Treasury secretary · 1755–1804
Alexander Hamilton
His 1791 mint report argued for a bimetallic dollar. The Coinage Act of 1792 wrote that into statute.
Hamilton’s Report on the Establishment of a Mint (1791) argued for a dollar in both gold and silver, at a ratio close to market practice. Congress wrote that into the Coinage Act of 1792: two metals, one legal unit, a fixed mint ratio.
The law could fix the ratio. The market did not have to keep it. When world prices drifted, the cheaper metal stayed in the till and the other left. This page is that report and that Act, not a brief for either metal.