Tags: Political Party.
Free silver was a Central United States policy issue in the late 19th century. Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the free coinage of silver as opposed to the less inflationary gold standard; its supporters were called Silverites. The Silverites promoted bimetallism the use of both silver and gold as currency at the ratio of 16 to 1 (16 ounces of silver would be worth 1 ounce of gold).
