"The government [not private banks, including, in its own words, the Federal Reserve*] 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, 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." [*I bet you thought..., Federal Reserve Bank of New York, p. 21]

1. NOT A NEW, RADICAL IDEA, but, in fact, the opposite. The Concord Resolution is based on the tried-and-true principle of American economic practice. In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony inaugurated the issuance of public ("interest-free") money. Public currencies brought our nation through the Colonial period, the American Revolution, the Civil War thanks to Lincoln's resolve, and, in a slightly modified manner, World War II. When sound monetary principles were duly practiced, prosperity has followed in their wake.


2. NOT A QUESTIONABLE PRACTICE, but, in fact, the opposite. The Concord Resolution represents how our founding fathers stipulated in our United States Constitution our monetary system was intended to function: "Congress shall have the Power to: coin Money, regulate the Value thereof." That is, Congress, our elected representatives, and not the private banking system, shall oversee the creation and regulation of money. The Executive branch, through the public Treasury, would then have the responsibility to carry out the mandate that Congress legislated. Thus would our system of checks and balances operate; thus the wisdom of Lincoln would be realized: "The privilege of creating and issuing money is ... the supreme prerogative of government."


3. NOT ABOUT HAND-OUTS of free money that will increase our national "debt", but, in fact, the opposite. The Concord Resolution reverses the very process by which the national "debt" is created. Public ("interest-free") money is not free money. It is, rather, money that has been freed from the private interest charges that are currently attached to the public's money. Our government doesn't need to charge itself interest, profit at its own expense. Thus a public currency can be issued and accounted for through the direct and transparent process of "practical administration" of which Lincoln speaks and which, alone, will give us the means to reduce our "debt": national, state, municipal, and individual.


4. NOT INFLATIONARY, but, in fact, the opposite. The Concord Resolution removes the root cause of inflation: the compounding cost of keeping money in circulation through the attachment by the private banking system of "interest"/usury payments to the issuance of our money. In offering a sound and straightforward way to finance the restoration of our crumbling infrastructure (via public money from the U.S. Treasury), the Concord Resolution provides the public sector with the way to satisfy the "long-felt want for a uniform medium" [of exchange]. Issued in proportion to the level of construction undertaken, such monies will not cause inflation, but rather stimulate and strengthen the economy.


5. NOT AGAINST INTEREST CHARGES as such. Rather, sound economic policy calls for public infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, schools, etc), projects which serve the common good, to be funded with public money via our U.S. Treasury. We suggest that it makes no sense to go to the private bond market, where communities end up paying costly and compounding interest charges for such public projects, when – as the Concord Resolution proposes – we can go directly to the U.S. Treasury and duly request the money without the added burden of interest. The result, as Lincoln states, is that: "The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest."


6. NOT A CALL TO DISRUPT THE EXISTING SYSTEM, but, in fact, the opposite. The issuance of public money will, as in the past, help turn around and stabilize a financial order that is in deepening crisis. In the process there will be little change outwardly in the way we do business. Bankers will still process private loans and charge interest on them. Other routines of finance will continue. The essential change will be that private bankers will no longer dictate our public monetary policy and, thereby, profit at the expense of the citizenry. Rather, they will carry out the policies decided by our elected representatives within our democratic system of checks and balances. In authorizing and administrating such a process, Congress will reclaim not only its "supreme prerogative", but, as Lincoln goes on to state, "government's greatest creative opportunity."


7. NOT A MINOR MATTER, but, in fact the opposite. The way our money is created and introduced into the economy (in effect regulated and controlled) is critical. For monetary policy affects every single endeavor in our lives that includes a price tag, a quot;bottom-linequot;. Accordingly, until reform is achieved in this fundamental arena, there are, we suggest, scant grounds for hope that deep and lasting reform can be achieved in any and all related fields that we put our energy into. Be it education, health care, international affairs, poverty, the environment, whatever vital cause one can name, when all is said and done, each relies on money, that which not only "makes the world go round," but brings our affairs no less to a grinding halt. As William Jennings Bryan noted in his historic "Cross of Gold Speech": "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."


8. NOT IN SERVICE TO SPECIAL INTERESTS, but, in fact, the opposite. From the laborer to the corporate head, everyone in society benefits from the Concord Resolution, including those bankers and their shareholders, bond dealers and bond holders, who, despite the current crisis, have yet to recognize that their own self-interest is integrally related to the greater interest of society as a whole, the common good. In this spirit, the Concord Resolution fulfills Lincoln's vision that "Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."

These principles that stand behind the Concord Resolution express not only our conviction as petitioners, but they reflect those, as noted, of Abraham Lincoln, as well as our founding fathers, leading statesmen and American citizens, including Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Paine, Lincoln, Garfield, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Ford, Edison, as well as prominent bankers themselves, including Sir Josiah Stamp, the former Director of the Bank of England. Speaking to students at the University of Texas in the 1920's, Stamp acknowledged with striking candor:

"Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them [as opposed to the government] the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it [the Earth] back again. However, take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in.." – Acres USA Magazine, "The Owners", April 1991

To summarize, the Concord Resolution provides us with the means to rebuild our infrastructure and, thereby, renew our foundations as a nation. It is both constitutional and legal. Beginning here in Massachusetts, the public issuance of money has been tried and tested throughout our history. The Concord Resolution gives us the key to curb inflation and turn around our national "debt". Far from disrupting the current system, it will help to resolve the instability in all sectors by providing the essential cornerstone for monetary reform. Finally, the Concord Resolution serves the interests of the citizenry as a whole, as opposed to private financial interests. As such, it presents us, "We the People ..." with the opportunity to reawaken our American dream:

While we hope the foregoing has answered some of your questions, we expect it has raised others. Those we've sought to address in the accompanying Q & A's.