Tenth Amendment Center: Constitutional Conversation

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies have led to a decline of over 95% in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar. As a result, there have been several attempts to reduce or even eliminate the Federal Reserve’s powers.

Louis T. McFadden led efforts in the 1930s. Wright Patman pressed again in the 1970s. Henry Gonzalez got things moving in the 1990s. And, Ron Paul has led the charge for more than twenty years now. In nearly eighty years, though, none of these efforts have succeeded.

And, even with House passage of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill earlier today, it’s highly unlikely that the imperial Senate would ever allow light to be shed on the actions of its financial backer. Resistance to these efforts is seriously entrenched.

But yet, a large number of people across the political spectrum want to know what goes on behind the Fed’s curtain. And with calls to audit the federal reserve reaching a fevered pitch, it’s a good time to ask the basic question – is this even a worthy effort?

Not to say that you should want a secret national bank, but rather – is this kind of activism the best place for you to put your energy...and hope? Will lobbying the Senate get Harry Reid to allow a vote? Will calling Mitch McConnell change anything? Will Barack Obama or Mitt Romney allow such a bill to pass without their veto?

I believe the answer to all these questions is a big, fat NO.

PULLING THE RUG OUT

On the other hand, in contrast to attempts to put a stop to the Fed at the national level, a paper that William Greene presented at the Mises Institute’s “Austrian Scholars Conference” proposes an alternative approach to ending the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money. The “Constitutional Tender Act” is a bill template that can be introduced in every State legislature in the nation. Passage would return each of them to the Constitution’s “legal tender” provisions of Article I, Section 10:

“No State Shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”

Such a tactic would achieve the desired goal of abolishing the Federal Reserve system by attacking it from the bottom up – pulling the rug out from under it by working to make its functions irrelevant at the State and local level.

Under the Constitutional Tender Act, the State would be required to use only gold and silver coins – or their equivalents, such as checks or electronic transfers – for payments of any debt owed by or to the State. This includes things like taxes, fees, contract payments, and the like.

All such payments would be required to be denominated in legal tender gold and silver U.S. coins, including Gold Eagles, Silver Eagles, and pre-1965 90% silver coins. The market would then require that all State-chartered banks – as well as any other bank acting as a depository for State funds – offer accounts denominated in those types of gold and silver coins, and to keep such accounts segregated from other types of accounts such as Federal Reserve Notes.

But that’s not all! Not only would the use of Federal Reserve Notes by the State be made illegal; the use of legal tender U.S. gold and silver coins would be encouraged amongst the general population too – by eliminating sanctions against its use.

HOW IT PLAYS OUT

Passage of the Constitutional Tender Act would introduce currency competition with Federal Reserve Notes by outlawing their use in transactions with the State. Ordinary people, being required to pay their State taxes in gold and silver coins, would find it necessary to conduct some transactions with metal – including the use of checks and debit cards based on bank accounts denominated in such coins

All businesses operating within the State, being required to pay their State sales taxes and license fees in gold and silver coins, would need to do the same. Most importantly, though, in order for businesses to acquire the amount of gold and silver needed, they find it necessary to offer their goods and services in “dual currency” denominations, where customers could choose to pay in Federal Reserve Notes or gold and silver coins.

This kind of “bottom up” approach to ending the Fed will have a greater likelihood of success than the “top-down” approaches we’ve seen over the years for two major reasons:

1. The top-down approach has been an utter failure. While it has succeeded greatly in an educational role, it has simply not worked tactically.

2. It’s decentralized. Political opposition won’t be as strong or well...

During a recent radio appearance, a caller challenged my assertion that state legislatures should nullify the federal health care act, along with a slew of other unconstitutional measures.

His reasoning?

The federal government might be mean to us.

He came up with a litany of actions the feds might take. They could yank all of the state’s funding. That would mean no more roads or schools! They could stop paying benefits to people living in the state and create a rebellion of dependent people. They could virtually quarantine and isolate the state until it complies. Heck, they could even roll tanks into the streets!

OK, he didn’t include the tanks, but I honestly think that was in the back of his mind. The caller was clearly in awe and scared to death of the federal government. He wasn’t about to risk its wrath for something as trivial as stopping them from cramming a one-size-fits-all health care system down 300 million American throats.

At the time, I tried to convince the caller that the feds wouldn’t dare retaliate in that manner. It would prove politically suicidal. I argued the feds would likely back down, especially if a bunch of states nullified. That was, after all, Madison’s viewpoint.

Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union, the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassment created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, very serious impediments; and were the sentiments of several adjoining States happen to be in Union, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.

But when I thought about it later, I had to concede the caller had a point. The feds might well retaliate. They could certainly yank funding. They could conceivably tell the “rebellious” states they weren’t providing any more federal assistance. Heck, if things got really crazy, the feds could even roll in federal agents, arrest state legislators and declare martial law.

Would they?

Probably not.

Could they?

Certainly.

On paper, the federal government could crush any state, or even a number of states united in opposition. It is big, powerful and overbearing.

So was England in 1776.

In fact, England arguably stood as the most powerful nation on the planet at the time. It was said “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” Her navy ruled the seas. Her army could turn vast fields into a sea of red. She wielded enormous economic power. And she held the colonies tightly under her thumb.

But that didn’t stop the Americans from looking the British square in the eye and declaring, “We will live as free and independent people!”

The colonists valued liberty more than security, especially a false security under a despotic and tyrannical ruler who refused to respect any limits on his own power. I’m certain more than one hand trembled as it gripped a quill pen and inked a name on the Declaration of Independence. Those men must have felt the icy fingers of fear as they boldly pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

And this guy is afraid the feds might yank some funding.

Wow.

At some point, you must face down a bully. You can only let him take your lunch money for so long. If you continue to allow him to dominate you, he will take more and more and more. At some point, you’ve got to punch him in the nose.

Yeah, he might punch you back.

You know what? Then it’s on.

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The U.S. federal government thinks its power unlimited. The feds believe they can control any and every aspect of your life. If they can’t directly control it, they will tax you into submission. The general government has no respect for its constitutional boundaries and mocks the states that created it – the states it was meant to serve, not lord over. The Supreme Court decision legitimizing the insurance mandate... I mean penalty – err, tax – should prove to everybody once and for all that the feds will never limit the power of the feds. Washington D.C. won’t fix the problem that is Washington D.C.

The states must stand up and do their duty. They must interpose to halt the progress of evil. Nullification IS the rightful remedy. Not a rebellion, but a legitimate check on federal power.

We simply cannot live in fear. If we do, we will live in chains...

In America, we no longer have the rule of law. It has been replaced by the “rule of five politically-connected lawyers who hold lifetime appointments.”

This is just what Thomas Jefferson feared when he wrote this:

“the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary: an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”
– Letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821

According to the Founders’ Constitution, the Judiciary – or more precisely, the Supreme Court – was never meant to be what it has become. Actually, let me rephrase that – into what the Supreme Court has made of itself.

Instead of acting as a “Supreme Court,” it now acts as “Supreme Law Giver.”

There were rumblings from the very beginning that this could happen, and it did not take long for the slow creep of expanding powers to eat away at the very fabric of the Constitution.

Early Court rulings, in the philosophy centralized power lover Alexander Hamilton, gave the courts powers never approved by the Founders and Ratifiers. Five lawyers would now decide our fate and make law from the bench.

Constitution be damned. That power still hangs over us like a black cloud today.

Following in this new tradition, 19th Century Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story became one the most nationalist judges in our early history. He worked to further the supremacy of centralized government. He pushed Hamilton’s ideas of so-called “implied” and “resultant” powers in the Constitution, and expanded the power of the executive and federal judiciary even further. It is widely recognized that there is gaping hole in the legal system in terms of public funding (legal aid). Those who could previously obtain legal aid to pay for advice regarding their divorce or disputes regarding child arrangements may no longer meet the qualifying criteria for legal aid. If they cannot afford legal advice, a person can be left feeling that they do not know where to turn, and for cases of accidents or injuries when driving or riding a motorcycle, getting the best motorcycle accidents lawyer could be essential to solve these cases.

Woodrow Wilson understood what had happened over the years and stated, “The War between the States established ... this principle, that the federal government is, through its courts, the final judge of its own powers.”

And so it did.

In the 1960s, Clinton Rossiter wrote something that haunts us to this day. He said,

“The formula for congressional authority today reads: the commerce power + the war powers + the power to tax and spend for the general welfare x the loosest possible reading of the words ‘necessary and proper.’”

Under this formula, virtually nothing that is perceived to be of importance is beyond the control of the federal government. The fact of the matter is that this was brought on by the tacit approval and promotion of the Supreme Court and their willing accomplices in Congress and the Executive Branch.

Once the Court established the precedent that they, and only they, could decide on what was constitutional, the stage was set for the expansion of the centralized government we have today.

