The FORGOTTEN History of Money in the U.S.

Submitted for your consideration while standing by for FURIOUS FLAMES from the FRIENDS OF PAPER MONEY!

(I wrote this a number of years ago when things were NOT going well with the economy. Trust me: They WILL get ugly once again as man -- or certain men -- cannot resist playing God. We continue to violate the universal, immutable laws of economics at our great peril.)

History proves that EVERY house of cards eventually comes down. And the higher the card house, the harder the fall when it finally comes. And when it does, the more freedoms we will voluntarily surrender to "restore order." It was the Founders' concern about this historically valid problem which prompted their attempt -- now ignored -- to keep American "money" sound and honest.)

And I certainly recognize that NO system of commodity backed paper “money” is foolproof (and we now seem to be led by some of history’s biggest fools) how’s the current UNBACKED system working out for you?

I have noted with interest that I have lately been getting far, far fewer flames from the paper money lovers out there. And when, over 2 years ago, I began ranting about the incredibly stupid financial devices (derivatives, mortgage backed securities, etc.) being created to hoodwink the greater fools out there who were snapping up these things, I could count on about half the responders to tell me I was too simple-minded to understand these highly complicated financial “products.” I guess all those really bright financial guys are too busy now washing car windows at traffic lights to post here.

And I’d ask you to consider that when gold and silver come up in the news, the talking heads fall into the old, establishment fostered trap of measuring the precious metals in the rapidly failing paper when they SHOULD remark that it is the metals that are – within the narrow confines of fluctuations caused by their uses as industrial commodities – holding THEIR value and it is the paper that is INFLATING. (The classic example is that around 1900, one could buy a fine man’s suit for one ounce of gold. YOU STILL CAN!!!)

A fiat money system of the sort we are now painfully watching collapse creates a FALSE world of FALSE feelings of well-being and elevated lifestyles. During the expansion phase of such a system, those living under it spend or borrow more than they should, have more children than they can afford and, at the national level, come to believe they can afford to allow a score of millions of illegals to come here for educations, welfare payments, medical care, etc. They reject the immutable and universal economic realities and embrace what my old friend, the late Tupper Saussy, called “the IDEASPHERE.”

Now that the inevitable economic catastrophe is upon us, how much fun is it to watch the idiots in congress who triggered this thing scramble for cover by blaming everyone else? Not much!

The only folks who feel good now are the Hank Paulsons and Obamaites of the world who are in the process of conducting what may prove to be one of the largest raids on the REAL wealth of this nation – our labor and real property – ever witnessed.

And I’ll readily concede that while a precious metals backed money system ain’t perfect, ASK YOURSELF HOW THE FIAT MONEY SYSTEM NOW COLLAPSING ALL AROUND US HAS BEEN WORKING FOR YA’?

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; if it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it." -- Judge Learned Hand, 1944

The Forgotten History of Money This is the fascinating story of the efforts by certain of the Founding Fathers to prevent the economic distress we find all about us today. It is also a sad story on the basis that modern, "sophisticated" Americans have abandoned the corrective institutional mechanism that remains in place to this day. As you read it, think about a world with many fewer S&L, banking and political scandals and economic problems now considered the norm.

"Blood running in the streets. Mobs of rioters and demonstrators threatening banks and legislatures. Looting of shop and home. Strikes and unemployment. Trade and distribution paralyzed. Shortages of food. Bankruptcies everywhere. Court dockets overloaded. Kidnappings for heavy ransom. Sexual perversion, drunkenness, lawlessness rampant. 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 on anarchy and confusion. (George Washington in a 1786 letter to James Madison, describing the effects of fiat paper money inflation then ravaging America in the pre Constitutional period.)

"The annihilation (of the paper money) was so complete that barber shops were papered in jest with the bills; and sailors, on returning from cruises, being paid off in bundles of this worthless money, had suits made of it, and with characteristic lightheartedness, turned their loss into frolic by parading through the streets in decayed finery which in its better days had passed for thousands of dollars." (Contemporary writer, Breck, 1786)

"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 and husbandry, and the manufactures of our country, and went far to destroy the morality of out people." (Peletiah Webster, 1786)

At the drafting of the U.S.Constitution, there were many "Friends of Paper Money" present. On August 16, 1787, when the discussion arose on Article 1, Section 8, the proposed wording was this: "The Legislature of the United States shall have the power to...coin money...and emit bills of credit of the United States."

A hot argument ensued on the power to emit bills of credit, which is another way of saying "printing paper money".

Here are the actual words James Madison wrote describing the debate in his diary: "Mr.G.Morris moved to strike out *and emit bills of credit.* If the United States had credit, such bills would be unnecessary; if they had not, unjust and useless.

MADISON: Will it not be sufficient to prohibit the making them a tender? This will remove the temptation to emit them with unjust views. And promissory notes in that shape may in some emergencies be best. MORRIS: Striking out the words will leave room still for notes of a responsible minister which will do the good without the mischief. The monied interest will oppose the plan of the Government, if paper emissions be not prohibited. COL.MASON: Though he had a mortal hatred to paper money, yet as he could not foresee all emergencies, we was unwilling to tie the hands of the Legislature [Legislature = Congress]. MR.MERCER:(A friend to paper money) It was impolitic...to excite the opposition of all those who were friends to paper money. MR. ELSEWORTH thought this was a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money. 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 America. By withholding the power from the new Government, more friends of influence would be gained to it than by almost anything else...Give the Government credit, and other will offer. The power may do harm, never good. MR.WILSON: It will have a most salutary influence on the credit of the United States to remove the possibility of paper money. This expedient can never succeed whilst its mischiefs are remembered, and as long as it can be resorted to, it will be a bar to other resources. MR.READ thought the words, if not struck out, would be as alarming as the mark of the Beast in Revelation. MR.LANGDON had rather reject the whole plan than retain the three words *and emit bills*".

Historian George Bancroft later wrote: "James Madison left his testimony that *the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender, either for public or private debts, was cut off.* This is the interpretation of the clause, made at the time of its adoption by all the statesmen of that age, not open to dispute because too clear for argument, and never disputed so long as any one man who took part in framing the constitution remained alive."

(Bancroft – founder of the U.S.Naval Academy at Annapolis among other accomplishments – wrote a book on this very subject entitled “A Plea for the Constitution of the United States: Wounded in the House of Its Guardians.” During WWII, FDR – a serious friend of paper money – ostensibly to supply the war effort, ordered the printing plates for many historical books smelted. Bancroft’s book was among them. A photocopy of one of the remaining originals can be found here

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=bE7PP1ePQwgC&dq=Constitution+wounded+in+the+house+of+its+guardians&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=iiJ1_2B_IA&sig=ByRM-kVMIDAs4S5OttEqkCXGm8s#PPA4,M1 )

ROGER SHERMAN(1721 1793)should be a name familiar to every American. As familiar as Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Adams. He is the only man to have signed all 4 documents surrounding the formation of the United States of America: The Continental Association of 1774, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and The United States Constitution. He was a Judge of the Superior Court in New Haven, Connecticut, serving that office with distinction from 1766 until 1788. He served as Treasurer of Yale University from 1765 to 1776. He was renouned for his high intelligence and unswerving honesty and was described by John Adams "as honest as an angel and as firm in the cause of American independence as Mount Atlas." He served in the U.S.Senate from 1791 until his death in 1793.

Why is Roger Sherman*s name unfamiliar? HE WAS AN ENEMY OF PAPER MONEY!! In 1751, Roger Sherman and his brother William sued James Battle for paying a debt to their shop in New Milford, Connecticut, in depreciating paper currency. Over a period of 15 months, Battle had charged "divers wares and merchandizes" amounting to 129 pounds of what Sherman assumed were pounds of Connecticut "Old Tenor", a stable currency whose value were well preserved by taxation taking it out of circulation. But Battle assumed the debt was denominated in pounds of ever depreciating Rhode Island currency, tendered in same, and the Shermans took a beating in the payment and sued for recovery of loss by depreciation. The Shermans lost when Battle argued that he was merely following the accepted custom of the day. In 1752, Sherman wrote his book "A Caveat Against Injustice or An Inquiry into the Evils of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange" indicting UNBACKED PAPER MONEY.

It was this experience that Sherman brought to the Constitutional Convention and prompted him to rise on August 28,1787 and propose new, more restrictive wording to Article 1,Section 10. The standing version under consideration was worded this way: "No state shall coin money; nor grant letters of marque and reprisal; nor enter into any Treaty, alliance, or confederation; nor grant any title of Nobility." (From Madison’s Notes of the Convention) "Judge Sherman and Mr. Wilson moved to insert the words *coin money* the words *nor emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts* making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S. Mr. Sherman thought this a FAVORABLE CRISIS FOR CRUSHING PAPER MONEY. 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." Mr. Sherman*s and Mr. Wilson*s motion was quickly agreed to and became the supreme law of the land.

