The free silver movement reached its height with the 1896 campaign of former Nebraska representative William Jennings Bryan , who won the Democratic nomination for president after his Cross of Gold speech , which decried the gold standard , electrified the 1896 Democratic National Convention . Bryan was defeated in the election by former Ohio governor William McKinley , and in 1900 , Congress passed the Gold Standard Act , placing that standard into law . The gold standard was departed from for many purposes by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt 's New Deal administration , and completely ended by President Richard Nixon in 1971
1896 Democratic National Convention
1896 Democratic National Convention
Coinage Act of 1873