Transcript PAPER MONEY - Minuteman Liberty

PAPER MONEY
A colonial history of its use prior to
and after the adoption of the
Constitution for the united States
of America
(Use your arrow keys to navigate)
by Michael H. Keehn
http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/
Source
• Based on the writing of George Bancroft
and found in a document titled:
A PLEA FOR THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE UNITED STATES
Wounded in the House of Its Guardians
Beginning with a Quote
• "The first freedom of every human is freedom of the
mind, the great free will. Essential to this is education.
Mankind must accept education as an individual
responsibility. Turning over the responsibility for your
personal education to another is to surrender your free
will. By controlling what you can learn, others control
you as neatly as a shepherd herds sheep. If mankind
cannot accept the personal responsibility for self
education, then I am wrong and mankind deserves to
be treated as sheep, both shorn and slaughtered,
while in the interim herded by a few smart dogs that
lick the shepherd’s hands. (continued > > >)
Quote Continuation
• The second freedom of every human is to
rise up against oppression, whether it
comes from the lowly hands of a common
thief or from the high hands of the so
called sovereigns.
All of the other great gifts of freedom start
here, the headwaters of liberty. " - Michael
C. Keehn
Intent
• It is the intent of this Power Point
presentation to help the individual
understand the use, and detrimental
consequences and effects of using private
commercial paper (Federal Reserve Notes)
as currency. It is assumed that the viewer
already knows that the Federal Reserve
Bank is not an agency of the government, it
is a privately owned bank.
The autumn of 1690
• Massachusetts sends an expedition to
capture Quebec. They return without
success. To defray its cost, which
amounted to forty thousand pounds,
Massachusetts ordered the issue of
"seven thousand pounds of printed bills of
equal value with money;" and of the
remainder in May, 1691.
THE RESULT?
• All coin then circulating in Massachusetts
was exported to England. It is to be noted
that money in all colonial legislation is
defined as gold and silver coin, which has
intrinsic value.
Intrinsic Value Defined
• “Intrinsic value. The true inherent and
essential value of a thing, not depending
upon accident, place, or person but same
everywhere and to everyone.” – Blacks
Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition
Dependency
• Without true money which could be
accepted in trade, the colony could not
engage in commerce. In July, 1692, within
nineteen months of the earliest emission
of paper money, the first legislature under
the new charter transformed the selfgoverning colony of Massachusetts Bay
into a direct dependency of Great Britain.
Sorrow
• The sorrow of the province was expressed
in December, 1697, with the prohibition of
"the export of coin, silver money or
bullion.” In June, 1700, a joint committee
of the council and representatives, was
appointed to consider how to revive trade.
1702
• The first issue of bills of credit of
Massachusetts after it became a royal
province, was in November, 1702, for ten
thousand pounds, in value "equal to
money," but to be accepted in all public
payments at the advance of five percent.
A tax was ordered for their redemption.
Sound familiar?
South Carolina
• In May, 1703, South Carolina gave a new
development to American paper bills, by
enacting not only that its new emission of
six thousand pounds should be "a good
payment and tender in law," but that
whoever should refuse them should "forfeit
double the value of bills so refused.” As
we can see, coercion is now being used.
Connecticut
• In 1712 Connecticut the statute book
complains that "money," which in those
days meant only gold and silver coin, "was
not to be had."
Inter-Colonial Circulation
• The inter-colonial circulation of each
other's bills wrought a new uncertainty in
prices, for which the currency of each one
of the four was steadily declining, it
declined in each with unequal speed. The
United States currency of today (4-8-2009)
has declined such that a one dollar
Federal Reserve Note of 2009, has $0.035
(3.5 cents) the purchasing power it held in
1962.
Rhode Island & New York
• Rhode Island, in July, 1710, on its first
emission of bills of credit, declared them
equal in value to "money," and made them
receivable in all public payments.
• New York entered eagerly into the defense
of its northern frontier, and in November,
1709, for the first time involved itself in the
use of bills of credit.
The Friends
• The Friends in the assembly of New
Jersey at first defeated the bill for taking
part in the war, but after a short
prorogation it was adopted.
• In Pennsylvania, where the Friends had
more power, the spread of paper money
was, for a while, arrested.
More Bills of Credit
• In November, 1711, Rhode Island discharged a
claim by a loan of its bills of credit to the amount
of three hundred pounds for four years, free of
interest.
• South Carolina gave a wider development to this
new form of using paper. Its legislature, on the
pretext of creating a fund to sink former bills of
credit and to encourage trade and commerce, in
July, 1712, ordered fifty-two thousand pounds in
new bills of credit to be stamped and put out at
interest in loans.
