Circa1865

Barry Goldwater criticized both Eisenhower and Nixon for claiming to be conservatives on economic issues but liberals when it comes to human problems. Goldwater believed that man “cannot be economically free, or even economically efficient,  if he is enslaved politically; conversely, a man’s political freedom is illusory if he is dependent for his economic needs on the state.” As the Founders’ believed, the State’s were the bulwark against an oppressive federal government in the hands of political opportunists.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

States’ Rights Cornerstone of the Republic

“The Governor of New York, in 1930, pointed out that the Constitution does not empower the Congress to deal with “a great number of vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare, and a dozen other important features.” And he added that “Washington must not be encouraged to interfere” in those areas.

Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid conversion from Constitutionalism to the doctrine of unlimited government is an oft-told story. But I am here concerned not so much by the abandonment of States’ Rights by the national Democratic Party – an event that occurred some years ago when the party was captured by the Socialist ideologues in and about the labor movement – as by the unmistakable tendency of the Republican Party to adopt the same course.

The result is that today neither of our two parties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States’ Rights. Thus, the cornerstone of the Republic, our chief bulwark against the encroachment of individual freedom by Big Government, is fast disappearing under the piling sands of absolutism. The Republican Party, to be sure, gives lip service to States’ Rights. We often talk about “returning to the States their rightful powers”; the Administration has even gone so far as to sponsor a federal-State conference on the problem.

But deeds are what count, and I regret to say that in actual practice, the Republican Party, like the Democratic Party, summons the coercive power of the federal government whenever national leaders conclude that the States are not performing satisfactorily. Let us focus attention on one method of federal interference — one that tends to be neglected in much of the public discussion of the problem. In recent years, the federal government has continued, and in many cases, has increased, federal “grants-in-aid” to the States in a number of areas in which the Constitution recognizes the exclusive jurisdiction of the States.

These grants are called “matching funds” and are designed to “stimulate” State spending in health, education, welfare, conservation, or any other area in which the federal government decides there is a need for national action. If the States agree to put up money for these purposes, the federal government undertakes to match the appropriation according to a ratio prescribed by Congress. Sometimes the ratio is fifty-fifty; often the federal government contributes over half the cost. There are two things to note about these programs. The first is that they are federal programs – they are conceived by the federal government both as to purpose and as to extent.

The second is that the “simulative” grants are, in effect, a mixture of blackmail and bribery. The States are told to go along with the program “or else.” Once the federal government has offered matching funds, it is unlikely, as a practical matter, that a member of a State Legislature will turn down his State’s fair share of revenue collected from all of the State. Understandably, many legislators feel that to refuse aid would be political suicide. This is an indirect form of coercion, but it is effective nonetheless.

A more direct method of coercion is for the federal government to threaten to move in unless State governments take action that Washington deems appropriate. Not so long ago, for example, the Secretary of Labor gave the States a lecture on the wisdom of enacting “up-to-date” unemployment compensation laws. He made no effort to disguise the alternative: if the States failed to act, the federal government would. Here are some examples of the “simulative” approach. Late in 1957 a “Joint Federal-State Action Committee” recommended that certain matching funds be “returned” to the States on the scarcely disguised grounds that the States, in the view of the Committee, had learned to live up to their responsibilities.

These are the areas in which the States were learning to behave: “vocational education” programs in agriculture, home economics, practical nursing, and the fisheries trade; local sewage projects; slum clearance and urban renewal; and enforcement of health and safety standards in connection with the atomic energy program. Now the point is not that Congress failed to act on these recommendations, or that the Administration gave them only half-hearted support; but rather that the federal government had no business entering these fields in the first place, and thus had no business taking upon itself the prerogative of judging the States’ performance.

The Republican Party should have said this plainly and forthrightly and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the federal government. We can best understand our error, I think, by examining the theory behind it. I have already alluded to the book, “A Republican Looks at His Party,” which is an elaborate rationalization of the “Modern Republican” approach to current problems. (It does the job just as well, I might add, for the Democrats’ approach.)

