United States Dollar (content fork from Selma, North Carolina Trump thread)

(Note: Severing this content discussion from its original thread and forking to a new thread.)

This thread is NOT directed at the user who posted the above quote, but instead at anybody who wants to defend the sentiments expressed.

(NOTE: At the bottom of my post, I will ask two questions on how proponents of the above quote propose to proceed going forward.)

Lets just sever this from everything else and analyze it.

And by sever I mean I am only discussing the “constitutionally defined dollar” statement, as it is necessarily antecedent to anything else.

In 1786/1787, the Congress of the Confederation defined the dollar as being 375.64 grains of silver, based on the existing circulating Spanish dollar, which would continue to serve as alternative legal tender in the United States until 1857.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ratified and came into effect between then and 1791.

The Constitution mentions the word dollar only twice, once in the original document and once in the Bill of Rights:

Article I:

Section. 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Here is what the Constitution has to say on the subject of money.

Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section. 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

The Constitution never defines the dollar or even declares that the dollar must be the monetary unit of the United States. Taxes on slaves and jurisdictional limits for jury trials are given in what would be presumed to be the 1786/1787 Continental defined silver dollar, but again, the Constitution never defines a dollar.

In 1792, CONGRESS passes the Coinage Act of 1792 and defines the dollar as 371.25 grains of silver. At a later point, a bimetallic standard is adopted, making the dollar convertible in gold or silver.

The Civil War arrives and Congress emits paper money to pay for it. Paper money depreciates and its constitutionality is challenged in court. The final result is the Legal Tender Cases of 1871. Paper money is constitutional.

We fight the battle of gold and silver during the 1880’s and 1890’s.

Then the arrival of the Federal Reserve (bills of credit tied to the overall government debt). FDR ended the gold standard in 1933. Nixon broke the final link in 1971.

Since the, the United States Dollar is an esoteric, theoretical term. There IS no definition of United States Dollar. It is not definable. It floats freely.

A dollar is worth what ever it happens to be worth on any given day, at any given moment in time.

And all of this is Constitutional.

The Constitution authorizes the Federal Government to coin money and prohibits the States from doing so. It forbids the States from emitting bills of credit, but is silent as to the Federal Government emitting bills of credit.

It forbids States from making anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debt, but does NOT forbid the Federal Government from doing the exact same thing.

And as inferred in the picture posted earlier (in the Selma, North Carolina Trump thread), since 1965, coins have been tokens only, bereft of intrinsic value exceeding the face value of the coin. Otherwise, people would be hoarding them and melting them for the metal, which was the reason for the chance in 1964.

A Federal Reserve Note may not BE a dollar in the strictest sense, but it is the SAME as the dollar, floating freely with the dollar and with the token coins floating in accordance with the value of the dollar.

There is not, never has been and never will be a Constitutionally defined “dollar.”

What is sought is to bring back is a silver dollar comprised of either 375.64 or 371.25 grains of silver and tied to the value of silver in the coin.

That ship sailed for good 109 years ago.

While I don’t support the present system, I fully understand that we are too far deep in debt to ever go back to a “real” money system. Changing back to a solid money system is far more problematic than changing back to a fiat system.

Short of a 100% collapse of the current system, there will be no change.

I don’t care for the Federal Reserve and I don’t like the inflationary regime. But I am realistic enough to realize their is little that can be done about it.

The questions I would pose are as follows:

Assume for purpose of the questions that you hold the Presidency and have enough support in Congress to pass your intended legislation.

  1. How would you transition the United States from a centralized fractional reserve fiat money system to a system that would presumably be tied to a commodity with either free banking or 100% reserve banking, WITHOUT totally destroying the economy of the United States in the process?

  2. How would you prevent a massive outflow of specie from the United States to countries with depreciating fiat currency (all of them)?

Again, this thread is directed at EVERYBODY, not just the originator of the above quote.

I will take a relatively passive stance in this thread. Just interested in how people propose to proceed. So don’t expect a great deal of adversarial posts from me.

And again, I must emphasize, I am NOT defending the present system and/or the Federal Reserve.

Now that was a wall of text worth reading…

:smile:

Back in college and grad school, I always preferred essay exams over multiple choice or true and false. Not hard at all for me to scrawl out pages of text. :smile: