Americans are commonly aware that the establishment of the United States brought to the world a new socio/political order; i.e. personal freedom under the rule of democratically determined law.

What is not as widely realized is that with the founding of our nation a new economic order was also established. That order sought to secure not only freedom and democracy, but also the indispensable means to both: the control of its own money.

The history of our nation, from its colonial beginnings until now, has been the epic struggle between two mighty powers to control the wealth of our nation, our fate and fortunes, via the creation, issuance, and regulation of the nation's money supply.

One power, represented in the Revolutionary era by Imperial Britain and the Bank of England, would have the monetary power exercised by private interests, for private gain.

As outlined in the following, their means for doing this has been by gaining the "monetary authority", that is the control of the creation, issuing, and regulation of money. In our modern times this assumption of "authority" plays itself out in the private bank loan transaction. Its steps are: i) the creation of money, in the bankers' own words, "out of nothing"; ii) the loaning/issuing of this money into circulation at, nevertheless, considerable and compounding interest rates and on such terms that; iii) the money to pay back the principle of these loans is available, but the money necessary to satisfy the interest payments is not – unless society, as a whole, goes ever deeper into debt to the banks, the lending institutions.

"This business of borrowing money into circulation, then withholding more money creation to make payment and debt service impossible, haunted Persia, cursed Greece and Rome, annihilated the defense of Carthage, and presided over death and wars between Deuteronomy and the eve of the 1948 presidential election." – Acres USA Magazine

The other power is based in our United States Constitution. Article 1, section 8, paragraph 5 states: "Congress shall have the power: To coin money, [and] regulate the value thereof". The colonists vested the control of their money, via their elected representatives, in the public domain: of, by, and for the people, the commonwealth. In doing so, they refused to allow themselves to be indebted to other parties and, thereby, affirmed their sovereignty as a people and nation.

The colonists means of assuring their sovereignty was: i) to create and to spend money ("interest-free") directly into circulation; ii) create and issue money "interest-free"; iii) create and issue money with a modest interest that was not appropriated for private gain but returned to the public Treasury.

The following is a brief, historical timeline that presents the key acts in this drama.

Our textbooks tell us that the Colonies won the Revolutionary War over 200 years ago. We offer another interpretation: Because we have lost sight of the revolution's monetary cause, the historic struggle for economic independence is still in progress. Will We the People serve money, the "Almighty Dollar"? Or will money, the "Almighty Dollar," serve us?

"The government [not the Federal Reserve, private banking system] should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government [U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Para. 5], but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium [of currency] will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The financing of all public enterprises, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.

Abraham Lincoln, Senate Doc. 23, 76th Congress

1690 – Faced with the stark choice of whether to borrow the money needed to conduct its commerce from the moneylenders of England, and thereby be in their debt and under their control, the Colony of Massachusetts becomes first government in the Western world to publicly issue paper money (called "Bills of Credit") to facilitate the needs of commerce among the citizenry.

1694 – The private Bank of England is established, which sets up a monetary regime that tries to hold Colonies in perpetual debt, through the private bank loan transaction noted above. In the prospectus for this private company, the Bank of England's founder, William Patterson, wrote, "The Bank hath benefit of interest on money which it hath created out of nothing."

1700's – Other colonies follow the example of Massachusetts and issue their own public scrip. England sets itself in continuous opposition to these issues, and the Colonies progressively bind closer together in defense of what they see as their sovereign power to create and control their own money. Asked about how he could explain the prosperous condition of the Colonies, Ben Franklin replied: "That is simple. It is only because in the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called colonial scrip, and we issue it in proper proportion to the demand of trade and industry."

1751 – The English Parliament enacts a "currency reform" act, promoted by private interests and aimed at suppressing the public Colonial monies. The act proves difficult to enforce.

1764 – The Parliament passes a harsher currency act, this time with stronger enforcement measures. The act bans public paper money as legal tender.

1766 – Ben Franklin appears before the British Parliament to lobby for repeal of the 1764 Act, but is dismissed by its members.

June 1775 – First Continental Congress authorizes the issuance of "Continental Currency", a public money, which sustains the Colonies through the Revolutionary War, despite a massive counterfeiting campaign by the British in opposition.

1776 – The Crown's neglect of acts by the Colonial assemblies, designed to supply the Colonies with public money, prompts the first two justifications for going to war, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence:

1. He [the King of England] has refused his Assent to [the currency] Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2. He [the King of England] has forbidden his Governors to pass [the currency] Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

Addressing this matter, Franklin's writes: "The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the Colonies [the right to issue] their money ...."