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation" (John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1787)

"I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else, a legal tender." (Thomas Jefferson)

"You have been doubtless been informed, from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principal difficulties seem in 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." (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, June 3, 1790 AFTER the United States Constitution prohibited unbacked paper money at Article 1, Section 10)

"Since the federal constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced fifty percent. Our monied people can trust their cash abroad, and have brought their coin into circulation." (December 16, 1789 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette)

"Our country, my dear sir, is fast progressing in its political importance and social happiness." (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, March 19, 1791)

"The United States enjoys a sense of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for." (George Washington in a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, July 19,1791)

"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 would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold." (George Washington in a letter to David Humphreys, July 20, 1791)

"It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the times which gave birth to it, that 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 certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of PAPER CURRENCY." (Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress, December 5, 1836)

DESPITE WHAT YOU WERE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, THE HISTORICAL RECORD IS CRYSTAL CLEAR: AMERICA WAS TO HAVE BEEN SPARED THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF AN UNBACKED PAPER MONEY SYSTEM. MOST OF THE PROBLEMS WE FACE TODAY CAN BE TRACED TO WHAT ANDREW JACKSON CALLED "THE PERNICIOUS EXPEDIENT OF PAPER MONEY".

HISTORY TEACHES THAT AN "ARTIFICIAL" MONEY CREATES AN "ARTIFICIAL" WORLD WHERE THE PRICE FOR SOME ITEM...EVEN OUR MOST POPULAR WELFARE "PROGRAM"...CAN BE DEFERRED TO FUTURE GENERATIONS (OUR $11 TRILLION NATIONAL DEBT) OR PAID WITH A "MONEY" CREATED OUT OF THIN AIR WHICH ROBS THE VALUE FROM THE MONEY WE MIGHT BE UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE IN OUR POCKETS AT THAT MOMENT (INFLATION). AND ONE THING YOU MUST REMEMBER ABOUT INFLATION IS THAT IT IS NOT AN "EQUAL OPPORTUNITY" DESTROYER: THOSE FIRST IN LINE TO GET THEIR HANDS ON THE NEW MONEY ROLLING OFF THE PRESSES (THE MODERN FRIENDS OF PAPER MONEY) HAVE A CHANCE TO SPEND IT BEFORE IT LOSES ITS VALUE. THE LITTLE PEOPLE (THAT’S US, FOLKS!) FARTHEST DOWN THE LINE ARE THE ONES WHO FEEL THE FULLEST EFFECTS OF THIS DESTRUCTIVE PROCESS.

I don't really care what the TOTUS script reader has to say. It's all moot; not only will each & every one of his handlers' agenda items fail, but he will (figuratively) preside over the actual reduction of the US budget.

The bottom line is that there isn't sufficient margin (ie asset inflation) to sustain the level of credit expansion necessary to continue driving (illusory) economic activity in the form of consumer spending. In other words, the FIRE economic model is DEAD. As a result, the tax receipts derived from income, sales, property & capital gains taxes necessary to support the welfare state are cratering.

In the near-term, as a result of slowing export demand & growing unemployment, both sovereign wealth funds (eg China) & domestic savers will greatly reduce, if not outright halt, their purchases of Treasuries. This will reach a point where the volume of debt sold will not even cover base-line operating deficits, much less finance the TOTUS fantasy budget (eg card check, health care, cap & trade, education, civilian force, etc).

And forget about printing money - after the People experience first-hand the immediate inflationary price spike effects of the Fed monetizing the debt via quantitative easing (QE), the Fed will be reigned in by Congress to prevent any further destruction of the $USD. (Because we ultimately need a steady, if weak, $USD to encourage foreign capital investment - assets [like factories], not debt.)

At this point, without the ability to either raise/access new credit via Treasury sales, nor print money by Fed QE, the Fedgov will have no choice but to make significant cut-backs so that expenditures meet revenues derived from actual hard-money tax receipts.

There is nothing the brain-fried crackhead nor his masters can do about this playing out. (The drug-addled -0- doesn't even have slightest clue as to what is transpiring. We are actually extremely fortunate that an affirmative action incompetent of his magnitude is the Left's token figurehead.) These course of events were set in motion decades ago and are now finally coming to their final fruition. Remember, socialism always fails! It does, it will, and it is actually in the process of doing so as we watch world events unfold.

Kick back and enjoy the show - just make sure you have food, firearms, family & friends in place to form your local support organization when the SHTF.

Good grief, HERE’S A FRIEND OF PAPER MONEY NOW! Didn’t think there were any left. They must have been put on the Endangered Species List.

While I admitted that gold ain’t PERFECT, it beats the living crap outta what’s going on now with the political fiat “money” system collapsing all about us.

A few things for you to read in your cage there at the National Zoo:

In early 1983, I wrote Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia
to ask about the redeemability of Federal Reserve
Notes. His reply arrived on March 11 and read (in
part) as posted below.

It would APPEAR that either:
1. Sam Nunn ACTUALLY gets it about what happens when man
(or certain men) play God with “money;”
2. Nunn DOESN’T get it — and some staffer sent this out
without actually READING it or running it by the boss (in
which case said staffer now works for the DC Sanitation
Department.
3. None of the above. Because nearly every American is an
economic illiterate, what possible harm could it do to send it?
In which case, you economic illiterates who read this will mutter
“So what?” and flip back to MTV.

In any event, for the edification of you non-economic illiterates
out there, here it is.

“Dear Richard:

Thank you for your letter requesting information on
redeemability of Federal Reserve Notes for lawful
money. I have enclosed information from the
Congressional Research Service that I hope will be of
assistance.”

The enclosure was 4 pages from something called
“The Gold Standard: Its history and record against
inflation. A Study prepared for the use of the
Subcommittee on Monetary and Fiscal Policy of the Joint
Economic Committee, Congress of The United States.” It
was printed September 18, 1981. I was sent only the
England and U.S. portions of the study. What they
revealed was most interesting. From the England study:
(Emphasis added)

“England has had 350 years of experience with
various forms of the gold standard. She first went on
the gold coin standard, de facto, in 1717. This was
done by Sir Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint (and we all know what a dumb ass HE was). It
was done by pricing gold at the mint more favorably,
relative to silver, than in the marketplace. An Act of
Parliament in 1816 gave formal recognition to this
‘new’ monetary standard that had been operational for a
century in promoting England to a world power.

“Between 1797 and 1821, England temporarily
suspended the gold standard because of the economic
disruptions of the Napoleonic Wars. With no gold
backing to the currency, the supply of money had no
discipline except that imposed by the Board of
Governors of the Bank of England (analogous to our Fed
of today).

The result was that wholesale commodity prices shot up
nearly 50% in 4 years-a momentous inflation.

The ‘Bullion Committee’ was formed by parliament
to investigate. Their findings read in part as follows:

‘The suspension of cash payments has had the
effect of committing into the hands of the Directors of
the Bank of England, to be exercised by their sole
discretion the immediate charge of supplying the
country with that quantity of circulating medium which
exactly proportioned to the wants and occasions of
the Public. In the judgment of the Committee, that is
a trust which it is unreasonable to expect that the
Directors of the Bank of England should ever be able to
discharge. The most detailed knowledge of the actual
trade of the Country, combined with the profound
Science in all principles of Money and circulation,
would not allow any man or set of men to adjust, and
keep always adjusted, the right proportion of
circulating medium in a country to the wants of trade.’

“Gold convertibility of the currency was resumed
in 1821. It is a matter of record that wholesale
prices came back down immediately to the level
preceding the hiatus in the gold standard.

“England was again off the gold standard between
1919 and 1925. When she resumed gold convertibility it
was on a gold bullion standard where she remained until
1931, when she went off the gold standard altogether in
the midst of the Great Depression.”

Under the United States, we find the following:

“The long period of the gold standard in the
United States was not an economic nirvana. The most
severe inflationary period reaching completion under
the gold standard was from 1897 to 1920. But from
trough to peak, the average annual compound rate
was 5.4%—mild by present experience. And most of this
occurred from 1914 to 1920 when the European war and
its aftermath bore so heavily on the domestic economy.
If we look at the period between 1897 and 1914, the
average annual rate of inflation was 2.6% — enviable
from the perspective of today.”

after the People experience first-hand the immediate inflationary price spike effects of the Fed monetizing the debt via quantitative easing (QE)

Quantitative easing in an environment of debt-deflation and asset-deflation does not cause immediate inflationary price spikes. QE is still another form of pushing on a string, so the problem with QE is not that we get a sudden bout of unacceptable inflation - look at Japan, they did QE for a decade and got no inflaton at all, ever.