Mr. Larson devotes a good deal of space to the question of States’ Rights, thanks to the Tenth Amendment, this presumption must give way whenever it appears to the federal authorities that the States are not responding satisfactorily to “the needs of the people.’ This is a paraphrase of his position, but not, I think, an unjust one. And if this approach appears to be a high handed way of dealing with an explicit constitutional provision,

Mr. Larson justifies the argument by summoning the concept that “for every right there is a corresponding duty.” “When we speak of States’ Rights,” he writes, “we should never forget to add that there go with those rights the corresponding States’ responsibilities.” Therefore, he concluded, if the States fail to do their duty, they have only themselves to blame when the federal government intervenes.

The trouble with this argument is that it treats the Constitution of the United States as a kind of handbook in political theory, to be heeded or ignored depending on how it fits the plans of contemporary federal officials. The Tenth Amendment is not “a general assumption, ” but a prohibitory rule of law. The Tenth Amendment recognizes the States’ jurisdiction in certain areas. State’ Rights means that the States have a right to act or not to act, as they see fit, in the areas reserved to them.

The States may have duties corresponding to these rights, but the duties are owed to the people of the States, not to the federal government. Therefore, the recourse lies not with the federal government, which is not sovereign, but with the people who are, and who have full power to take disciplinary action. If the people are unhappy with say, their States’ disability insurance program, they can bring pressure to bear on their State officials and, if that fails, they can elect a new set of officials.

And if, in the unhappy event they should wish to divest themselves of this responsibility, they can amend the Constitution. The Constitution, I repeat, draws a sharp and clear line between federal jurisdiction and State jurisdiction. The federal government’s failure to recognize that the line has been a crushing blow to the principle of limited government. But again, I caution against a defensive, or apologetic, appeal to the Constitution. There is a reason for its reservation of States’ Rights.

Not only does it prevent the accumulation of power in a central government that is remote from the people and relatively immune from popular restraints; it also recognizes the principle that essentially local problems are best dealt with by the people most directly concerned. Who knows better than New Yorkers how much and what kind of publicity-financed slum clearance in New York City is needed and can be afforded? Who knows better than Nebraskans whether that State has an adequate nursing program? Who knows better than Arizonans the kind of school program that is needed to educate their children? The people of my own State – and I am confident that I speak for the majority of them — have long since seen through the spurious suggestion that federal aid comes “free.”

They know that the money comes out of their own pockets, and is returned to them minus a broker’s fee taken by the federal bureaucracy. They know, too, that the power to decide how that money shall be spent is withdrawn from them and exercised by some planning board deep in the caverns of one of the federal agencies. They understand this represents a great and perhaps irreparable loss — not only in their wealth, but also in their priceless liberty. Nothing could so far advance the cause of freedom as for State officials throughout the land to assert their rightful claims to lost State power; and for the federal government to withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserves to the States.”

(The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater, Victor Publishing Company, 1960, pp. 24-30))

Federal aid to education had its beginnings in post-WW2 bills to assist local schools dealing with the increase of students caused by nearby military bases, and thus spurring a long-range policy of general aid to schools throughout the country followed by federal interference and control. Congressman Graham A. Barden of New Bern, North Carolina supported federal aid but without federal control.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Opposition to Crusading Programs of Some People

“Although Congress adjourned in 1950 without enacting a comprehensive aid program, Barden remained convinced that the public school system in most States were in great need of assistance . . . However, he was still insistent that the “Federal government must not have anything to do with the running of the schools” and that “tax money should go for public schools only.” While announcing his intention to continue work for Federal aid, he could not compromise on these two points.

Representative Jacob Javits questioned whether Federal funds could be used legally by segregated public schools. Barden, who was floor manager for the [H.R.5411] bill, heatedly replied that the question of segregated schools in the Carolinas was not the business of the congressman from New York.

