1896: would the country have survived a bryan presidency?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Free coinage of silver wouldn't have sparked all that much inflation, tho it would have made silver mine owners very happy.  There even would have been a slight offset as the government switched from priniting United States Notes backed by nothing to Silver Certificates backed by silver.  We also probably wiould have seen a revaluation of the official gold to silver ratio as had happened in 1834, as that would have been necessary to preserve bimetallism.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Would have been interesting had Bryan won enough electoral votes to win the Presidency, but enough of the South voted for Watson to deny Sewall a majority...

Who had control of the Senate in '96 anyway?

republicans, i think.

the gop gained seats in the midterms of 1894.

Not quite.  The Republicans had a minority majority.

Republicans:44
Democrats:40
Populists: 4
Silver Republicans: 2

I can't see those two Silver Republicans from Nevada voting to put Garret Hobart in as Vice President.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I don't think they would have put Tom Watson in either, who was quite the lunatic.

I doubt if Watson would have made the top 2 and the VP choice is limited to just the top 2.