Very few Americans understand how the Constitution defines “dollars” or the monetary powers

WERE ARE THE ORGANIC LAWS IN THIS PART OF OUR THE PEOPLE CONSTITUTION IT IS NOT PEOPLE ! Coinage Act of 1792 Constitutional Currency Very few Americans understand how the Constitution defines “dollars” or the monetary powers and prohibitions delegated to Congress and the States. As a result, Americans take many unlawful monetary policies for granted, because they have known nothing different and have not questioned the national government’s authority to do the things it has done. Every American should question if the government has the authority to emit a legal-tender paper currency irredeemable in silver or gold coin. If they have the authority to seize the people’s gold like the FDR administration did in 1933. If they are authorized to make the notes of private banks obligations of the United States and legal tender or allow private banks, through an administrative agency exercising unlimited discretion, to draw money from the Treasury without specific appropriations made by law.[1] The answers to these questions are laid out in seven constitutional clauses that define “Money” and the powers both delegated to and prohibited from the national and State governments in regards to monetary policy. These seven clauses are the standard by which every act of Congress and State law, dealing with monetary policy, must be but has seldom been measured. Four clauses in Article I, Section 8 define the monetary powers delegated to Congress. “The Congress shall have Power…To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;[2]… To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin,[3]…To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States[.][4]”“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law[.]”[5] The first two clauses of the four only authorize Congress to borrow, coin, and regulate the value of “Money”. The third clause requires Congress to provide for the “Punishment” of counterfeiters, and the last clause limits the reason for which money can be drawn from the US Treasury. Only one clause of the seven defines the monetary powers prohibited to the State governments. “No State shall…emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts[.]”[6] Finally, two clauses of the seven specifically refer to “dollars”, “…not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”[7] “…where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars;”[8] thereby using a term that had a definite meaning to everyone who both framed and ratified the US Constitution. By constitutionally defining the term “dollars” we can unravel much confusion modern Americans have about the constitutional monetary system and it will help decipher the other five monetary clauses. The dollar, as referred to in Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 and the Seventh Amendment, is a “Money Unit” defined by specific grains of fine silver equivalent to “New Spanish Dollars” in 1786. We know this because in 1785, Congress “Resolved, That the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar.”[9] Then, “in 1786, the Congressional Board of Treasury…calculated that “[t]he Money Unit or Dollar will contain three hundred and seventy five grains and sixty four hundredths of a Grain of fine Silver”, and will be worth as much as the New Spanish Dollars.”[10] Later, the Coinage Act of 1792 fixed the grains of silver in the dollar to 371-1/4 grains of fine silver. Alexander Hamilton, as the first Secretary of the Treasury, did this to more accurately equate the US dollar to the value of a Spanish milled dollar prevalent at that time. The Coinage Act of 1792 also defined the amount of gold in American gold coins, so their nominal values of $10 and $20 would be proportional to ten and twenty silver dollar coins, respectively. By the national government’s 1785 resolution, the Board of Treasury’s 1786 definition and because everyone who ratified the Constitution understood the meaning of “dollars” according to these two actions, a dollar is statutorily fixed, by the Constitution, as being a silver coin comprised of a specific number of grains of fine silver “worth as much as the New Spanish Dollars”, which the Coinage Act of 1792 fixed at 371-1/4 grains. This is significant because it is the standard of value by which the national government must maintain and measure all other “Thing[s]” with respect to monetary value. Congress is no more able to redefine what constitutes a “dollar[ ]” than they are able to redefine the length of a “year”. Both terms are used by the Constitution and both have very specific meanings. The Coinage Act of 1792 more precisely defined the dollar in relation to milled Spanish dollars and any other adjustments would not serve to improve the standard unit of United States “Money.” “Money” as defined by the Constitution also has a very specific meaning. We know from the monetary powers delegated to Congress that “Money” has to be coined, therefore it has to be made of metal and as pursuant to common law it has to be of intrinsic value.[11] From the monetary prohibitions placed upon the States we see both gold and silver were meant to comprise the coinage system in the United States, which also comports with common law from which the framers of the Constitution developed the monetary clauses. Putting all of this together, Constitutional “Money” is gold or silver coin whose value is measured against a silver coin of 371-1/4 grains of fine silver. Copper may also be used as “Money”, because it is a semi-precious metal, but its value must be measured against the silver dollar as defined by the Coinage Act of 1792. This brings us back to the questions Americans should ask about the government’s monetary policies. Since the Tenth Amendment specifies that Congress is only allowed to exercise authority where it is specifically written in the Constitution, it should be clear Congress can only borrow, coin, and regulate the value of coins in relation to the silver dollar standard. They are also obligated to provide for the punishment of counterfeiters. Conversely, they are prohibited from making any other monetary policy to include emitting paper currency of any kind as legal tender, withdrawing money from the US Treasury without “Appropriations made by Law”, or allowing surrogates to do the things they are prohibited from doing, because it is not specifically authorized in the Constitution. The national government is also not authorized to confiscate the property of American citizens without due process of common law. Unfortunately, they have done all of these things and are still currently doing most of them. The only thing that is stopping us from demanding our national government uphold our Constitution is us. Nobody but politicians and their friends are benefiting from our current monetary system, and most importantly, to do anything else other than to uphold the Constitution is contrary to the “supreme Law of the Land.” This should at least be one issue upon which most all Americans can agree; restore the constitutional monetary system. [1] E. Vieira, Jr., Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution, Rev ed. (Chicago, IL: RR Donnelley & Sons, Inc.),38. [2] Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 [3] Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 [4] Article I, Section 8, Clause 6 [5] Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 [6] Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 [7] Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 [8] Amendment VII [9] 29 Journals of the Continental Congress, ante note 331, at 499-500. [10] Vieira, 89. [11] Vieira, 69.