All the bill did, Barden asserted, was to set up a system “that could operate without friction in the State in which it was located and become an integral part of the State, and not be part of any of these crusading programs that some people are so anxious to establish in the Country.” He suspected that Javits was simply creating dissension with the aim of settling nothing.

The President [Truman] said that the purpose of Barden’s bill was meritorious, but he objected to the provision requiring schools to conform to State laws . . . Baden was disappointed by Truman’s action because he believed that without the section to which the President objected, the bill’s passage would have been impossible.

Far more disturbing to the congressman than Republican control of Congress was the opinion of Chief Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of Education . . . [and] many Southerners began to have second thoughts about Federal aid programs of all types. The decision probably accounted for Barden’s sudden disinterest in Federal aid. Immediately following the decision he wrote:

“The decision came as such a shock to us that as yet we aren’t able to evaluate all of its far-flung ramifications . . . I believe the decision was unwise, inappropriate and ill-timed, and it appears that political considerations were a controlling influence on the decree.”

With the Court’s decisions, knowing that Federal interference was bound to follow, he turned against the crusade for an aid program. He had always been opposed to Federal control, and perhaps as early as 1954 he clearly saw that Federal money would be the chief means of bringing . . . involvement by the Federal government in operation of the schools in the Southern States.

Because the Brown case dealt with racial matters, a lot of superficial analysts glibly checked off Barden’s opposition to Federal aid as being racially motivated. Their judgment was unsound. If the Brown case had dealt with something such as curriculum content, textbook selection or the like, his opposition would have been the same. What turned him off was not race, but the firm conviction that with Federal dollars came Federal regulators to interfere with the operation of the local schools.”

(Graham A. Barden, Conservative Carolina Congressman, Elmer L. Puryear, Campbell University Press, 1979, excerpts, pp. 101-108)

Barry Goldwater called so-called “civil rights” one of the most badly misunderstood concepts in modern political usage. He states that “as often as not, it is simply a name for describing an activity that someone deems politically or socially desirable. A sociologist writes a paper proposing to abolish some inequity, or a politician makes a speech about it – and, behold, a new “civil right” is born! The Supreme Court has displayed the same creative powers.”  Below, George Wallace predicts the true result of a so-called “civil rights” bill.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Civil Rights and Extending Executive Power

“I took off for my western tour in January 1964. I called the civil rights bill “the involuntary servitude act of 1964,” and I was applauded frequently. Outside a line of pickets carried the usual signs.

A reporter from India began to attack the South and its customs. He did not ask questions, he made accusations. I stopped him promptly. “I suggest you go home to India and work to end the rigid caste system before you criticize my part of the United States. In India a higher caste will not even deign to shake hands with a lower caste. Yet you cannot see the hypocrisy in your double standard.”

It was at UCLA that I told the press, “You know, free speech can get you killed.” My security advisors had warned me that I would have a difficult time and probably wouldn’t be allowed to finish my speech. We entered the auditorium from the rear to avoid a confrontation with the “non-violent” protesters. These “free-speech” advocates were there to make certain I didnt have an opportunity to exercise my right to free speech.

As I expected, most of the students had never read the [proposed] civil rights bill and didn’t know that its passage meant the right of the federal government to control numerous aspects of business, industry and our personal lives. I quoted Lloyd Wright, a Los Angeles attorney and former president of the American Bar Association: “The civil rights aspect of this legislation is but a cloak. Uncontrolled federal executive power is the body. It is 10 per cent civil rights and 90 per cent extension of the federal executive power.”

I denounced lawmaking by executive or court edict. And I lashed out against the press for its eagerness to bury a public official with smearing propaganda. I pointed out that the civil rights bill placed “in the hands of a few men in central government the power to create regulatory police arm unequaled in Western civilization.”

