of silver fell as new mines were opened in the West. The ratio rose above sixteen to one, and silver, from being undervalued at that ratio, came to be overvalued. It would now have paid owners of silver bullion to coin it into dollars at the legal rate, but Congress had in 1873, after a generation of disuse of silver, dropped the silver dollar from the list of standard coins. As silver fell in value, mine-owners asked for a renewal of coinage, and inflationists joined them, hoping for more money of any kind. During the winter of 1878 a free silver coinage bill, passed by the Democratic House under the guidance of Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, was under consideration in the Republican Senate. John Sherman, the defender of gold resumption, was no longer in the Senate to fight this Bland Act. He had become Hayes's Secretary of the Treasury, and in this capacity was working toward resumption and upholding Hayes in his war on the spoilsmen. In his place, Allison, of Iowa, forced an amendment to the Bland Bill, taking away its free-coinage character and substituting a requirement to buy a specified amount of silver bullion each month--from $2,000,000 to $4,000,000 worth--and coin it. Thus amended, the House concurred in the act, which Hayes vetoed in February, 1878. It became a law over his veto. The Administration was embarrassed in its financial policy, but not defeated. The Resumption Bill withstood attacks and, as the day for the resumption of specie payment approached, the price of greenbacks reflected the growing credit of the United States. It reached par two weeks before the appointed day. When that day arrived, Wednesday, January 1, 1879, John Sherman had the satisfaction of seeing the change to a coin basis effected without a shock. More gold was turned into the Treasury for exchange with greenbacks than greenbacks for redemption in gold. It appeared that Horace Greeley had been right when he had maintained that "the way to resume is to resume,"--that few would want gold if they could get it.