Federal Reserve Bills of Credit
• The Federal Reserve Note, as a Bill of
Credit is issued upon the deposit of debt
with the treasurer of the United States.
Therefore it contains evidence of debt
which is what one would expect of a bill of
credit.
Federal Reserve Note
Authorization
• “Upon the deposit with the Treasurer of the
United States; (a) any direct obligation of the
United States; (b) any notes, drafts, bills of
exchange or bankers acceptances acquired
under the provisions of this act, that any Federal
Reserve Bank making such deposits in the
manner prescribed by the Secretary of the
Treasury, shall be entitled to receive from the
Comptroller of the Currency, circulating notes in
blank, duly registered and countersigned.” –
Banking Relief Act, March 9, 1933
Debt: Public & Private
• (a) any direct obligation of the United
States = Public Debt
• (b) any notes, drafts, bills of exchange or
bankers acceptances = Private Debt
• Whenever Federal Reserve Notes are
issued, it creates a debt upon which
interest must be paid. That obligation falls
upon the American people. Money (gold &
silver) has no such interest obligation.
Intentional Depreciation
• In November, 1714, Massachusetts ordered fifty
thousand pounds to be let out to the inhabitants
of the province for five years on real security at
five pounds percent per annum, to be paid back
in five annual installments. The act was a
sacrifice of the public interests to borrowers, who
were to return their loan only after a lapse of
time sufficient to insure the very great
depreciation of the paper in which it was to be
paid.
Protecting the Speculators
• Moreover, the borrowers needed an
enforcement by law of the circulation of the
paper which they borrowed. In December,
1715, under a pretext “to prevent the
oppression of debtors,” a stringent statute
made the bills legal tender for all debts.
• Protecting the speculators is what just
occurred here in the United States (20082009) with the bail out, and we are the ones
who pays it.
Public Money
• In 1716 Massachusetts ordered one hundred
thousand pounds to be distributed through a
loan office in each county. But why should
borrowers in the smaller townships be forced
to travel to their shire town? Let a public
money-lender be near every man's door.
• Sound familiar? Banks, except they lend
Public Money that is actually private money.
Magical Money Disappears
• Of course real money (gold & silver)
disappeared; not even a silver penny was
to be had; the small change became of
paper.
• In the 1930’s the gold of the American
people was confiscated, and in the 1960’s,
silver coin disappeared.
Preventing Oppression
• In 1717, the council of New Hampshire was
zealous to follow the fashion of issuing paper
money by loans. Its more cautious Assembly
restrained their zeal, and confined the issue to
fifteen thousand pounds.
• In October, 1718, Connecticut, to prevent
oppression by the rigorous exaction of money,
declared its bills of credit legal tender for
debts
Causing Oppression
• Do we know any legislative body in the
United States of America that continually
allows, and engages in, increasing the
National Debt obligation of the people in
this country?
Law of Pennsylvania
• The eagerness of borrowers undermined
the scruples of Pennsylvania; in March,
1723, when there was universal peace,
that colony issued bills of credit for loans
to individuals, and not only compelled
creditors to receive the bills at par or “lose
their debts,” but ordered sellers to receive
them at their nominal value in the sale of
goods or lands or tenements, or "forfeit a
sum from thirty shillings to fifty pounds."
Law of Pennsylvania Cont.
• This law, so wrote Adam Smith, “bears the evident
mark of a scheme of fraudulent debtors to cheat
their creditors. A positive law may render a shilling a
legal tender for a guinea, because it may direct the
courts of justice to discharge the debtor who has
made that tender; but no positive law can oblige a
person who sells goods and who is at liberty to sell
or not to sell as he pleases, to accept of a shilling as
equivalent to a guinea in the price of them. In this
early period Virginia alone escaped the contagion of
a paper currency.”
Repudiation
• The next development of the colonial
system of paper money was a partial
repudiation. In February, 1737, less than
forty-seven years after the first emission of
bills of credit by Massachusetts, that
colony issued nine thousand pounds of a
new tenor, of which one dollar was to be
equal to three of the old, and which, after
five years, was to be redeemed at par in
silver and gold.
Redemption Time
• When the time of redemption came round
they were not paid off, but by a further
repudiation four pounds for one was made
the rate in exchanging the old tenor for the
new.
