The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago publishes a booklet entitled "Money Matters, The American Experience With Money." It's freely distributed in paper form, but it's also available on the Internet. The booklet is intended as a tool for use in educating the public about the nature and history of "money" in the U.S., particularly with regard to the Constitution; gold and silver; and Federal Reserve bank notes. The book begins with comments about the intent of the Framers with regard to Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution:
"After long debate, the framers of the Constitution permitted the federal government 'to coin money, (and) regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins ...'"
Here, they have told us the truth. The Constitution did permit the federal government to "coin money, and regulate the value thereof and of foreign coins." This is a good start - to state the truth. But watch this next "sleight-of-hand" very closely:
"They also declared that 'no state shall ... coin money, [nor] emit bills of credit [i.e., paper currency] ...'"
Did you catch it? I bet if I didn't point it out, you would not see any Thing (yes, capital "T") wrong with the above excerpt. The problem is, this particular section of the Constitution has much more to say on the subject of money. In fact, they have left off the most important, most relevant section of the paragraph as it concerns money. What we've been given above is "HALF TRUTH."
Let's uncover what the Federal Reserve Bank OMITTED from their exhibit. The Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, paragraph 1, actually says:
"No State shall ... coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debt."
Did you catch what had been omitted from the FRB version? Did you notice what the Federal Reserve Bank left off? They removed the Constitutional prohibition against using "any Thing but gold and silver" as money.
Even little children learn early on in life that bald-face lies are quickly found out. But, by conveniently omitting relevant portions of the truth, well, if the perpetrator is ever caught, they just claim: "It was unintentional." Was the Federal Reserve's omission an unintentional oversight? Or a deception?
Why do you suppose the prohibition against using "any Thing but gold and silver coin" as money was removed from the bankers' version of the Constitutional cite? Could it be that the Federal Reserve Bank is perpetuating an un-Constitutional monetary system known as fractional reserve banking using un-backed Federal Reserve notes? And, that if they came right out and told us that the Constitution prohibited "bank note paper money" - such as the system they have fostered upon us - we just might OBJECT?
They go on to admit that (regarding the Constitution):
"Significantly, no mention was made of a national currency nor federally chartered banks."
And:
"The Constitution specified little involvement for the federal government in our financial system. Congress was expressly permitted only the right to mint metal coins, regulate the percentage of precious metal in those coins, and determine the metallic content of the many kinds of foreign coins that circulated throughout the states. In other words, Congress' involvement in the financial system focused on the intrinsic value of coins, which was determined by the amount of precious metal in the coin."
Fortunately, we have additional authority with which we can form our own conclusions regarding the intent of the Framers. Again, this extremely relevant material relating to the history of money is missing from Money Matters. We have included it here for your consideration.
In his Eighth Annual Message to Congress, on December 5, 1836 - just 47 years after the Constitution was ratified - President Andrew Jackson commented regarding the Constitutional Convention:
"...It was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as of certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency."
President Jackson explained why the Framers gave Congress only the power to "Coin Money." Why is this important authority missing from the Federal Reserve Bank's treatise on money? The reason is: in the eyes of the Federal Reserve, the intent of the Framers is no longer relevant. "That was the way it USED to be," we are effectively told. "That was the OLD Constitution." You see, over a period of time that old Constitution has been subverted - re-written, as it were - by various courts at the urging of some very influential bankers. The courts' actions effectively served to "amend" the Constitution. Oh, it was no easy task to amend the Constitution in this fashion - without a public vote. But, with enough time, influence, power and - of course, MONEY - it can be done.
"Money Matters" (or is it "Money Masters?") lays out the significant history, or the revision thereof, regarding our nation's monetary system. We're told that in the case of Hepburn vs. Griswold (1870 and 1871) the United States Supreme Court first ruled on the question of whether or not Congress could issue "notes" to be used as "money." That Court concluded that Congress did not have, under the powers vested in them by the Constitution, any such authority, and that U.S.-issued notes were not "legal tender."
But read what the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago goes on to say regarding that first Supreme Court ruling:
"President U.S. Grant, recognizing the implications of this ruling, quickly filled the two remaining [vacant] Supreme Court justice positions with people who favored legal tender laws. In 1871 Hepburn vs. Griswold was reheard. This time by a vote of five to four the Court found legal tender laws constitutional. The ruling was based on the understanding that U.S. notes were necessities of warfare."
O.K., a President favorable to the bankers' agenda stacked the Court and gerrymandered a Supreme Court ruling to get a decision lending itself towards the bankers objectives. But even with this help, the resultant ruling concluded only that the government could issues notes strictly as a NECESSITY OF WARFARE. That was the best they could do! And here's where logic (and any remaining link to the Constitution) end. Now, the bankers had a foothold with which they were poised to implement their program to control the country using un-backed paper notes. The Constitution is no longer an issue for the bankers from this point in history forward. All that matters to the bankers is how to circumvent the Constitution's prohibitions and to begin to issue un-backed paper money for which they could charge interest. See if you detect the change in tone, from one of "This is what the Constitution says" to one of "This is what we must do":
"In response to the problems in our economy and financial system, Congress in 1913 created the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve, our nation's central bank, is a network of 12 regional Reserve Banks supervised by a Board of Governors in Washington, D.C." "Congress gave the Fed responsibility for providing an elastic currency, that is, a currency that could increase and decrease to accommodate the needs of the economy. To expand the currency, the central bank made loans to banks and provided them currency, Federal Reserve notes, to meet their customers' demands."