During one of my speaking engagements, a reporter asked me, “Do you have an alternative to the civil rights bill? This was an easy one. “Yes sir, the U.S. Constitution. It guarantees civil rights to all people, without violating the rights of anyone.”

I believe George Washington would have had words to say about the civil rights bill and the growing power of the federal government. These words from his Farewell Address are significant today:

“It is important, likewise, that [leaders] should confine themselves within their respective Constitutional spheres, avoiding, in the exercise of those powers of one department, to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”

(Stand Up For America, George C. Wallace, Doubleday & Company, 1976, pp. 84-89)

On February 19, 1847, Senator John C. Calhoun stated that “the day that the [political] equilibrium between the two sections of the country . . . is destroyed is a day that will not be far removed from political revolution, anarchy, civil war, and widespread disaster.” On the next day he said: “We know what we are about, we foresee what is coming, and move with no other purpose but to protect our portion of the Union from the greatest of calamities . . . ”

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Becoming a Great National Consolidated Democracy

“But while [territorial acquisition, immigration and political representation] measures were destroying the equilibrium between the two sections, the action of the government was leading to a radical change in its character, by concentrating all the power of the system in itself.

[It] would not be difficult to show that the process commenced at an early period of the government, and that it proceeded, almost without interruption, step by step, until it absorbed virtually its entire powers . . . That the government claims, and practically maintains, the right to decide in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers, will scarcely be denied by any one conversant with the political history of the country.

That it also claims the right to resort to force to maintain whatever power it claims, against all opposition, is equally certain. Indeed, it is apparent, from what we daily hear, that this has become the prevailing and fixed opinion of a great majority of the community. Now, I ask, what limitation can possibly be placed upon the powers of a government claiming and exercising such rights?

And, if none can be, how can the separate governments of the States maintain and protect the powers reserved to them by the Constitution, or the people of the several States maintain those which are reserved to them, and, among others, the sovereign powers by which they ordained and established not only their separate State Constitutions and governments, but also the Constitution and government of the United States?

But, if they have no constitutional means of maintaining them against the right claimed by this government, it necessarily follows that they hold them at its pleasure and discretion, and that all the powers of the system are in reality concentrated in it. It also follows that the character of the government has been changed in consequence from a federal republic, as it originally came from the hands of the framers, into a great national consolidated democracy.

It has indeed, at present, all the characteristics of the latter, and not one of the former, although it still retains its outward form.”

(The Life of John C. Calhoun, Gustavus M. Pinckney, Walker, Evans & Cogswell, 1903, pp. 178-179)

Jefferson’s idealistic preamble passage regarding “all men are created equal” has been problemmatic though most agree that creation is where the equality ends — subsequent political equality is established by men.  Regarding the status of blacks at the time of the Constitution being ratifed, Chief Justice Taney found in his Dred Scott decision that Africans were indeed persons but not included in “the political people” of the United States and without standing as citizens. New York’s 1821 suffrage requirement for blacks mentioned below is considered by many to be the origin of “Jim Crow Laws.”

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Jefferson’s Debatable Equality

“In one matter [of antebellum views of democracy] there was a definite reactionary movement. This was the issue of free Negro suffrage. Virginia and North Carolina joined Maryland and Kentucky in taking from the free Negro the ballot he had theretofore possessed. In like manner, all new States of the period, North as well as South, denied suffrage to free Negroes.

The action of the old Southern States was paralleled by that of the Northern States. Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania took the ballot from the Negro. And New York in 1821 limited Negro suffrage by requiring that he possess a freehold valued at two hundred and fifty dollars over and above all indebtedness. Hence only five of the Northern States granted equal suffrage to Negroes.

Whether or not Jefferson, Mason, and other Revolutionary proponents of natural rights philosophy intended to include Negroes in the statement “all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights” is a debatable question, but in actual practice the American people had decided by their constitutional provisions that Negroes were not included in the political people. From the very day of the Declaration of Independence the race problem had caused the American people to make an exception to the doctrine that “all men are created equal.”

