Rohstoffe
Sherman Silver Purchase Act The Silver Question
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- verpflichtet Regierung zum Kauf von mehr Silber (4,5 Mio. Unzen monatlich; praktisch die gesamt Ausbeute der Silberminen auf dem Gebiet der USA) und Ausgabe von Münzen für die gesamte Menge
- politischer Handel – konservative Republikaner stimmten zu, weil sie im Tausch dafür den McKinley Zoll durchsetzen konnten
- eingebautes „Sicherheitsventil“ – Silberkäufe sind jetzt an Menge, nicht mehr an Preis gebunden (sonst würde ein fallender Silberpreis automatisch höhere Silberkäufe = höhere Geldmenge bedeuten!)
- Wirkung: Goldreserven der Regierung schwinden; de facto Goldstandard ist bedroht
- Cleveland (überzeugter Anhänger des Goldstandard) verlangt Abschaffung des Gesetzes – 1893 wird Sherman Silver Purchase Act aufgehoben
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Sherman Silver Purchase Act Sherman Silver Purchase Act, 1890, passed by the U.S. Congress to supplant the Bland-Allison Act 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 silver ) 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.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/north-america/us/sherman-silver-purchase-act
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Free Silver Movement United States history Written By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
See Article History
Free Silver Movement, in late 19th-century American history, advocacy of unlimited coinage of silver. The movement was precipitated by an act of Congress in 1873 that omitted the silver dollar from the list of authorized coins (the “Crime of ’73”). Supporters of free silver included owners of silver mines in the West, farmers who believed that an expanded currency would increase the price of their crops, and debtors who hoped it would enable them to pay their debts more easily. For true believers, silver became the symbol of economic justice for the mass of the American people.
The Free Silver Movement gained added political strength at the outset because of the sharp economic depression of the mid-1870s. Its first significant success was the enactment of the Bland-Allison Act in 1878, which restored the silver dollar as legal tender and required the U.S. Treasury to purchase each month between $2,000,000 and $4,000,000 worth of silver and coin it into dollars. When farm prices improved in the early 1880s, pressure for new monetary legislation declined, but the collapse of land and farm prices beginning in 1887 revived the demand by farmers for the unlimited coinage of silver. Congress responded in 1890 by enactment of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased the government’s monthly silver purchases by 50 percent.
In the years immediately after 1890, a combination of pressures sharply reduced the amount of gold in the U.S. Treasury, precipitating a panic in the spring of 1893. Conservatives charged that the Sherman Act was the cause of the panic, and in the summer of 1893 Congress repealed that act. Farmers in the South and West condemned this action, blamed the greed of eastern bankers for the depressed state of the economy, and resumed their demand for the unlimited coinage of silver. This had been an important objective of the Populist Party in the election of 1892, and in 1896 the Democrats, despite strong opposition from President Grover Cleveland, made unlimited coinage of silver the principal plank in their platform. They then nominated William Jennings Bryan, the most effective champion of free silver (see Cross of Gold speech), as their candidate for president. The Republicans won the election, and in 1900 a Republican majority in Congress enacted the Gold Standard Act, which made gold the sole standard for all currency.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Free-Silver-Movement
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Sherman Silver Purchase Act From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was a United States federal law enacted on July 14, 1890.[1]
The measure did not authorize the free and unlimited coinage of silver that the Free Silver supporters wanted; however, it increased the amount of silver the government was required to purchase on a recurrent monthly basis to 4.5 million ounces.[2] The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been passed in response to the growing complaints of farmers' and miners' interests. Farmers had immense debts that could not be paid off due to deflation, and they urged the government to pass the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in order to boost the economy and cause inflation, allowing them to pay their debts with cheaper dollars.[3] Mining companies, meanwhile, had extracted vast quantities of silver from western mines; the resulting oversupply drove down the price of their product, often to below the point at which the silver could be profitably extracted. They hoped to enlist the government to increase the demand for silver.[4]
Originally, the bill was simply known as the Silver Purchase Act of 1890. Only after the bill was signed into law, did it become the "Sherman Silver Purchase Act."[5] Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was not the author of the bill, but once both houses of Congress had passed the Act and the Act had been sent to a Senate/House conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of the Act, Senator John Sherman was instrumental in getting the conference committee to reach agreement on a final draft of the Act.[6] Nonetheless, once agreement on the final version was reached in the conference committee, Sherman found that he disagreed with many sections of the act.[7] So tepid was Sherman's support that when he was asked his opinion of the act by President Benjamin Harrison, Sherman ventured only that the bill was "safe" and would cause no harm if the President signed it.[8]
The act was enacted in tandem with the McKinley Tariff of 1890. William McKinley, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee worked with John Sherman to create a package that could both pass the Senate and receive the President's approval.
