There have been some recent comments on the web of how bad of a year 1913 was. With the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the passing of the 16th amendment (income taxes), 17th amendment (removal of States power by electing Senators directly) and 18th amendment (alcohol prohibition) much of the liberty Americans once had was lost.
What most people don’t understand is that this is only the tip of the ice berg. We have to look below the surface to see what really happened to liberty during that era. More precisely, how big the ice berg was and what damage it caused.
The Background
It is no surprise that the income tax amendment and the central bank were both established simultaneously. For to have a central bank a government must tax it’s citizens directly. Central banks are created for the State to grow and make war. The reason so many of the Jeffersonian Republican-Democrats opposed a central bank was to keep the size and scope of the national government at a minimum. Eventually, the Hamiltonian Federalists and later the Whigs, then Lincoln Republicans, won out. The Civil War brought about the National Banking Act, and fiat currency called greenbacks. A prelude of what was to come.
Prior to 1871 our national capital had been called Washington City and not Washington District of Columbia (D.C.). In 1871 congress passed the Act of 1871 which created the District of Columbia and transformed the nature of the country into a corporation. By changing the words “for” to “of” in it’s title and using all capital letters, the organic Constitution of 1801 was repealed and replaced with it’s new corporate version. The original title that the Founders established reads, “The Constitution for the United States of America”. After the Act of 1871 and the establishment of a separate governance called the District of Columbia, the new title reads, “THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. The all caps version is important because in legal terms, it denotes a corporation. More on this later.
Why Did a One Party Federal Government Do This?
In 1871 the country was in deep dire straits. The Republican Party had the monopoly of power in Washington. The Civil War decimated the south and the north had put the country into debt to the international bankers. They were broke and couldn’t pay the note. In a brilliant move, the bankers decided it was best to corporate the United States and congress went along. Leading the exercise were the Rothschild interests in London. The Act of 1871 changed the nature of the Constitution from an organic document into a corporate agreement. The corporate constitution operates in an economic capacity and has been used to fool the people into thinking it is the same parchment that governs the Republic. It absolutely is not. Is this treason? You bet it is. According to the UNITED STATES CODE Title 28 3002 (15) (A) (B) (C), It states in plain language that the UNITED STATES is a corporation. To learn more about the Act of 1871 click here.
Never Waste a Crisis
During the Panic of 1907, the United States government got itself into fiscal trouble again. It almost went broke, save for the bailout of the federal government by multi-millionaire J.P. Morgan. He was heralded as a hero for loaning the government the needed funds to stay off a fiscal crisis. His power and influence grew along side of his fame. What people don’t realize is that his act of philanthropy only rekindled the push for a new central banking system as big business was not satisfied with the National Banking Act. For more about this era and it’s impact on history a suggested reading would be “Origins of the Federal Reserve” by Murray Rothbard by clicking here.
The original charter of the Federal Reserve was to be the lender of last resort to it’s member banks and a source of finance for the government. The Fed was established as a privately owned banking cartel (one of the final cartels created by the federal government) to maintain the “elasticity” of it’s Federal Reserve notes. That is, to inflate the supply of money when it saw fit to do so. Through the fractional reserve lending practices of it’s member banks, the Fed grew quite powerful in a short amount of time. Following World War I, Benjamin Strong, head of the New York Fed from 1914 to his death in 1928, recognized that gold no longer served as the central factor in controlling credit. Strong’s aggressive action to stem a recession in 1923 through a large purchase of government securities (bonds) gave clear evidence of the power of open market operations to influence the availability of credit in the banking system. During the 1920s, the Fed began using open market operations as a monetary policy tool. Strong also elevated the stature of the Fed by promoting relations with other central banks, especially the Bank of England by devaluing the dollar through inflation to help support the post WWI British Pound Sterling. To play their part, member banks made loans to investors to play the stock market on the margins during the roaring 1920’s, blowing air into an ever growing bubble. An international bubble that went bust on Black Monday in 1929.
Setting the Record Straight
The Hoover administration began to intervene into the market by spending money hand over fist. It began with infrastructure projects such as the TVA, the Hoover Dam and Golden Gate Bridge. It initiated price and wage controls. It abused the Commerce Clause and many other interventionist programs. The treasury was being emptied at an alarming rate. Later, in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared that the treasury was broke. The country couldn’t pay it’s debts and the Fed’s member banks demanded payment.
One action FDR took was his historical Executive Order 6102, signed on April 5,1933. This executive order forbid the “hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates within the continental United States”. The order criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, partnership, association or corporation. An important first step in something even worse yet to come. Congress passed the Banking Act of 1933, better known as the Glass-Steagall Act, calling for the separation of commercial and investment banking and requiring the use of government securities as collateral for Federal Reserve notes (emphasis mine).
Much has been published on the web over what happened next. Most of it is convoluted, confused or flat wrong. Many writers claim the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921 established the registry of births in the 48 states. It did not. The Sheppard-Towner Act also known by congress as the Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy Act was signed by Warren G. Harding in 1921 and provided federal funding of maternity and child care. A historical first step by the federal government into social security and a legacy of the Progressive Era. The act included provisions for infant and maternal health care education, visiting nurses, child health centers, child health conferences and literature distribution. It was to be implemented by the states under the supervision of the Children’s Bureau which was created in 1912 to study infant mortality. An appropriation of $1.48 million was passed for fiscal years 1921-1922 and then $1.2 million for the next five years, ending in 1927. Some $5000 would go to each state with a dollar for dollar matching up to an explicit cap determined by the state’s population. Thus, it was fiscally important for the states to keep accurate birth records of it’s residents. A result was compulsory registration of pregnancy, government prenatal examinations and the loss of a mother’s right to choose her own midwife or physician, by participating states. The act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and congress only funded it for an additional two years before it died in 1929 along with the Stock Market. This left a dangerous precedent.
Enter the Census Bureau
Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
their states, including the citizenry, as collateral for loans of credit by the federal government from the Federal Reserve system. In other words, you and your property, to include the ability to tax your labor or income (the 16th amendment) are a possession of those parties involved in the debt “both public and private” as it states on your Federal Reserve notes in your wallet. This is why legal tender laws are important to all lenders involved. Your birth certificate, not the copy that the state gives you but the actual real certificate printed by the American BankNote Company is a bond to be traded as a commodity on the market. The red number denotes your document number when cross referenced, is also your bond number on the NYSE.
A corporation is a legal entity that is jointly owned by several investors. Pull out your state issued drivers licence. Check your car title. Look at a dollar bill and notice all the names in caps. Best of all, your Social Security card. At your birth, you were established as a corporation which is jointly owned. You are owned by all parties which purchases bonds. Both state and federal bonds. All you have or will ever produce is legally owned by other people and governments. According to Barron’s Dictionary of Banking Terms, a certificate is a paper which declares an ownership claim.
The Blue Collar Economist 