1787 – In drafting our United States Constitution, our Founding Fathers expressly place the monetary power in the hands of the people, public, through our elected representatives: "The Congress shall have Power: To coin Money (and) regulate the Value thereof." Article 1, Section 5, Paragraph 8.

1791 – In opposition thereto, the first Bank of the United States is established under the influence of Alexander Hamilton. Modeled after Bank of England, it issues money accompanied by interest charges payable to private stockholders, nearly three-quarters of whom are of European financiers.

1811 – Public pressure defeats privately promoted legislation intended to renew the Bank's charter.

1812-15 – Currency notes are issued directly from the public U.S. Treasury ($36.7 million), and spent into circulation by the government.

1817 – The second Bank of the United States is established and issues money with interest charges attached, payable to private stockholders.

1836 – Due to the public outcry, legislation to renew charter of the second Bank of the United States is vetoed by President Andrew Jackson. The existing state-chartered private banks issue the nation's money, also at interest, but not as a monopoly.

1837-43 – Congress passes legislation to issue United States Notes (public money) to help relieve the stresses in the economy caused by a money supply that was largely issued by privately-chartered state banks.

The economic difficulties are worsened by the Van Buren administration's ill-conceived attempt at monetary reform. The reforms sought to return the monetary power to the public, but failed in that they allowed the money to be linked to gold (and, thereby, to those private financiers who had gained control of the majority of the gold reserves), as opposed to linking the money to the real enterprise of the people.

1862 – Congress authorizes Lincoln administration to publicly issue and spend 450 million dollars of United States Notes ("Greenbacks") directly into circulation. The legislation sought to finance the war without paying the exorbitant interest charges otherwise demanded by the private banks. "I have two great enemies", Lincoln states, "the Southern Army in front of me, and the financial institutions to my rear. Of the two, the one to my rear is my greatest foe." The "Greenbacks" are instrumental in making it possible to finance the war, and bring it to completion.

1868 – With the election of Ulysses S. Grant as President after the Civil War, pro-"Greenback" majorities in both Republican and Democratic parties are undermined by private banking interests who seek to eliminate the "Greenback."

1869 to the beginning of the 20th century – Private banking interests cause a great contraction in the money supply by attempting to limit backing for the money to gold, which they control. The result is great hardship for the farmer, laborer, and small-business person. Large disenchanted elements of both major parties, along with independents, begin to form major populist parties with monetary reform at the center of their platforms.

1896 – Carried on a public wave, William Jennings Bryan delivers his celebrated "Cross of Gold Speech" in which he states: "If they ask us why we do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we reply that when we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, but until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished." Bryan's position on money reform is the key factor in his being nominated as the Democratic Party's candidate for President in 1896, 1900 and 1908.

1907 – A fifth economic panic since the Civil War caused by a sudden contraction of the money supply due to the demand by the private Bank of England that a large quantity of US dollars in its possession be redeemed for gold. The resultant depression creates an outcry for a resolution to the instability in the monetary system.

1913 – June. In his address to the joint session of Congress, Wilson states: "And the control of the system of banking and of issue which our new laws are to set up must be public, not private, must be vested in the Government itself, so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative."

1913 – December. Passage of the Federal Reserve Act. With Wilson's unwitting support, the Act puts the control of the monetary authority firmly in the hands of a private central bank, modeled after the first and second Banks of the United States, and the Bank of England. "The regional Federal Reserve banks are not government agencies . . . , but are independent privately owned and locally controlled corporations." Lewis vs. United States, 680 F. 2d 1239 9th Circuit 1982.

1916 – Realizing that he had betrayed the public trust, Wilson lamented: "I have unwittingly ruined my country . . . A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men . . . We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world – no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."

1929 – After inflating the money supply with currency issued without sufficient backing (most notably stock, their prices inflated by speculation), the private bankers then proceed to call in this excess debt. This sudden contraction of the money supply precipitates the Great Depression.

1933 – President Franklin Roosevelt declares a "bank holiday" (closes all the banks) and orders US citizens to turn in their remaining quantities of gold, officially removing the gold backing from the US dollar in the domestic economy. The effect is to take the dollar officially off the domestic gold standard, thereby allowing the private bankers a virtually unlimited expansion of their domestic money supply, based on debt.

1935 – The Banking Reform Act of 1935 places the issuance and control of the money supply squarely in the hands of the Federal Open Market Committee, via government bond sales through the Open Market Desk of the private Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "The 12 regional Reserve Banks aren't government institutions but corporations nominally 'owned' by member commercial banks, who must buy special, non-marketable stock in their district Federal Reserve Bank." "I bet you thought . . .," Federal Reserve Bank of New York, p. 21

1942 – Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Congress passes a bill, based on the groundswell of public support, which effectively bases the value of the dollar on the production and fair (parity) price of 45 strategic raw materials, 25 of which are agricultural products. This infusion of money into the production process at its base ensures that there is enough money in circulation (trickle up) for the economy to complete its production and consumption cycle without the introduction of unpayable debt.

