1868 Seated Liberty Half Dollar

Philadelphia struck 378,400 half dollars in 1868. The House impeached President Andrew Johnson in February over his attempts to obstruct Reconstruction; the Senate acquitted him by a single vote in May. The half dollar, carrying the IN GOD WE TRUST motto for only its third year, circulated through the first presidential impeachment in American history.

Johnson's impeachment tested the constitutional boundary between executive and legislative power, and the one-vote acquittal left the question of presidential removal unresolved for over a century. Half dollar production remained suppressed by the continued absence of silver coins from eastern commerce. The 378,400 figure was typical of the post-war years, when the Mint produced enough half dollars to maintain the denomination's legal existence without flooding a market that could not absorb them into normal circulation. The 1868 is available in circulated grades with some searching, and prices reflect the moderate scarcity of late-1860s Philadelphia dates.