Under the Act, the federal government purchased millions of ounces of silver, with issues of paper currency. It became the second-largest buyer in the world, after the British Crown in India, where the Indian rupee was backed by silver rather than gold. In addition to the $2 million to $4 million that had been required by the Bland–Allison Act of 1878, the US government was now required to purchase an additional 4.5 million ounces of silver bullion every month.[9] The law required the Treasury to buy the silver with a special issue of Treasury (Coin) Notes that could be redeemed for either silver or gold. Gresham's law then took over. The artificially overvalued currency (silver) drove the artificially undervalued currency (gold) out of circulation. In the metals markets, silver was worth less than the government's legal exchange rate for silver vs. gold. So, investors bought silver, exchanged it at the Treasury for gold dollars, and then sold these gold dollars in the metals market for more than they had paid for the silver. They took the profits on this transaction and bought more silver. They did this over and over. This would continue until the Treasury ran out of gold. After the Panic of 1893 broke, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the repeal of the act to prevent the depletion of the government's gold reserves.
In 1890, the price of silver dipped to $1.16 per ounce. By the end of the year, it had fallen to $0.69. By December 1894, the price had dropped to $0.60. On November 1, 1895, US mints halted production of silver coins, and the government closed the Carson City Mint. Banks discouraged the use of silver dollars.[4] In fact, the years 1893-95 had the lowest productions of Morgan dollars for the entire series, creating several scarce coins.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Silver_Purchase_Act
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The Silver Question
Efforts to induce inflation into the American economy, the panacea of debtors, had been present from earliest times. Some of this enthusiasm was devoted to paper money schemes, such as the land bank ideas of colonial times and the greenback agitation of the post-Civil War era. Others hoped to lessen debtors' burdens by enacting programs dealing with the nation's coinage.
In 1837, Congress established a relationship between silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1 (meaning that 16 ounces of silver were to be equal in value to one ounce of gold). During the war years of the 1860s, little silver was mined and the open market price rose sharply. Miners stopped selling their silver to the government and instead found buyers from the ranks of jewelers and other users of the product.
In 1873, reacting to market realities, the Grant administration demonetized silver, leaving gold as the sole standard of the nation's currency. Silver became simply another commodity whose value would be set by supply and demand. There was little reaction to this move initially and certainly no outrage.
However, following the Panic of 1873, a severe depression descended upon the country, reviving interest in the monetization of silver. Pressure was exerted from two sources.
The silver miners. Ironically, at about the same time that silver was demonetized, new silver discoveries were made in the West. As the newly mined silver hit the market in ever larger quantities, the price declined. Mine operators remembered the advantage of having a ready market through government purchase and began to refer to demonetization as the "Crime of '73." The mining interests were still a small force, but they found that they could increase their clout by allying with the farmers.
The farmers. Traditionally farmers were often mired in debt, depending upon banks for the funds to purchase seed and equipment in the spring and hoping for a successful harvest to pay off their debt in the fall. The 1870s saw declining farm prices that worsened the farmers' already precarious position. They eagerly latched on to the National Greenback Party and later came to support various silver remedies.