South Carolina Regains it
(common) Senses
• The people of South Carolina, having the
best opportunity to grow rich by the great
returns made to them for the products of
their soil, have recorded their sense of
their mistake in the statute of the eleventh
of December, 1717, in which they said:
(Continued > >)
South Carolina Admits Mistake
• “It is found by experience that the
multiplicity of the bills of credit hath been
the cause of the ruin of our trade and
commerce and hath been the great evil of
this province, and that it ought with all
expedition to be remedied.”
• How is the trade and commerce of the
United States doing today?
Court Admission
• On the ninth of January, 1739, the general
court of Massachusetts made this
confession: "The emission of great
quantities of bills of public credit without
certain provision for their redemption by
lawful money in convenient time, hath
already stript [striped] us of all our money
and brought them into contempt to the
great scandal of the government…”
Massachusetts Proceeds Alone
• In February, 1748, Massachusetts invited the
governments of Connecticut, New Hampshire,
and Rhode Island to join in abolishing the use
of bills of credit. But as no one of the three
gave effectual heed to the summons, the
people of Massachusetts proceeded alone.
Massachusetts
• It was estimated that about 2,200,000
pounds of their bits of credit would be
outstanding in the year 1749. In January
of that year an act was passed, redeeming
the bills of the old tenor at the rate of fortyfive shillings, those of the new tenor at the
rate of eleven shillings and three pence,
for one Spanish silver dollar; a rate which
somewhat exceeded their market value at
the time.
Massachusetts Cont.
• The bills of credit of New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut were
excluded by most stringent laws, and
Massachusetts, with its quickened industry
and established credit, "sat as a queen
among the provinces.
• Just think how prosperous the United
States might be if such practices were
adopted.
January 1751
• To aid in bringing the other New England
colonies into the same condition, the
parliament of Great Britain enacted that
"no paper currency, or bills of credit of any
kind issued in any of the said colonies or
plantations, shall be a legal tender in
payment of any private dues whatsoever
within any of them.
Roger Sherman
• "The legislature of Connecticut have at length
taken effectual care to prevent a further
depreciation of the bills of this colony; the
other governments," (meaning New
Hampshire and Rhode Island) "not having
taken the like prudent care, their bills of credit
are still sinking in their value.” >>> continued
• And what is your Federal Reserve Note
doing? Everyday you work for less.
Roger Sherman Cont.
• “If what is used as a medium of exchange
is fluctuating in its value, it is no better
than unjust weights and measures, both
which are condemned by the laws of God
and man; and, therefore, the longest and
most universal custom could never make
the use of such a medium either lawful or
reasonable.” >>> continued
Roger Sherman Cont.
• "We, in this colony, are seated on a very
fruitful soil; the product whereof, with our
labor and industry and the divine blessing
thereon, would sufficiently furnish us with
and procure us all the necessaries of life
and as good a medium of exchange as
any people in the world have or can
desire.” >>> continued
Roger Sherman Cont.
• “But so long as we part with our most
valuable commodities for such bills of
credit as are no profit, we shall spend
great part of our labor and substance for
that which will not profit us; whereas if
these things were reformed we might be
as independent, flourishing and happy a
colony as any in the British dominions.”
John Ledyard
• “The medium of trade whereby our
dealings are valued and weighed ought to
be esteemed as sacred as any weights
and measures whatever, and, to maintain
justice, must be kept as stable, for as a
false weight and false balance is an
abomination to the Lord, a false and
unstable medium [of exchange] is equally
so, as it occasions as much iniquity and is
at least as injurious.”
Rhode Island
• Rhode Island, with Stephen Hopkins for its
governor and a legislature of which the
majority reflected his own uprightness, at
once and in spite of the severest
opposition, put on its statute book: “Lawful
money of this colony is, and shall hereafter
be, silver and gold coin; and nothing else;”
and it never again resorted to the emission
of paper money, till, in 1775, it took up
arms for the defense of its liberties.
New Hampshire: Connecticut
• New Hampshire fixed 1771 as the limit for
its paper, which in that year totally
disappeared.
• Connecticut went through the great French
war without issuing bills of credit; but in
1770, after an intermission of twenty-five
years, relapsed into the old abuse.
The War of Independence
• The war for independence exhibited a new
development of the system of credit, by
the reckless disregard of its bounds.
Promises of money were scattered over
the land alike by the states and by the
United States, until "bills," to use the
words of John Adams, "became as plenty
as oak leaves."
North Carolina: Virginia
• North Carolina, having in 1780 directed the
emission of more than a million pounds, in the
next year gave authority at one dash to issue
twenty-six and a quarter million more paper
dollars at six percent interest.
