 Nickel had been removed from the cent over the objection of Pennsylvania industrialist Joseph Wharton , who had large interests in the metal ; his congressman , Thaddeus Stevens , had fought against the act . In 1864 , Wharton published a pamphlet arguing for a coinage in which all coins less than ten cents would be made of a copper @-@ nickel alloy with 25 % nickel , just over twice the percentage which the cent had contained . In March 1865 , Congress passed legislation for a three @-@ cent coin of that alloy , intended to retire fractional currency of that denomination . Longacre furnished a head of Liberty for the coin resembling his other depictions of the goddess which he had made in the past 16 years ; for the reverse he used the " laurel " wreath from the 1859 cent surrounding the Roman numeral III borrowed from the silver three @-@ cent piece . 
