1791
Hamilton’s mint report
Hamilton’s 1791 report argues for a dollar in gold and silver. The Coinage Act that writes it into law is 1792.
Alexander Hamilton’s Report on the Establishment of a Mint argued for a bimetallic dollar, at a ratio close to market practice. The argument is the report. It is not yet the statute.
Congress wrote both metals into the dollar in the Coinage Act of 2 April 1792, at fifteen ounces of silver to one ounce of gold at the Mint. The law could fix that ratio. The market did not have to keep it.