Part 5 of the series on the U.S. Constitution and money is now available here and here. This part’s about the bimetallic system. Between 1873 and 1900, America’s bimetallic money system survived the battles between free silverites and gold standard supporters. Bimetallism looked triumphant, but a mere 33 years later, Roosevelt trashed it. The battles of 1873-1900 accompanied a weakening of obedience to constitutional provisions and a loss of understanding of their meaning, as well as the introduction of a parallel paper money system. America in this period, without realizing it, was wending its way toward the severe uprooting of both specie as money and the Constitution in the years 1913-1933 and toward the debt-laden society of today. (It’s been a long bear market for the Constitution.) This part, after a brief review, looks at the Bland-Allison Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the Gold Standard Act, among others.

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