(Fletcher M. Green, Democracy in the Old South, paper written for the 1945 Southern Historical Association presidential address. The Pursuit of Southern History, George Brown Tindall, editor, LSU Press, 1964, pp. 186-187)

Federal Government as an Ideal

“I wish, however, to enter my protest against that interpretation of American history that would make the Southern States the anvil on which federal government wrought out its greatest victory. This widespread misconception of our history implies that there were two sections in the United States, one seeking to uphold federal government, the other to overthrow it. That is not true.

Federal government as a principle, as an ideal, was not at stake, but only a particular form of federal government.

The first paragraph of the Constitution of the United States declares that we, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution “in order to form a more perfect union.”

The first paragraph of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America declares that we, the people of the Confederate States, do ordain and establish this Constitution “in order to from a more permanent federal government.”

Scrutinize these two paragraphs as you will, the advantage for federal government as an ideal does not lie with the first.”

(Our Heritage of Idealism, C. Alphonso Smith, Address (excerpt) delivered at the University of South Carolina, January 11, 1912)

North Carolinians were not alone in fearing the consolidationist tendencies under the proposed Constitution, and held out for amendments rather than taking someone’s word. It was made very clear that religious tests and political office did not include Muslims or Hindu’s, nor were pagans desired in the halls of government. North Carolina’s proposed amendment of a two-thirds majority to determine if a State was in rebellion would have perplexed a president 70-some years later.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

North Carolina Fears a Pagan Congress

“The anti-federalist plan as introduced by [Willie] Jones, which was a refusal to ratify [the Constitution] until certain amendments were added, appears in the records when the committee of the whole reported to the convention. While the discussion of this motion [to ratify] was in progress, Willie Jones stated that Jefferson wished nine States to ratify the Constitution to preserve the union, but he wanted the other four to reject it to make certain that the amendments would be added.

Jones said it would probably take about eighteen months to have the amendments ratified, but he had “rather be eighteen years out of the Union than adopt it in its present form.”  The North Carolina anti-federalists felt that, since their proposed amendments were so similar to those of Virginia, they would have the support of that State in urging their acceptance, and in North Carolina’s favorable reception when it wished to enter the union.

The last clause of the Constitution which occasioned debate in the committee was the one prohibiting religious tests for public offices. The delegate who opened the discussion was Henry Abbott, a Baptist elder from Anson [county] who voted with the federalists . . . [who] said that some persons were afraid that, should the Constitution be put into effect, they would be deprived of the privilege of worshipping God according to their consciences, which would be denying them a benefit they enjoyed under the existing [Articles of Confederation].

He said he wished to know what religion would be established. For his part, he was against any exclusive establishment, but if there were any he preferred the Episcopal. Many thought that the prohibition of religious tests was dangerous and impolitic. They supposed that if there were no religious test required, pagans, deists and Mahometans might obtain office, and that the senators and representatives might be all pagans.

It is well to note the additional amendments desired by the North Carolina anti-federalists, for they relate to the special interests of that State. In order to safeguard independent action, one amendment proposed that Congress should not declare any State to be in rebellion without the consent of at least two-thirds of all the members present in both houses. Another, showing the fear of commercial interests, provided that Congress should authorize no company of merchants with exclusive privileges.

(Ratification of the Federal Constitution in North Carolina, Louise Irby Trenholme, Columbia University Press, 1932, pp. 178-184)

In no way was the North a monolithic unit against the American South during the War, and many the Northern Democratic party criticized Lincoln’s policy’s though at the risk of imprisonment. Though the abolition of slavery was a noble effort, they saw free government as more precious.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Expecting Unending Federal Interference

“[“Samuel “Sunset”] . . . Cox concluded once again that the purpose of the war was being perverted; the Union soldiers had been deceived, for “they never went into a crusade for abolition.” He pronounced [The Freedman’s Bureau] bill “sweeping and revolutionary” in its effect since “it begins a policy for this Federal Government of limited and express powers, so latitudinarian that the whole system is changed” into a centralized, unitary government, operating “by edict and bayonet, by sham election and juggling proclamation.” [He said] The way to peace was to “restore the Union through compromise” not by “military governors for rebellious provinces.”

