The Crime of 1873 is the nickname given by silver advocates to the U.S. Coinage Act of 1873, which ended the practice of “free silver coinage.”
Before 1873, anyone could bring raw silver to the U.S. Mint and have it struck into legal tender silver dollars at no charge — the government absorbed the minting cost. This made silver money; its price was effectively supported by government demand.
The 1873 Act removed this guarantee, placing the U.S. de facto on a gold standard. Silver’s price fell. Debtors (farmers, miners, Western states) who had expected to repay loans in cheaper silver found themselves owing in effectively more expensive gold-backed dollars.
The “crime” framing was populist rhetoric, not a legal term. No crime occurred in the technical sense. But the Act did produce real economic consequences for real people, and the political battle over silver money defined American politics for two decades — culminating in William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention.
Source: Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton University Press, 1963).