Sherman Silver Purchase Act


Sherman Silver Purchase Act,

1890, passed by the U.S. Congress to supplant the Bland-Allison ActBland-Allison Act,
1878, passed by the U.S. Congress to provide for freer coinage of silver. The original bill offered by Representative Richard P. Bland incorporated the demands of the Western radicals for free and unlimited coinage of silver.
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 of 1878. It not only required the U.S. government to purchase nearly twice as much silver as before, but also added substantially to the amount of money already in circulation. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act (supported by John Sherman only as a compromise with the advocates of free silverfree silver,
in U.S. history, term designating the political movement for the unlimited coinage of silver. Origins of the Movement

Free silver became a popular issue soon after the Panic of 1873, and it was a major issue in the next quarter century.
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) threatened, when put into operation, to undermine the U.S. Treasury's gold reserves. After the panic of 1893 broke, President Cleveland called a special session of Congress and secured (1893) the repeal of the act.