The problem (or risk) with QE is almost the opposite your underlying theme. The extra base money goes out there, long term interest rates get pulled down to ridiculous lows, the govt keeps running record-level deficits, but for a couple of years there is still no hyperinflation to get the torches and pitchforks marches on the capital. And then a couple of years later We find outselves in one of the following situations:
a) Inflation and devaluaton suddenly explodes, but long long after anyone any longer believes it was possible anymore. Poeple ar eunprepared for it,politicians are unprepared, and the federal budget is suddenly crushed. We do not have a case of this happening in modern history, and don't go by Weinmar of Zimbabwe, what they did was much different.
b) We continue in a long, prolonged deflationary slump for a decade or decades. This is what has happened to Japan, although they were in a much different situation - they started out a net exporters with very low levels of debt and high levels of savings, and their currency was not a world reserve currency.
c) Prob our current best case scenario right now - we struggle with 1+ recessions over about 4-5 years, like in the early 1980s - but not a hyper-inflationary one.

Be careful within simple comparisons to Zimbabwe. What we're doing has never been done before - at least not in this situation. We have no idea what will happen in 3-4 years, and the types of possibilities are very broad.

BTW - many people ask me how it's possible that the Fed can "print" without causing inflation. Here's how:

We all agree that the fractional reserve banking system fuels inflation. The Fed controls the monetary base, but it is the banking system that expands that base to make the much larger M1 and M2 and MZM measures of total money, without the Fed having to do a thing.

The corollary is that in a deflationary crisis, it is that same fractional reserve system that fuels deflation by slowing lending, increases insolvencies and lower intrest rates. At this point the Fed can create base money all it wants, but if banks don't lend, that doesn't reall put much money into spending to drive up prices. The formula MV=PQ shows that prices are a factor of both the quantity of moeny and of Velocity (the level at which that money is spent). This chart shows what I mean. Fed has already doubled the monetary base, and all it did was nudge it slightly above its trend:

That is why I say that the Fed can ease without us seeing "immediate" inflation... although what happens 2-5 years from now is a much much different story.

Actually, I agree with your analysis - I expect continued years of deflation. I should have been more clear when I referenced 'immediate price hikes', in that what I really meant was imported commodities (eg oil).

Overall, of course, in reaction to these cost increases, people/industry will drastically reduce consumption, thus further depressing economic activity and thereby fueling the downward cycle.

Where I do disagree with you is the public's reaction to QE. I took great interest in the AIG bonus diversion simply because it indicated that rage is building.

Some members in Congress have been doing their homework by reading Denninger, Mish, et al. They are becoming more informed and developing the confidence to take on the Fed. Ben is not god - even though he likes to bluff about being MOTU. There are plenty of other equally intelligent people who also understand the math who can counter every one of his prescriptions.

He'll get to do QE a few times, but after the first initial dislocations, you'll see sentiment turn against a private cabal directing US capital. That's why I'm confident QE will be halted and the country will reach a point where it accepts that the only way out is that we will collectively have to take our lumps.

Only until the $USD stabilizes will we begin to see net foreign investment directed towards productive capacity and a more balanced economy of savings, production & consumption.

He'll get to do QE a few times, but after the first initial dislocations, you'll see sentiment turn against a private cabal directing US capital. That's why I'm confident QE will be halted

Maybe. I think the American public can be distracted by bread and circuses and feigned outrage for a lot longer than is required to implement irrevesible policy (or at least policy that limits our outcomes and options in the future), and that our policians are more likely to try to score simplistic points than to make intelligent and difficult choices. And the sight of public protests and death threats against IAG employees for doing something that was explicitly sanctioned by all legislative and regulatory bodies, the sight of those same regulators with their fake outrage and show trials, the sight of congress using an economic emergency to ram through their favorite re-election schemes whiel calling it "stimulus", the sight of the media hyping up the emotional frenzy instead of focusing on substance (uh, anyone on TV want to talk a little about the deficits and about QE?), none of that inspires my confidence in our political system to deal with this appropriately.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.