Unchallenged precedent by the Supreme Court is the genesis of the growth of judicial tyranny in our everyday lives. They have become like “gods” that all must bow down before and seek their blessing to exercise any semblance of liberty and freedom.

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There are no more “checks and balances” in the federal government. Today, the final authority as to what the Constitution says or doesn’t say, and what the other two branches are allowed to get away with, is decided by five unaccountable, politically-connected lawyers – something the Founders would never have agreed too.

Then again, if you like how things have turned out, go ahead and kowtow before the Supreme Court. Beg them to decide in your favor on anything you might think is unconstitutional. But don’t be surprised when they say, “step away from the bench serf. We will decide what is Constitutional, not you.”

As for me, I will ...

How often have you heard the term “middle ground” used in news reports, op-eds, on the radio, TV, and in social media? Okay, that’s a rhetorical question. In fact, this oft-mentioned and praised term has been bandied about as though it was handed down to us on stone tablets. And it often goes by a more frequently used term: compromise. But I’ll refer to the term middle ground here, because it is something we can visualize. It’s ground, don’tchya know—just like the other two “grounds” that aren’t referred to as such: “left” and “right”. But it’s hallowed ground. When we reach middle ground, we are admired by the vast middle grounders in society. We are enlightened. We have attained nirvana.

The term middle ground is most often used in the political sphere, but it is not solid ground. The only solid ground in this Republic is the ground that was formed by the Founding Fathers and their contemporaries, who didn’t sacrifice so much only to have it become a vain exercise decades later. They didn’t create a nation that would become another England in so many ways, from encroaching on people’s liberties, to excessive taxation, and seeking to control other nations. By becoming middle grounders, we’ve become ungrounded.

We’ve been sold a bill of goods over the decades, and most of us have come to savor those goods, which take the form of an imperial presidency, high taxation, reduced civil liberties, welfare, ad nauseum. We will accept mandated toilets, light bulbs, windows, auto standards, etc., as long as we aren’t hassled too much in our daily activities, as long as these mandates are “hidden” from us, buried in the regulations and duties imposed on businesses that serve us. We have less liberty, but hey, we’re safer.

I’ve found that there are three main impediments to the effective restoration of our Republican form of government. The first is a populace ignorant of the founding principles of our Republic, as well as the principles that informed the Founding Fathers. Next is the outgrowth of that ignorance: our elected officials, practically all of whom forget, in daily practice, what country they are in. (They would be perfectly at home in any European socialist wonderland.) The last impediment is our income tax system, especially where the federal government found it to their advantage—not ours’ mind you—to have an income tax (a tax on our labor) withheld from our paychecks. This mandated, legalized pilferage has grown the federal government to a size that could not have been contemplated by the Founding Fathers, and as a result of this funding and growth, our freedoms have eroded.

The bigger a central government becomes, the more it takes from the periphery – the states and the people – to maintain its hegemony.

Many will dismiss this article as being “out there,” as not being middle groundish, but in so doing they make my point. And anyway, I couldn’t care less. I reference below the Introduction to the 1974 book: “Voices of the American Revolution,” by the People’s Bicentennial Commission. Reprinted in that book is an Associated Press release from the late 1960s:

“Only one person out of 50 approached on Miami streets by a reporter agreed to sign a typed copy of the Declaration of Independence. Two called it ‘commie junk,’ one threatened to call the police, and another warned: ‘Be careful who you show that kind of antigovernment stuff to, buddy.’

Comments from those who took the trouble to read the first three paragraphs:

‘This is the work of a raver.’
‘Somebody ought to call the FBI about this sort of rubbish.’
‘Meaningless.’
‘The boss’ll have to read this before I can let you put it in the shop window. But politically, I can tell you he don’t lean that way. He’s a Republican.’

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If anyone thinks our situation has improved since then, all they need to do is hear the responses to questions Jay Leno asks in his candid street interviews.

The middle ground is a meaningless ground. It is a creation of those who muddle the issue of whether the federal government can do whatever it wants, or if it has to operate within its Constitutional constraints, specifically outlined in Article 1, Section 8 and buttressed by the Tenth Amendment. These muddlers or middlers are either disingenuous, or they are clueless. They either want the federal government to ignore the Constitution, or they want the federal government to assume extra powers because it is for the “good of the people.” (And it scores “I care” points for e politicians when it comes time for reelection.)

The middle ground is not solid ground. It lies on a fault. And the fault is ours.

“Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in...

by Harry Browne