Silverites, who wanted more money in circulation to raise the prices that farmers received, denounced the move as the "Crime of 1873", claiming the deflation made debts more burdensome for farmers.[497]

Grant is congratulated for vetoing the "inflation bill" in 1874.
Economic turmoil renewed during Grant's second term. In September 1873, Jay Cooke & Company, a New York brokerage house, collapsed after it failed to sell all of the bonds issued by Cooke's Northern Pacific Railway. The collapse rippled through Wall Street, and other banks and brokerages that owned railroad stocks and bonds were also ruined.[498] On September 20, the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading for ten days.[499] Grant, who knew little about finance, traveled to New York to consult leading businessmen and bankers for advice on how to resolve the crisis, which became known as the Panic of 1873.[500] Grant believed that, as with the collapse of the Gold Ring in 1869, the panic was merely an economic fluctuation that affected bankers and brokers.[501] He instructed the Treasury to buy $10 million in government bonds, injecting cash into the system. 