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FUNNY MONEY
I was rummaging through an antique chest in our attic.
I found an old dollar bill which said "Silver Certificate"
redeemable at any bank for one silver dollar.
I looked at a dollar bill which I had in my pocket but
it only said Federal Reserve Note. Not a word that I could
redeem in silver dollars. I thought a note was a debt. I
figured, Hell, I'll take it to my bank the next time I go
and get a silver dollar for it. Would be nice to have an
old silver dollar for a change.
The next time I was at the bank, I gave the teller the
old silver certificate. I asked for a silver dollar to
replace it.
Her mouth dropped open. She said, "I'm sorry, sir, I
have no authority to give you a silver dollar for this
bill."
"What do you mean? It says right on the bill that it
can be redeemed at any bank for a silver dollar!"
"Yes sir, it does. Just a minute while I ask the
Vice-President to look at it and to give you his decision."
The Vice-President came to the window with the dollar
in his hand. He said he was sorry but the redemption of
these old bills stopped in 1964.
"How did that happen?" I asked.
"Congress passed a law taking us off the silver stan-
dard. They set a date to allow for the exchange of these
old bills for silver. That ended in 1964. I can only
suggest if you want a silver coin, you'll have to go to a
coin shop."
I stopped at a coin shop on the way home. I found that
I would have to pay 7 Federal Reserve Note dollars to
purchase a one dollar silver coin.
"What a lot of nonsense." I said, "Just what in blazes
is going on with our money?"
GOLD--MONEY--SILVER--DOLLARS! What did our Founding
Fathers have in mind concerning money when they set up our
Constitution?
Was it to be a piece of paper with different numbers
printed on it? No. Do you think they had experience with
paper money? You bet they did.
In our Constitution, (Art I, Sec 8), we gave Congress
authority "to coin money". Further, they are to regulate
the value of our money. Nowhere in our agreement for this
business of government was the power given to "print money."
The money experience of the colonists under the
Articles of Confederation was disastrous! Each of the
original colonies had gone through periods of coined money
and paper money. They had over 100 years of experience with
money which varied from day to day and from state to state.
Paper money was no stranger to the men who went to Philadel-
phia in 1787.
Roger Sherman was one of the delegates from Connecti-
cut. He was largely responsible for the restriction in our
Constitution that money had to be coins and not a piece of
paper. Roger Sherman had the distinction of being the only
man to sign three major documents in the early history of
our country.
His signature appears on the Articles of Confederation,
Declaration of Independence and of course, our Constitution.
In 1752, he wrote a blistering article against paper
money titled A CAVEAT AGAINST INJUSTICE. He had spent many
years trying to run businesses in the private sector and
experienced the evils of paper money first hand. The book
has been reprinted by Publisher Spencer Judd. It is
available from the publisher at Post Office Box 143,
Sewanee, TN 37375.
Major William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, wrote
sketches of all the men who attended the Constitutional
Convention. This is his description of Roger Sherman:
"Mr. Sherman exhibits the oddest shaped character I
ever remember to have met with. He is awkward, un-meaning,
and unaccountably strange in his manner. But in his train
of thinking there is something regular, deep, and comprehen-
sive; yet the oddity of his address, the vulgarisms that
accompany his public speaking, and that strange new England
cant which runs through his public and private speaking make
everything that is connected with him grotesque and laugh-
able; -and yet he deserves infinite praise; -no Man has a
better Heart or a clearer Head. If he cannot embellish he
can furnish thoughts that are wise and useful. He is an
able politician, and extremely artful in accomplishing any
particular object; -it is remarked that he seldom fails."
(Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the
American States, House Document No. 398, 69th Congress, 1st
Session) (1965).
There was a lot of debate during the convention about
permission to issue "bills of credit" or paper money. The
other delegate from Connecticut was Mr. Oliver Ellsworth.
During debates on money he declared this was a good time to
shut the door against the future use of paper money. He
further stated, "The mischiefs of the various experiments
which had been made, were now fresh in the public mind and
had excited the disgust of all the respectable part of Amer-
ica." On the motion to deny permission for the government
allowing the issuance of paper money, only New Jersey and
Maryland voted no.
Roger Sherman was on the committee which considered the
prohibitions against state governments. Mr. Sherman felt
this was just the right situation for crushing paper money.
One proposition was to allow the issuance of paper money by
the states with the consent of the legislature. He said,
"If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions
of it, the friends of paper money, would make every exertion
to get into the Legislature in order to license it."
He and Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania moved to add some
special words. "Nor emit bills of credit, nor make any
thing but gold & silver coin a tender in the payment of
debts."
The entire convention agreed to this clause and
included it in our Constitution in Article I, Section 10.
Let's examine that command. No State shall emit bills
of credit nor make any Thing but gold and silver coin a
tender in the payment of debts!
I point out a small yet important item in that restric-
tion. Any Thing is two separate words and the word thing is
capitalized. Our Founding Fathers were determined that only
gold and silver coin could be legal tender. By capitalizing
thing, they were certain no one could raise a question in
that aspect.
If you have a debt with the state in which you live,
they cannot make any thing a tender. This includes
repayment of debt in other than gold and silver coin. You
can volunteer, of course, to pay the debt in anything your
state will accept. Be it money orders, checks, federal
reserve notes, wampum, bingo chips or beads.
But we know there is no gold or silver coin in circula-
tion. For any state to force you to pay in any Thing but
gold or silver is a violation of your rights. It is also a
violation of a specific state duty under Art. I, Section 10.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and is
binding on all states. The supremacy clause makes it very
clear.