• Virginia in March, 1781, directed the emission of
ten million pounds, and authorized five million
more. The continental paper currency and its
own were made a legal tender in discharge of all
debts and contracts, except contracts which
expressly promised the contrary.
Inflation -100:1
• In 1780 the United States began
repudiation by issuing a new paper dollar
equal to forty of their previous issues.
After their new constitution was
established, all that remained of the bills of
the continental congress were called in at
the rate of one dollar in silver for one
hundred dollars "impressed" on paper.
Our Current Inflation
• Gold, when I was in high school in 1962, was
$32 an ounce. Today, May 8, 2009, the price
of gold is $910.75 per ounce. If we divide 32
by 910.75 we will find that today’s one dollar
Federal Reserve Note has $0.032 (3.2 cents)
the purchasing power it held in 1962. Which
is a testament to our own folly with private
commercial paper (Federal Reserve Notes).
The Result
• The result of our choice to use Federal
Reserve Notes is that a home that cost
$9,600 dollars in 1962, today costs
$284,609. Our payment, instead of being
$106.58 for 12 years is instead, $1706.38
for 30 years. Instead of paying back
$12,789, we pay back $614,294. Over
twice the amount we borrowed. As a
result somebody is becoming very wealthy
off our ignorance.
Wages
• If we were making $2.25 an hour in 1962
and our wages had kept pace with the
devaluation of the Federal Reserve Note,
our hourly wage today would be $64.04
(Sixty-Four dollars and 4 cents an hour). If
we make $15 an hour today, our ability to
purchase products is 23% of what we
were able to buy with $2.25 an hour in
1962, less than one-quarter what we able
to buy back then.
Your Labor & Life
• Today (2009), you, and probably your wife,
must work for 30 or more years to pay for
your home, instead of 10 years. In this
most recent financial meltdown, you’ve
seen your investments decrease in value
by 50%. These are the prices we pay for
allowing our government to continue
dealing in private commercial paper
(Federal Reserve Notes) and the
decreasing value it will forever have.
President John F. Kennedy
• President Kennedy made a bold attempt to
return power and independence to the
American people when he issued an
executive order to begin the printing of noninterest bearing treasury notes as a
replacement for the Federal Reserve Note.
Within 10 days he was assassinated, and the
new President rescinded this executive order.
If we’re awake, this should tell us something.
Government Today
• Today (2009) the United States government
borrows all the money (credit) it needs to
operate annually. This is the public debt
mentioned in the language authorizing the
issuance of Federal Reserve Notes in a
previous panel. The government never pays
on the principal amount owed and even
borrows the money to pay the interest on the
existing debt.
The Federal Reserve Note
• The FRN is issued and owned by the
privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.
This currency, now in circulation, has a
usury charge associated with it we call
interest. Since this debt obligation has
been placed upon the American people by
government, it is then necessary to burden
them with an income tax as well as many
other taxes.
Don’t we owe it to our self?
• NO!, we don’t owe it to ourselves, we owe
it to the international bankers. Federal
Reserve Notes are private commercial
paper, and not owned by the people of the
United States. Consequently, you must
pay for its use… tax; tax; tax; tax; tax; tax.
Wars
• Wars benefit those who finance and profit
from war. This would again be the
international bankers. They finance both
sides of the war and profit regardless of
who wins. If you do some research on
Prescott Bush you will find that he profited
from helping to finance the NAZI regime.
See next panel > > >
Financing the Nazi Movement
• George Bush's grandfather, the late US
senator Prescott Bush, was a director and
shareholder of companies that profited
from their involvement with the financial
backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian
has obtained confirmation from newly
discovered files in the US National
Archives that a firm of which Prescott
Bush was a director was involved with the
financial architects of Nazism.
Greed
• Because there is so much money to be made
in war, it is highly likely that the international
bankers use their wealth, power and influence
to create conflict and war. It is, of course,
logical if one is greedy. Is there any question
of the greed of the international banking elite?
Therefore, why not finance the rise to power
of a NAZI regime or any other similar regime
in today’s world? There is big money to be
made.
Ask the Question
• Always ask the question: “Who does it
profit?” It is the job of the main stream
media, controlled by the elite, to sell the
American people the false idea that it is
they who will profit & benefit. It never is!
People of this world don’t like us very
much, we know. But what country have
we entered in which we have not left a
puppet government subject to our will?
Conclusion
• This concludes a brief look at the history of
paper currency and its effects. The choice
is ours. Either to remain silent and
apathetic, or to take control our lives and
future, and to provide for the future of the
children we purport to love.
END