The Federal Reserve was created - not in response to the Constitution's immutable edicts, but in response to problems! Congress gave the Fed responsibility to subvert the Constitution's prohibitions and to create an "elastic currency" contrary to the intent of the Constitution and its Framers? Unfortunately, things that are "elastic" - such as balloons and fluctuating currency - always eventually break. Things that are "solid" - such as gold and the truth - always retain their sound attributes.
Only one man was so fortunate as to have been a signatory to the four most important documents in our nation's history - The Association of 1774, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and The United States Constitution. The man was Roger Sherman. In fact, he is credited with authoring the Constitutional paragraph regarding the nature of money, Article 1, Section 10, paragraph 1, cited at the begining of the FRB booklet and included above. In 1752, Roger Sherman wrote a book on money called, "A Caveat Against Injustice, or, The Evils of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange." You won't find this book mentioned in the FRB's version of the history of money. For, "Caveat" lays out the evils of the very same monetary system the FRB lauds. Sherman wrote:
"So long as we part with our most valuable Commodities for such Bills of Credit as are no Profit; but rather a Cheat, Vexation and Snare to us, and become a Medium whereby we are continually cheating and wronging one another in our Dealings and Commerce, and so long as we import so much more foreign Goods than are necessary, and keep so many Merchants and Traders employed to procure and deal them out to us ... I say so long as these Things are so we shall spend great Part of our Labour and Substance for that which will not profit us."
Roger Sherman understood the evils of a fluctuating medium of exchange - bank notes - and he along with the other Framers instituted measures within the body of the Constitution to forever preclude the issuance of such un-backed bills.
Even the FRB admits that Congress could not Constitutionally issue U.S. notes - except possibly in times of war. However, we are supposed to believe that Congress COULD "create" a central bank and COULD then delegate to that entity authority to "print" money - which the Congress itself could not do.
Those who were working to seize control of our nation's life blood - our money - worked hard to get a central bank instituted. It took years. They were finally successful when, late on December 23, 1913 - after the majority of Legislators had left for the Christmas Holidays - a handful of lawmakers approved and secretively implemented the Federal Reserve Act (which had previously failed when voted on by the full House). This gives their version of how this transition took place:
"Since the founding of our country, we have moved from a decentralized to a fairly centralized monetary system. We started with gold and silver coins as the chief medium of exchange, supplemented by colonial currencies and bank notes, and moved to a system of uniform national currency with legal tender status. "As we have seen, the Constitution and gold have played extremely important roles in this evolution. From the early republic until well into this century, the Constitution, and how we interpreted it, greatly influenced the federal government's involvement in monetary affairs."
There you have it, straight from the horse's - uh, mouth. The Constitution and Gold _USED TO_ play an important role in our nation's monetary system. That was back when the Constitution mattered. Not any more. Any influence the Constitution may have had all ended, according to them, sometime around the turn of the century... probably around 1913, perhaps? To them, the Constitution no longer bears on how our how our nation's monetary system operates - the Federal Reserve determines that now.
As recently as the early '50s, Congressman Wright Patman - at the time the House Banking Committee Chairman - said this about the Federal Reserve:
"In the United States today we have in effect two governments... . We have the duly constituted Government... . Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution."
You won't find Congressman Patman's comments about our nation's central bank anywhere within the FRB publication.
Here is the FRB's conclusion in Money Matters:
"[F]or many years, gold played an important role as a regulator of the money supply. But after many decades of debate on how best to maintain a healthy financial system, we created the Federal Reserve System in the early years of this century."
In other words: "WE did away with that old restrictive Constitution and those extremely limiting provisions about gold and silver - the ones we conveniently left out from the quote at the beginning of our educational booklet 'Money Matters.' WE created the Federal Reserve System. The Constitution is no longer relevant."
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The online copy of Money Matters can be found here.
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Federal Reserve regulators have proposed to begin requiring everyone to "identify" themselves whenever engaging in banking activities. The manner of identification has not been unspecified. Eventually, anyone who conducts banking-related business, will have to submit to some kind of "biometric identification," such as a fingerprint, voice print, or retinal scan in order to buy and sell. Bank customers will have to tell their banker what the sources of their income are and how much they expect to take in annually. The banks will develop "profiles" based on that information and will then monitor their customers' financial transactions to look for deviations from the "projected behavior patterns." Anomalies will be reported to federal agencies as "suspicious transactions."
Along with the power to "monitor" comes the inherent power to control. This particular regulatory banking program described above is called Know Your Customer, or KYC for short. The pretext for the KYC program is to crack down on "illegal money laundering" operations. But we don't believe that is the actual reason for implementation. It is believed that the banks desire to go to total electronic banking, and the KYC program is a precursory foundation for the coming cashless system.
Soon, all financial transactions will be electronic, thereby creating a giant national database from which no one will be exempt. Out of this challenge arises an opportunity - the opportunity for creative entrepreneurs to invent and introduce private, digital and anonymous online currencies, thereby offering an alternative to what used to be FRB's monopoly.
One thing's for sure, the future is going to be very exciting!
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