On March 3, 1884, the United States Supreme Court
changed all that. In a case called Juilliard vs Greenman,
they said the restriction against the issuance of paper
money was against the states. It did not apply against the
federal government. The so-called interpreters of law have
again taken it on themselves to change our Constitution in
violation of our amendment process.
A book written in 1886 by a historian named George
Bancroft called "A PLEA FOR THE CONSTITUTION" clearly points
out the illegality and fallacy of the decision by the
Supreme Court. I recommend it highly and it is also avail-
able in reprint from Publisher Spencer Judd, whose address
appears above.
Another authorization we did not allow is for the
legislative body to delegate any of their duties to any
other body, under ANY circumstances. However, in 1913,
Congress gave permission to a private corporation called the
Federal Reserve System to control our money. More on this
in a later chapter.
Looking back to Section 8 of Article I, we find
Congress is to "fix the Standard of Weights and Measures."
For the sake of our illustration, and to show how idiotic it
was to hand over the control of our money, let's pretend
Congress also gave that required duty of weights to a
private company. This outfit (whoever it might be) has
decided an ounce is now a pound and a liquid ounce is now
and forever a gallon.
They are controlling only weights and measures . . .
not the value of an article. Now a gallon of gasoline costs
you $32.00 instead of one dollar. The cost of a rib steak
is now about $64.00 a pound. Can you imagine how the people
would explode if this had happened? Only because Congress
reneged on its duties to fix the standard of weights and
measures.
We know they didn't give this duty to a private outfit.
They DID give the mandated duty to regulate the value of our
money to a private company. Now who is breaking the law?
The same thing happens to the value of our dollar as in the
above illustration of variations in weights and measures.
The effect is not as dramatic because they complete money
manipulation slowly and it is carried on behind closed
doors. People are mostly ignorant on money issues. The
bureaucracy and the Fed prefer it that way.
We often hear the phrase "ignorance of the law is no
excuse." What do you suppose their excuse is for violating
our basic law? Ignorance on our part of this dereliction of
congressional duty is also no excuse.
Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, No. 42
equates the value of coins with weights and measures. "The
regulation of weights and measures is transferred from the
Articles of Confederation, and is founded on like considera-
tions with the preceding power of regulating coin."
All the gobbledegook in Washington DC will not change
the fact our elected people in Congress did and are
violating their oaths. They are breaking the law. And we
are the victims!
James Madison, in paper No. 44, speaks of the restric-
tions against the states (Art I, Sec 10) by saying "The
extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give
pleasure to every citizen in proportion to his love of
justice and his knowledge of the true springs of public
prosperity. The loss which America has sustained since the
peace, from the pestilent effects of paper money on the
necessary confidence between man and man, on the necessary
confidence in the public councils, on the industry and
morals of the people, and on the character of republican
government, constitutes an enormous debt against the States
chargeable with this unadvised measure - . . it may now be
observed that the same reasons which show the necessity of
denying to the States the power of regulating coin prove
with equal force that they ought not to be at liberty to
substitute a paper medium in place of coin."
Yet the states cry they have to use whatever the
federal government issues for money. From what we have
looked at so far, we all know this is pure horse manure.
The relationship of the states to the national government is
turned upside down. The states were jealous of their
sovereignty and that was apparent throughout the convention.
This was to be a union of states, not an all powerful
federal government which could do no wrong.
We've let it get away from us. What consideration can
our elected officials give to their oath? Perhaps it's just
a ritual now, only so many words which have to be recited
each time we return them to the funny farm in Washington.
If they were honorable men, the oath would be all
important and binding on them. Then we would not have to
worry if our Constitution were being obeyed.
Okay, now what do we have to do? Throw them all out of
office whenever they come up for election. We certainly
don't need Republicans, Democrats, liberals, right wingers,
conservatives or left wingers. There is no requirement that
a member of Congress be a lawyer either! We need those
bakers, butchers and computer operators. We need honest
Americans as our representatives who will restore our
Republic to the greatness our Founding Fathers intended.
Get on the phone and call the local offices of all
Senators and Congressmen. Ask where they found authority to
delegate their duties to a private company like the Federal
Reserve or to any other body for that matter. Write letters
to their Washington offices and ask the same questions.
Write your Governors and ask if the United States
Constitution is still binding on the state. Ask specifical-
ly about the restriction in Art I, section 10! Letters
every couple of weeks would not be too often to let them
know you know what is going on. You want it changed.
Certainly it wouldn't be too much to require them to obey a
document they swore to uphold.
Reports are that some of the State Supreme Courts have
decided that the restriction does not apply to their
particular states. By what right? Did you agree to allow
the judiciary of your state to decide that the oaths to
support the Constitution is no longer binding on them? They
need to be denied their offices also.
We now have lawyers running and manipulate our lives.
Let's make it stop. These sort of decisions only show that
lawyers are taking care of their own in the mutual admira-
tion society called government.
If government thinks we would agree to paper money
instead of gold and silver, submit a proposed amendment to
our Constitution. Let's find out if we will allow for the
change. The amendment process is spelled out in Art V.
Make them use it and stop these violations of our basic law.
They really have a good deal. They can issue a piece
of paper with the number one on it followed by as many zeros
as they feel necessary. Then it can be called money. They
also are aware that gold and silver cannot be counterfeited!
They prefer the paper method.
AFTER ALL . . . IT'S YOUR MONEY! But then, they will
probably ask . . . just who are you? Simply remind them.
REGISTRATION IS ONLY $19.95
PLEASE READ 'SALES PITCH' CHAPTER