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no longer circulated and the United States was in reality on 

 the silver standard. The "black market" operators took the 

 United States off the bimetallic standard and put the nation 

 on the silver standard. 



The black market did not exist when the legal rate, 15 to 1, 

 was the same as the market rate. As soon as the market rate 

 rose above the legal rate, a black market existed. The market 

 price of gold in terms of silver was higher than the legal "ceil- 

 ing" price the treasury paid. This was a violation of the in- 

 tent of the law. 



Off Bimetallism and on Gold Standard 



During the 1830's the situation was reversed. The mone- 

 tary laws were revised; the content of the gold dollar was 

 reduced and the silver dollar was left unchanged. During 

 1837 the legal ratio was fixed at 16 to 1 as follows: 



Dollar Pure metal, Price per fine Ratio 



grains ounce 



Gold 23.22 $20.67 lfl 1 



Silver 371.25 1.29 



The market rate for silver was higher than the legal rate ; 

 therefore it paid folks to take gold to the bank or treasury, 

 draw out silver, and sell it on the open bullion market. It was 

 not long before the black-market operators took the United 

 States off the bimetallic standard and put the nation on the 

 gold standard. This again was a violation of the intent of 

 the law. 



Down through history black-market operators thrived on 

 bimetallism because the market ratio of gold and silver 

 changed faster than kings or legislators could change the 

 legal ratios. During the past half-century the gold standard 

 was substituted for bimetallism. That step reduced the ac- 

 tivities of the black-market operators, but did not stop them. 



