“…knavish tricks, will turn vice into legal virtue; and will sanctify iniquity by law.”
The papers of America's founders are replete with acute criticism of paper money not convertible to a fixed weight of gold. Take, for example, William Paterson.
WILLIAM PATERSON was born on December 24, 1745, in County Antrim, Ireland. His family emigrated to America two years later and eventually settled in Princeton, New Jersey. Paterson was graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1763 and earned a graduate degree in 1766. He read law, was admitted to the bar in 1769, and established a law practice. During the Revolutionary War, Paterson served as an officer with the Somerset County Minutemen and was a member of the Council of Safety. He was elected a delegate to the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1775 and to the State Constitutional Convention in 1776. After helping draft the New Jersey Constitution, he became Attorney General of that State, serving from 1776 to 1783. Paterson was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and, as a Senator in the First Federal Congress, he helped to draft the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established the federal court system. He left the Senate in 1790 to become Governor and Chancellor of New Jersey. President George Washington nominated Paterson to the Supreme Court of the United States on March 4, 1793, and the Senate confirmed the appointment seven days later. Paterson served for thirteen years on the Supreme Court and died on September 9, 1806, at the age of sixty.
‘An increase of paper money if it be a tender, will destroy what little credit is left; will bewilder conscience in the maze of dishonest speculations; will allure some and constrain others into perpetuation of knavish tricks, will turn vice into legal virtue; and will sanctify iniquity by law.’
C. Warren, The Making of the Constitution (Littleton, CO, 1993), p. 551
[with appreciation to Prof. Farley Grubb, within whose erudite work these trenchant observations, among many others, are reproduced.]
George Gilder, whose new book publishes today, is one of the original pillars of Supply Side economics. As stated by Discovery Institute, which he co-founded, “Mr. Gilder pioneered the formulation of supply-side economics when he served as Chairman of the Lehrman Institute’s Economic Roundtable, as Program Director for the Manhattan Institute….”
He was the living writer most quoted by President Reagan. And he is back with his most brilliant work yet — one of potentially explosive importance if taken to heart by our political and policy thought leaders. It is a radical guide, with surprising insights on almost every page, to the creation of a new era of vibrant prosperity.
As reviewer Paul Brodsky, a professional investor in New York City, perceptively notes,
"Lewis Lehrman is one of a very small group of contemporary gold advocates able to successfully bridge the gap separating practical conservative intellectualism from fleeting, half-baked idealism. His CV lists great success across many fields including education (degrees and teaching fellowships from Yale and Harvard); industry (past president of Rite Aid); politics (narrow loser to Mario Cuomo in the 1982 New York governor’s race); finance, (past Morgan Stanley managing director); private sector entrepreneur (founder, L. E. Lehrman & Company); public sector advocate (founder, Lehrman Institute); historian (author, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point); and recognized philanthropist (awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W. Bush in an Oval Office ceremony). ... Only someone erudite and elegant in demeanor could hope to pull it off . In an irreconcilably over-leveraged world where irritated bond vigilantes question economic sustainability and angry Tea Partiers protest the immorality of it all, Lehrman’s views are considered and his convictions carry weight. He brings gravitas to his cause, and he does so from within as a member of the club."
Before the Fed: JP Morgan Summons the Bank Presidents
"Finally, on the night of Sunday, November 2, Morgan summoned the presidents of the major New York banks to his new library, at the corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, an Italian Renaissance-style palace he had built next door to his house to showcase his collection of rare books, manuscripts, and other artwork. Its marble floors, frescoed ceilings, walls lined with tapestries and triple-tiered bookcases of Circasian walnut, crammed full of rare Bibles and illuminated medieval manuscripts, made it an incongruous setting for a meeting of the banking establishment. Once the moneymen had gathered, Morgan had the great ornamental bronze doors to the library locked and refused to let anyone leave until all had collectively agreed to commit a further $25 million to the rescue fund."
— Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance (Penguin Books, 2009, p. 54)
Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.
Constitution.org provides an extensive and thoughtful Memorandum of Law by Larry Becraft, Esq., of Huntsville, Alabama, on Article I, Section 10, clause 1 of the US Constitution.
Sir William Blackstone courtesy of Wikipedia
One of many interesting matters the Memorandum treats is Blackstone's Commentaries, a book that was a fixture in the...
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Now Available on Amazon and from The Lehrman Institute