This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2009) |
The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late-19th century that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792. The Silverite coalition's famous slogan was "16 to 1" – that is, the ratio of sixteen ounces of silver equal in value to one ounce of gold, a ratio similar to that established in the Coinage Act of 1834. Silverites belonged to a number of political parties, including the Silver Party, Populist Party, Democratic Party, and the Silver Republican Party.
The Silverites advocated free coinage of silver. They wanted to lower the gold standard of the United States to silver therefore allowing inflation of the money supply. Many Silverites were in the West, where silver was mined. [1] Advocates predicted that if silver were used as the standard of money, they would be able to pay off all of their debt. The debt amount would stay the same but they would have more silver money with which to pay it.
The Silverites' main presidential candidate was William Jennings Bryan, whose famous Cross of Gold speech argued in their favor. He unsuccessfully ran for president several times.
A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the late 1920s to 1932 as well as from 1944 until 1971 when the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold foreign central banks, effectively ending the Bretton Woods system. Many states nonetheless hold substantial gold reserves.
The Cross of Gold speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan, a former United States Representative from Nebraska, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or "free silver", which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold". Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination and is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
The 1896 United States presidential election was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican candidate, defeated former Representative William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.
The Specie Payment Resumption Act of January 14, 1875 was a law in the United States that restored the nation to the gold standard through the redemption of previously-unbacked United States Notes and reversed inflationary government policies promoted directly after the American Civil War. The decision further contracted the nation's money supply and was seen by critics as an exacerbating factor of the so-called Long Depression, which struck in 1873.
The Bland–Allison Act, also referred to as the Grand Bland Plan of 1878, was an act of United States Congress requiring the U.S. Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars. Though the bill was vetoed by President Rutherford B. Hayes, the Congress overrode Hayes's veto on February 28, 1878 to enact the law. The text of the act can be found in the Congressional Record under the further reading section of this article.
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was a left-wing agrarian populist late-19th-century political party in the United States. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
The Greenback Party was an American political party with an anti-monopoly ideology which was active between 1874 and 1889. The party ran candidates in three presidential elections, in 1876, 1880, and 1884, before it faded away.
Bimetallism, also known as the bimetallic standard, is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent to certain quantities of two metals, typically gold and silver, creating a fixed rate of exchange between them.
Coin's Financial School was an 1894 pamphlet written by lawyer, politician and resort founder William Hope Harvey (1851–1936). It advocated a return to bimetallism, where the value of a monetary unit is defined as a certain amount of two different kinds of metals, often gold and silver. In the book, Harvey charged that the demonetization of silver caused by the Coinage Act of 1873 led to the Panic of 1893 by halving the supply of available redemption money in the economy. This lowered the prices of goods throughout the country and hurt farmers and small business owners, according to Harvey. Harvey argued that by returning silver to the same monetary status as gold, the American economy would benefit from stabilized prices, resulting in higher revenue, and ease of repayment of debts. The pamphlet sold about 1 million copies, which helped popularize the free silver movement with the public. Harvey would go on to aid Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan’s presidential campaign in 1896, which ran on the platform of free coinage of silver. The issue of bimetallism remained controversial throughout the remainder of the 19th century.
Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adherence to the more carefully fixed money supply implicit in the gold standard. Free silver became increasingly associated with populism, unions, and the fight of ordinary Americans against the bankers and monopolists, and the robber barons of the Gilded Age capitalism era and was referred to as the "People's Money".
The history of the United States dollar began with moves by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America to establish a national currency based on the Spanish silver dollar, which had been in use in the North American colonies of the United Kingdom for over 100 years prior to the United States Declaration of Independence. The new Congress's Coinage Act of 1792 established the United States dollar as the country's standard unit of money, creating the United States Mint tasked with producing and circulating coinage. Initially defined under a bimetallic standard in terms of a fixed quantity of silver or gold, it formally adopted the gold standard in 1900, and finally eliminated all links to gold in 1971.
The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. Silver was far more widespread than gold as the monetary standard worldwide, from the Sumerians c. 3000 BCE until 1873. Following the discovery in the 16th century of large deposits of silver at the Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia, an international silver standard came into existence in conjunction with the Spanish pieces of eight. These silver dollar coins played the role of an international trading currency for nearly four hundred years.
Silver may be used as an investment like other precious metals. It has been regarded as a form of money and store of value for more than 4,000 years, although it lost its role as legal tender in developed countries when the use of the silver standard came to a final end in 1935. Some countries mint bullion and collector coins, however, such as the American Silver Eagle with nominal face values. In 2009, the main demand for silver was for industrial applications (40%), jewellery, bullion coins, and exchange-traded products. In 2011, the global silver reserves amounted to 530,000 tonnes.
Bourbon Democrat was a term used in the United States in the later 19th century (1872–1904) to refer to members of the Democratic Party who were ideologically aligned with conservatism or classical liberalism, especially those who supported presidential candidates Charles O'Conor in 1872, Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, President Grover Cleveland in 1884, 1888, and 1892 and Alton B. Parker in 1904.
The Panic of 1896 was an acute economic depression in the United States that was less serious than other panics of the era, precipitated by a drop in silver reserves, and market concerns on the effects it would have on the gold standard. Deflation of commodities' prices drove the stock market to new lows in a trend that began to reverse only after the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush. The failure of the National Bank of Illinois in Chicago is remembered as one of the motivating factors in the sensational Adolph Luetgert murder case. During the panic, call money would reach 125 percent, the highest level since the Civil War.
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color.
The Coinage Act of 1834 was passed by the United States Congress on June 28, 1834. It raised the silver-to-gold weight ratio from its 1792 level of 15:1 to 16:1 thus setting the mint price for silver at a level below its international market price.
This article is about the history of monetary policy in the United States. Monetary policy is associated with interest rates and availability of credit.
Bryan Money is a term used by numismatists to refer to tokens and medals associated with William Jennings Bryan's platform during the United States presidential elections of 1896 and 1900. Bryan's platform advocated for the reinstatement of silver currency in the United States economy as part of the short-lived Silver Republican Party.
The Coinage Act of 1853, 10 Stat. 160, was a piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress which lowered the silver content of the silver half dime, dime, quarter dollar, and half dollar, and authorized a three dollar gold piece. Although intending to stabilize the country's silver shortage, it, in effect, pushed the United States closer to abandoning bimetallism entirely and adopting the gold standard.