As reports reached Washington that Southerners were freeing their slaves for use in the army, it was clear that the end of slavery would not be a bar to negotiations for a restored Union. So on January 21, 1865, as Cox recorded later, “I fully intended . . . to cast my vote for the amendment.” He had explained his position at length several weeks earlier.

Conceding the power to amend the Constitution to abolish slavery . . . Cox preferred to leave the question “to the States individually.” He had urged a policy of non-intervention by the government in the slave question ever since “I first came to this Congress.” Slavery “is to me the most repugnant of all human institutions,” but the principle of “self-government” by the States over their own affairs “was even more precious than the end of human bondage,” for, if the federal government could intervene in this matter, then federal interference could be expected in all domestic matters.

Most important of all, however, was the Union. If peace with Union could be achieved “by the abolition of slavery, I would vote for it.” But if abolition “is an obstacle in the way of restoring the Union,” as Cox felt it was at the moment . . . then he would vote against it.”

(“Sunset” Cox, Irrepressible Democrat, David Lindsey, Wayne State University Press, 1959, pp. 91-94)

The last of the conservative news magazines was the US News & World Report under the leadership of Editor David Lawrence. In 1962 he wrote about the illegality of the presidential executive order which circumvented the United States Constitution, the people, Congress, and the rule of law.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

Executive Orders a Form of Extremism

“We hear a good deal nowadays about “extremists” – those who brand as Communists other persons who are not Communists. Name-calling, while deplorable, doesn’t do as much harm to the American people as a whole as do the “extremists” in public office who would disregard the Constitution.

For there is a trend today toward circumvention of the Constitution. Scarcely a month goes by that some new legislative measure or executive order isn’t proposed which seeks to “get around” the Constitution. The argument recently espoused in all seriousness as an alibi by some people inside and outside Government is that amending the Constitution is a laborious and slow process. The point is made that “times have changed” and that some of the doctrines of past decades in the field of law have become obsolete.

Oddly enough, that‘s exactly the excuse Nikita Krushchev gives for abrogating the allied agreements made in 1945 to insure unrestricted access to Berlin. He says these agreements are outmoded. Is it right for one party to an agreement to declare arbitrarily that he will no longer abide by its terms because he decides it is obsolete?

The people of the 13 original States, by a compact with each other, gave up certain rights and delegated them to a central government. All powers not enumerated in the Constitution as having been delegated to the Federal Government were specifically “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This is the language of the Tenth Amendment. Why is this agreement so persistently violated?

If the people at any time wish to change the Constitution, it can be amended by a two-thirds vote of Congress followed by acts of ratification by three-fourths of the States. But we hear today that this is “too cumbersome” a method and that “it takes too much time.” Yet some amendments have gone through from congressional action to State ratification in less than a year. The truth is that where there is substantial opposition to an amendment, it naturally isn’t approved.

Unfortunately, our record as a nation is not clean. The Fourteenth Amendment was not legally inserted in the Constitution. The same Southern States which were considered eligible members of the Union when – after the Civil War was over – they ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery were then punished by Congress for refusing to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. “Ratification” was accomplished by legislative coercion of the States by Congress and at the point of a bayonet by armed forces stationed in the State legislatures.

Yet this same Fourteenth Amendment is the basis of most of the executive orders on “civil rights” today. The Supreme Court has never consented to pass upon the validity of the method used to “ratify” the Fourteenth Amendment, though the Court has accepted cases challenging the validity of other amendments.

