The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Oxford History of the United States)

by Richard White

In January 1873 Congress voted to demonetize silver, except for minor coins. Only Senate and Treasury insiders and William Ralston, the California banker, noted the bill’s passage. The United States would issue no more silver dollars, keeping only a trade dollar (often called “the China dollar”) for commerce with silver-standard countries, which basically meant China. Silver would no longer be a legal standard within the United States; bimetallism was over. Largely ignored at the time, the law would eventually be damned as the “Crime of ’73.” It reverberated through American politics for the remainder of the century.