Category: Hidden Legislation

• The "Crime of 1873"

  This theory held that the Coinage Act of 1873 was not a technical monetary revision but a hidden plot by British financiers, eastern bankers, and their allies in Congress to demonetize silver, contract the currency, and crush debtors—especially western miners and American farmers. The historical record clearly shows that silver advocates soon denounced the law as the “Crime of ’73” and that many critics believed it had been passed quietly enough that the public did not understand its consequences at the time. What remains disputed is how coordinated and foreign-directed the measure really was. The theory became one of the most important monetary conspiracies in American history.