The earth belongs to the living, not the dead. The will and the power of men expire with their lives, by nature's law ... Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance ... We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of the majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation ...
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a Letter to Eppes, June 24, 1813 Dr. Martin A. Larson, The IRS vs. the Middle Class, p.182
![[House of Cards]](cards-s.gif)
Is your children's future
a house of cards?
Remarkable Remedy
Jean Carpenter
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Effect of the Federal Reserve Act
With this Act Congress gave almost unlimited power to what is in essence a trust, exempt from required audit. It is beyond public scrutiny or electoral accountability. It is exempt from all federal, state, and local taxes except real estate. The Federal Reserve does not operate as a corporation, which is at all times subject to its creator. The Fed is not controlled by Congress, but by multinational corporations (Gertrude Coogan's Money Creators, 1935). The member banks are privately owned and locally controlled corporations (Lewis v. United States), but are regulated by the Federal Reserve Board.
The Federal Reserve is no more a part of government than Federal Express. Through it the private banking system harvests the great public and private wealth and property of our nation. (See "The Incredible Money Caper," above.)
This third and most devastating link completed the chain of debt and oppression. It was tested in 1920-21, and again in 1929 and the '30's. Since then it has tightened its stranglehold slowly enough not to cause alarm. Unchecked, the end will be a depression compared to which the Great Depression will seem like a Sunday School picnic.
This act establishes the most gigantic trust on Earth. When the president [Wilson] signs this bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalized. ... the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.
--Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. (father of the aviator)The Fed [Federal Reserve System] has usurped the government. It controls everything here, and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.
-- Congressman Louis T. McFadden Chairman, Banking and Currency Committee (1933)
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Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve
In this act, Congress (without constitutional authority to do so), delegated to the Fed its power over our money.
According to Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power... To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin...
The Supreme Court has held that "Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others its legitimate functions." (Shechter Poultry v. United States of America, 29 U.S. 495, 55 U.S. 837, 842 [1935]).
The policies of the United States Government ... can never be sound or dependable while the most important part of the nation's economic powers is in the hands of a private group which exists as a separate government. The result is that there are two governments in Washington -- the elected Government of the people and the autocracy that controls our financial destiny.
-- The Federal Reserve System, a Study Prepared for the Use of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Conducted by Hon. Wright Patman, the Late Vice Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, January 3, 1977, Appendix I. Law Review Articles of Wright Patman, p. 145.
Even the 14th Amendment, providing that the validity of the public debt should not be questioned, and giving power to Congress to enforce with legislation, cannot validate the act; because enabling legislation cannot validly violate other sections of the Constitution. And the fact remains that Article I, Section10, has never been repealed or amended.
What difference would we see if the Constitution were enforced? History tells us the answer ....
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Was Sherman's "Silver Bullet" Effective?
How quickly did the return to gold and silver affect the economy of the new nation? Letters from George Washington are quite revealing:
A letter to James Madison, in 1786, before the Constitution was ratified, reveals his despair over the bleak outlook:
The wheels of government are clogged, and we are descending into the vale of confusion and darkness. No day was ever more clouded than the present. We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion.
Why? As we mentioned before -- the major cause was inflation. The Continental Congress had issued Continental currency, supposedly redeemable in silver -- that is, until there were many more notes than there was silver to back them. The presses ran wild, and sailors returning from duty paraded down the streets in uniforms made of the worthless money.
Uniformity in the currency, weights, and measures was among the most important of the issues Washington suggested for deliberation of Congress in his first message to that body.Less than a year after the Constitution was ratified, in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, Washington cheerfully wrote:
You have doubtless been informed from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principle difficulties seem in a great measure to have been surmounted. Our revenues have been considerably more productive than it was imagined they would be. I mention this to show the spirit of enterprise that prevails.
And to David Humphreys, in that same year, he confided his utter amazement:
Tranquility reigns among the people with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it. Our public credit stands on that high ground which three years ago it would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold.
And note what The Pennsylvania Gazette had to say on December 16, 1789:
... Since the Federal Constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender our trade has advanced fifty percent, our moneyed people can trust their cash abroad and have brought their coin into circulation....
Honest money resuscitated a nation that almost died in its infancy and made possible the grand experiment that became one of the greatest nations the world has ever seen -- and all without an income tax.
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The Fraud Can Be Stopped
Roger Sherman's proven solution is a simple one. All arguments against returning to lawful money have been adequately overcome in the writings of Dr. Hans Sennholz, in "Inflation, or Gold Standard" (see "Resources," pp. 160 ff.), and of Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. (see "Restoring the Dollar," in The Treasury, p. 117)
The possibility of continuing individual prosperity for any but the elite is precluded by the use of debt-based money. Over time, it is used by the few to defraud the many of all their wealth. By the time hyperinflation sets in, much of our personal property will probably be gone.
As an alternative, some advocate government-issue debt-free currency. That would be far better than the monstrously fraudulent system now bleeding us to death. But the inherent temptation would remain. And certainly Congress has not proven itself fiscally responsible. As Dr. Vieira says, "NO ONE can be trusted with the power to loot the economy through manipulation of money. NO ONE." That, essentially, was also the opinion of the Framers of the Constitution. (See box, page 22.)
The Framers were well acquainted with the biblical warning concerning "divers weights." When money is false, none of the financial affairs of men can be true; for by its use we are forced to defraud one another. (See "Caveat," p. 141 in The Treasury.)
Paper money polluted the equity of our laws, turned them into engines of oppression, corrupted the justice of our public administration, destroyed the fortunes of thousands who had confidence in it, enervated the trade, husbandry, and manufactures of our country, and went far to destroy the morality of our people.
-- Peletiah Webster (1789). Davis R. Dewey: Financial History of the United States, p. 36
No longer do we have the gold and silver monetary base mandated by Article I, ¤10, of the Constitution. The Federal Reserve system has debauched our currency and promises to bring us to ruin while enriching the coffers of its controllers. (Adding more "injury to injury," we taxpayers are the underwriters of loans made to foreign nations. With such surety the bankers have little incentive to make sound loans).
This horrendous fraud can be stopped and the debt collapsed -- without hurting the innocent investor (see Restoring the Dollar, by Edwin Vieira).
The mounting national debt is an ever growing concern. But some are of the opinion that if the debt is owed to ourselves there is no problem. In reality, what is "owed" to the Fed could be repudiated as fraudulent. But the Fed sells much of the paper to private investors. That debt cannot morally be repudiated. The debt will be paid in the end. We, or our children and grand-children, will pay, unless those who have absconded with the real money are required to make it good.
If all bank loans were paid (off), no one would have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of currency or coin in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or [checkbook] credit[s]. ... We are absolutely without a permanent monetary system.
-- Robert H. Hemphill, former Credit Manager The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Senate Document #23, page 102, January 24,1939
Only with wealth-based money can a people be truly free and prosperous.
In a subsequent chapter you will see that we, the people, have the power as well as the authority to make the changes necessary to right these wrongs.
There can be absolutely no question or debate about the intended meaning of the money clause, Article I, Section 10, of the US Constitution. The Framers have confirmed its meaning in their writings, and any other meaning would have caused ratification to fail. They well understood what is expressed in these V Astonishing Quotations ...