Information AboutBimetallism |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BIMETALLISM | |
| metallism | |
| history of the united states 1865–1918 | |
| international trade | |
| international economics | |
| numismatics | |
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In between the two metals is fixed by Law . This monetary system is very unstable: due to the fluctuation of the commercial value of the metals, the metal with a commercial value higher than the currency value tends to be used as metal and is withdrawn from circulation as money ( Gresham's Law ). This occurred in the United States throughout the 19th century as the official bimetallic standard became in effect a silver standard. In the United States, toward the end of the nineteenth century, bimetallism became a center of political conflict. Newly discovered silver mines in the American West caused an effective decrease in the value of money. This created a conflict between those that favored inflationary policies caused by a bimetallic standard and those that favored ''sound money'' produced by a Gold Standard . Bimetallism and "free silver" were demanded by William Jennings Bryan who took over leadership of the Democratic Party in 1896, as well as the Populist and Silver Republican party. The Republican Party nominated William McKinley on a platform supporting the gold standard which was favored by financial interests in the East Coast. A faction of Republicans from silver mining regions in the West known as the Silver Republicans endorsed Bryan. William Jennings Bryan, the eloquent champion of the cause, gave the famous , you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." However, his presidential campaign was ultimately unsuccessful and 1896 saw the election of William McKinley who implemented the gold standard in 1900 . As Friedman and Schwarz (1963) have shown, the money supply was steadily expanding in the 1890s because bank checks were becoming common. Gold (the yellow brick road) and silver (the silver slippers) were key ingredients in '' The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz '' (1900), a modern fairy tale that, according to Ranjit S. Dighe and Hugh Rockoff, was constructed from elements of the bimetallism debate. (Dighe 2002, Rockoff 1990) MONOMETALLISM The practical difficulties which in times past had confronted the maintenance of a Joint Standard , a concurrent circulation of the two metals, led one nation after another to abandon the effort, and to adopt a system of monometallism, with gold as its basis. The historical development of coinage in modern nations has been from silver monometallism through a more or less unsatisfactory experience with bimetallism, to the single gold standard. Still, in the twentieth century, both metals lost their former importance within monetary systems. Now, monometallism in the form of the Gold Standard has been abandoned by all nations. PRIMARY SOURCES
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