Bimetallism

Bimetallism is a monetary system in which gold and silver both serve as legal monetary standards at a fixed ratio. The mint converts between them at that ratio, which can diverge from their market value.

Mint ratio: The legally prescribed rate at which a mint exchanges one monetary metal for another. Bimetallism fixes the exchange rate between gold and silver at the mint.
Ancient Greek coinage: The systems of coin production and use developed by Greek city-states and kingdoms from the seventh century BCE onward. Greek states established early traditions of precious-metal coinage that later monetary systems inherited.
William Jennings Bryan: An American politician who championed free silver and the bimetallist cause in the 1896 presidential campaign. His 1896 campaign made bimetallism a defining national political issue.
Crime of 1873: A popular name for the 1873 U.S. law that ended standard silver-dollar coinage, especially among its opponents. The label captured anger that the law had abandoned bimetallism without public debate.
Monometallism: A monetary system based on one metal as its sole legal standard. It avoids the need to maintain a fixed legal ratio between two metals.
Gresham's law: The tendency for undervalued money to circulate while overvalued money is hoarded or exported. A gap between the legal and market ratios can drive one metal out of circulation.
Bimetallic standard in France: France's monetary system, which legally linked gold and silver coin through a fixed ratio for much of the nineteenth century. French policy became a prominent practical example of bimetallism.
Alexander Hamilton: The first United States secretary of the treasury, who shaped the early federal monetary system. Hamilton's 1791 recommendations helped establish the United States' initial gold-silver ratio.
Free Silver: A political movement advocating unrestricted coinage of silver at a legally fixed rate against gold. It became the main American campaign to restore a bimetallic monetary system.
Fiat money: Currency whose value rests on legal authority and public acceptance rather than redemption for a commodity. It replaces bimetallism's commodity-defined value with a state-backed monetary unit.

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