Conservative forces representing the interests of many eastern bankers and businessmen were successful in gaining passage of the Specie Resumption Act (1875), a measure that provided for the redemption of the greenbacks in gold.
The miners and farmers pressured Washington and won a partial victory in the Bland-Allison Act (1878), which restored silver as legal tender and pledged the government to purchase a minimum amount of the metal each month. Nevertheless, the government notes were still backed by gold alone. True bimetallism would have allowed redemption in either metal and established a set ratio of value between the two.
The early 1880s saw the return of farm prosperity and the resulting decline of interest in the silver coinage issue. However, hard time hit again in 1887, prompting renewed demands from farmers and miners to reinstitute the coinage of silver at the old 16:1 ratio.
Again a compromise was reached, this time in the form of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890). This measure obligated the government to purchase the mines' nearly entire output each month, but these purchases were to be at market rates, not at the predetermined ratio favored by the farmers and miners. New western states had recently joined the Union and were responsible for this limited victory.
Panic and depression struck the country again in 1893. Conservative leaders pointed to the Sherman Silver Purchase Act as the root of the nation's ills, but the farmers blamed eastern economic interests. Indeed, the country had split over the silver issue. The Democratic Party, despite the prominence of Grover Cleveland, was largely in the hands of the free silver forces. The Republicans called for strict adherence to gold alone.
Public opinion, especially in the rural areas, was heavily impacted by the publication of a paperback book entitled Coin's Financial School (1894), which advanced the silver issue in everyday terms. Silver played a prominent, if ill-fated role in the presidential elections in 1892, 1896 and 1900.
By 1900, Republican forces were firmly in control and advanced the passage of the Gold Standard Act, which established gold as the sole standard for all U.S. currency.
The silver movement ultimately failed for the following reasons:
It was presented to a national audience in several presidential elections and failed to sway a sufficient number of voters Worldwide gold discoveries increased its supply, relieving gold currency shortages The depression of the 1890s ended and general prosperity returned.
https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h763.html
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Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Agitation for action on the silver question was intense by 1890. Farmers were straining under growing debt and sharply falling prices. Western mining interests were anxious for a ready market for their silver and exerted pressure on Congress. Western voices were much stronger with the recent addition of Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming and the Dakotas to the Union.
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was part of a broader compromise. The Democrats gave their support to the highly protective McKinley Tariff in return for Republican votes for silver.
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act provided for the following:
The Treasury would purchase 4.5 million ounces (or 281,250 pounds) of silver each month at market rates
The Treasury would issue notes redeemable in either gold or silver.
The planned government purchases amounted to almost the total monthly output from the mines. However, the increased supply of silver drove down the price. Many mine operators in the West tried to reduce expenses by cutting the miners' wages. Labor unrest and sporadic violence followed.
As the price of silver continued to decline, holders of the government notes understandably redeemed them for gold rather than silver. The result of the growing disparity between the two metals was the depletion of the U.S. gold reserves, an event that played prominently during the Panic of 1893, following which Congress repealed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.
Off-site search results for "Sherman Silver Purchase Act"...
Silver Purchase Act- 1878 Silver Purchase Act- 1878 An act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes. Be it enacted . . ., That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed to ... http://www.historycentral.com/documents/Silveract.html
From Revolution to Reconstruction: Documents:Grover Cleveland, Message on the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, August 8, 1893 ... Purchase Act, August 8, 1893 Grover Cleveland note Message on the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act August 8, 1893 *** Quote *** The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation, involving the Sherman Silver Purchase Act August 8, 1893 *** Quote *** The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation, involving the welfare and prosperity ... http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/1876-1900/reform/grover.htm
Sherman Anti-Trust Act ... In 1890, the United States government passed into law the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. This legislation was an anti-trust act, authorizing the federal government to break up any businesses that prohibited competition. Its author was John Sherman ... http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1435
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