Recently a new trend toward usurpation of power has arisen. It seeks by executive order, or by the passing of new laws, to thwart or ignore the plainly written provisions of the Constitution. President Kennedy sent a bill to Congress a few weeks ago proposing a far-reaching change in the handling of tariffs. The Executive would fix the duties and commodity quotas – a power granted by the Constitution only to Congress.

The bill, now before the House Ways and Means Committee, provides, moreover, that presidential determinations “shall be final and conclusive and shall not be subject to review by any court.” Why should the people be deprived of judicial review when they are the victims of illegality in the application of trade laws?

Also the Kennedy Administration has just signed treaties with 24 countries on trade relations, but does not intend to submit these agreements to the Senate for ratification by a two-thirds vote. Executive orders have been issued, moreover, in “civil rights” matters, on many of which Congress itself has refused to pass laws. Thus, by executive order, purchase contracts for goods and services can be withheld by the Government from any business which refuses to accept the Government’s dictation as to the number of employees of a particular color that the contractor or subcontractor may hire. It certainly is a form of “extremism” to substitute executive orders for the laws of Congress.

Extremism is bred by extremism. We would have less trouble with the malcontents in our midst if the spirit and letter of the Constitution were observed.

If the method of amending the document is too cumbersome, let the people by the constitutional method change it. But let’s face the fact that new “extremists” have arisen who believe that the executive order can circumvent the Constitution if the stated objective merely has “popular appeal.” This is government by emotion – by extremism. It is not a government by a written Constitution.”

(US News & World Report, Editorial, David Lawrence, April 2, 1962, page 108)

For writing promissory notes and obligations of payment in true money of value, is the only proper use of paper for monetary transactions. The note is then worth the sum it is given for under the law. If the person writing the note is worth nothing, then the promise is worthless. The true value then is not the promissory note, but the man behind it. When persons in government begin printing money and establishing claims to its value, the entire system of value and worth is overturned and apparitions replace reality.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.circa1865.org

The Evils of Paper Money

“The currency provisions of the federal constitution were intended to “shut and bar the door” against the evils of a legal-tender paper money issued by State or national governments. For more than two generations it succeeded in accomplishing that end. Contemporaneous with the establishment of the new government, banks were introduced into the United States and spread everywhere with astonishing rapidity. As a result the American people continued as in former times to use for the most part a paper currency, consisting of the notes of these banks. They were not legal tender, as the old bills of credit had been, and could not be made so; and no one supposed that they could give rise to the evils of depreciated paper currency.

The framers of the Constitution of the United States were deeply impressed with the still fresh recollection of the baneful effects of a paper money currency on the property and moral feeling of the community. It was accordingly provided by our National Charter that no State should coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but gold and silver coin a tender, in payment of debts, or pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; and the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, was, by the same instrument, vested exclusively in Congress.

As this body has no authority to make anything whatever a tender in payment of private debts, it necessarily follows that nothing but gold and silver can be made a legal tender for that purpose, and that Congress cannot authorize the payment in any species of paper currency of any other debts but those due the United States, or such debts of the United States as may, by special contract, be made payable in such paper . . .

The provisions of the Constitution were universally considered as affording complete security against the danger of paper money. The introduction of the banking system met with a strenuous opposition on various grounds, but it was not apprehended that banknotes, convertible at will into specie, and which no person could be legally compelled to take in payment, would degenerate into pure paper money, no longer paid at sight in specie.

Still less it was expected; and it was the catastrophe of the year 1814 which first disclosed not only the insecurity of the American banking system, as then existing, but also that when a paper currency, driving away and superseding the use of gold and silver, has insinuated itself through every channel of circulation and become the only medium of exchange, every individual finds himself, in fact, compelled to receive such currency, even when depreciated more than twenty per cent, in the same manner as if it had been made a legal tender.”

( The Economic History of the United States, 1765-1860, Guy Stevens Callender, Sentry Press, 1965, pp. 564-566)