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Article: Crime of 1873
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CRIME OF 1873
CRIME OF 1873
refers to the omission of the standard silver dollar from the coinage law of 12 February 1873. The sixty-seven sections of the law constituted a virtual codification of the then extant laws relating to the mints and coinage. Section seventeen of the act provided that "no coins, either gold, silver or minor coinage shall hereafter be issued from the mint other than of the denominations, standards, and weights herein set forth." Section fifteen listed the denominations of silver coins the mint would issue, but did not list the standard silver dollar. The omission of the silver dollar from this list became, for more than two decades after 1876, the Crime of ...