This bill allowed America to emerge from the Great Depression, prevail in World War II, undergo demobilization, fund the Marshall Plan, and finance the Korean War, all without economic hardship. Despite the unprecedented demands of this period, the sound monetary policy allowed President Truman to balance half his budgets.

1953 – Due to the influence of private financial and corporate interests, the legislative act, which links the value of the dollar to raw materials at a fair (i.e. parity) price is effectively rescinded. This results in the rolling back of price supports for raw materials, thereby accelerating the slide of the economy as a whole into deepening debt.

1963 – President Kennedy signs an executive order 11110, which authorized the issuance of public United States Silver Certificates, a public currency not attached to private debt. Shortly after his assassination, these Silver Certificates cease to be issued.

1971 – President Nixon ends the commitment by the US Government to redeem with gold U.S. dollars presented by foreign nationals. World trade is now taken off the gold standard, which allows private bankers an unlimited expansion of their money supply, based on debt.

2009 – The Federal "debt" tops 10 trillion dollars, and the total ostensible "indebtedness" of the nation, both public and private, approaches the net worth of all physical assets in the nation combined.

The proponents of the central bank, Federal Reserve, gave three rational for its creation:

1. The Fed would end the boom and bust cycle;
2. The Fed would end farm foreclosures;
3. The Fed would stabilize both the currency and bank reserves.

With respect to the first point, the boom and bust cycles, one of America's premier economic analysts, Milton Friedman noted:

"I am myself persuaded, on the basis of extensive study of the historical evidence, that . . . . the severity of each of the contractions – 1920-21, 1929-33, and 1937-38 – is directly attributable to acts of commission and omission by the Reserve authorities and would not have occurred under earlier monetary and banking arrangements."

With respect to the second point, farm foreclosures, Senator Robert L. Owen, Chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, stated at the Senate Silver Hearings in 1939:

"In the early part of 1920, the farmers were exceedingly prosperous. They were paying off the mortgages and buying a lot of new land, at the instance [request, demand] of the government – had borrowed money to do it – and then they were bankrupted by a sudden contraction of credit and currency, which took place in 1920. What took place in 1920 was just the reverse of what should have been taking place. Instead of liquidating the excess of credits created by the war through a period of years, the Federal Reserve Board met at a meeting, which was not disclosed to the public.... Only the big bankers were there, and their work of that day resulted in a contraction of credit which had the effect the next year of reducing the national income 15 billion dollars, throwing millions of people out of employment, and reducing the value of lands and ranches by 20 billion dollars."

The "end" had all but come, though not to foreclosures, as promised by the Fed, but to small farms, themselves. During one week in 1983, there were three thousand farm foreclosures. Since then the plight of the local farmer, like that of the local, community banker and businessman, has only worsened.

With respect to the third and final point: the stabilization of both the currency and bank reserves. When the Fed took over in 1913, our national debt was virtually non-existent relative to our time. Today it is, as noted, over 10 trillion dollars and growing by over 1 billion per day. That same year (1913) the value of the dollar was approximately the same as it had been a century earlier. Immediately after the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, prices began to inflate on a more-or-less continuous basis, until the dollar today is worth only about 1/20 of its original value.

Judged by the Fed's own claims, what are we to conclude from this record? Its former chairmen and presidents have had some sobering words to add:

"The failed attempts at influencing real economic activity during the late 1960's and 1970's are a clear warning of the damaging power of the central bank." Jerry Jordon, former Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President.

"I can find no benefits accruing to the whole of society from debt monetization, but the risks are very serious and can be expressed in one word, inflation." Darryl R. Francis, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis before the House Committee on Banking & Currency, July 18, 1974.

"That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money." Marriner S. Eccles, Former Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board in testimony before the House Banking and Currency Committee September 30, 1941.

In May of 2008, former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker stated in the Wall Street Journal that the Fed "went to the very edge of its lawful and implied powers", inquiring why the Fed, along with the banking regulators, permitted all the banking improprieties.

"Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth." Alan Greenspan, Former and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board in Gold and Economic Freedom.

      "The government [not the Federal Reserve, private banking system] should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of the consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government [United States Constitution, Article 1, Sec. 8, Para. 5], but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium [of currency] will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The financing of all public enterprises, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."

– President Abraham Lincoln, Senate Doc. 23, 76th Congress