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Lincoln was indeed a Money Power Agent

August 2, 2012

left: Abe Lincoln, yet another Money Power stooge sold as a man of the people.

“If this mischievous financial policy (the Greenback), which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.” –Times of London
This famous quote, a classic in the Greenback movement, has been debunked: it’s not in the Times of London archives.

Lincoln is way overrated by the conspiracy scene. In fact: Government printed interest-bearing cash is a Money Power operation. Just like with Marxists nationalizing all: the question is who owns the state.

By Anthony Migchels, for Henry Makow and Real Currencies

It aches my heart to admit it, but for the longest time I thought Lincoln was a Prince of the People, until I got re-educated in no uncertain terms by Name789, the man behind the wonderful website www.yamaguchy.com. Most of the information in the article, and then some, can be found in this post by his hand.

Here’s some of the (finagled) wisdom I learned from him.
To begin with, there is this urban legend that the Rothschilds tried to force 30% Gold upon Lincoln. This is total nonsense: anybody with good credit could borrow at 6% at the time:
”I simply wish to say to the chairman of the Committee on Finance [Mr. Fessenden] that any merchant in the United States with good securities can to-day borrow $1,000,000 at six per cent. I can, with good securities; and so can my friend from Maine.” Senator Chandler in the Senate February 13th 1862, during the greenback debate.

The Urban Legend then continues with the story that Abe Lincoln was instructed by a Colonel Dick to print his own currency and that Abe was much relieved by this alchemy.

More nonsense: at the time the Treasury routinely circulated debt free Treasury notes. The ins and outs of this tool was common knowledge among senior politicians, of which Lincoln, who had been in Washington for 30 years, certainly was one.

Furthermore, throughout his career Lincoln had been agitating for a (privately owned) ‘National Bank’, the Nicholas Biddle kind of operation that Andrew Jackson (despite his many faults) heroically busted. Already in 1839 Lincoln is on record as saying in the House:
“Again, as to the contractions and expansions of a National Bank, I need only point to the period intervening between the time that the late Bank got into successful operation and that at which the Government commenced war upon it, to show that during that period, no such contractions or expansions took place.  …… We do not pretend, that a National Bank can establish and maintain a sound and uniform state of currency in the country, in spite of the National Government; but we do say, that it has established and maintained such a currency, and can do so again, by the aid of that Government; and we further say, that no duty is more imperative on that Government, than the duty it owes the people, of furnishing them a sound and uniform currency.”

Lincoln was a ‘national Whig’. As such he favored Central Banking and the truth is he would have signed the Federal Reserve Act any time.

The Greenback
The main problem with the ‘interest-free, debt-free Greenback’ was that it was….neither debt-free, nor interest-free.

What was the Greenback? There were $450million non-interest-bearing US notes, backed by $500million bonds bearing 6% interest (the 5/20s) and there were ~$1,000million Treasury notes bearing 6-7.3% interest.
Worse still: Lincoln’s hand-picked Secretary of the Treasury and the whig crew in Congress weren’t finished; the people who gave us greenbacks intended to give us permanent national debt; so, 1,000million currency obligations were turned into 40-year gold bonds.

There you have it: the ‘debt-free’ paper they circulated as Greenbacks were backed by bonds at 6%, while they were later turned into 40 year gold bonds.

Lincoln was a useful idiot at best
He accomplished everything for the Money Power: (permanent) national indebtedness, strong central government, national banking system, national currency based on this indebtedness; everything that Henry Clay in 1841 couldn’t.

Please note in particular: strong central Government, ‘National’ Banking System, ‘National’ Currency.

The Money Power was behind this agenda, which destroyed classical American decentralized political power, individualism and State rights.

Many people in the alternative media believe this is a boon: it is not, one knows a tree by its fruit and the American Empire has been an incredible scourge to the world. To many Americans even today the Government seems not too bad, but just ask the dozens of nations who have been decimated by the Government, from Germans, to Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Iraqi’s, etc. In all these wars the US was the Money Power’s Golem: doing their bidding as their, dimwitted, brutish goon.

So why was he murdered? Nobody knows. Perhaps his work was finished and he did seem to have resisted certain even more extreme measures. Name789: “Between 1866 and 1868 Senator Doolittle said many times that Lincoln would not have gone along with radical reconstruction (to “reduce States to the condition of territories and citizens[whites] to the grade of vassals”). That would have been a lot more plausible reason for wasting him.”

It’s the same with Garfield, who was also murdered and later made into a hero of the people, while during his life he was a reliable spokesman for banker bonds and Gold.

The War
The Money Power always owns both sides of the conflict and the Civil War was no exception. They wanted the war and they got it. It gave them everything they wanted, including eternal indebtedness, their main hallmark.

Of course it had nothing to do with slavery, which would have ended anyway, as it did throughout the civilized world without war.

Lincoln declared war without consulting Congress and creating ‘facts on the ground’, which has done immeasurable damage to the rights of Legislative. The Executive has been getting away with this kind of nonsense ever since: up to this very day Presidents start phoney wars all over the place, unhindered by an emasculated Congress.

During the war Lincoln had tens of thousands of people in the North arrested for opposing it. During riots throughout the country he had the Army repress them by shooting the protesters en masse.

In short: he was a tyrant of the worst kind.

Conclusion
Lincoln was a Money Power Agent. He accomplished everything the Money Power wanted: permanent indebtedness, power centralization in Washington and a ‘national’ (central banking) currency plus ‘national’ (privately controlled) banking system.

Clearly this has important ramifications for how we believe the opposition and its monetary agenda should look like.
The main lesson is that centralization of power is an eternal tell-tale of the enemy.

171 Comments
  1. marxbites permalink

    Excellent Anthony!!

    But, whaddya know?, its todays Austrians, who almost solely, are the ones who portray dishonest, Henry Clay “American System” power elite whig socialist Abe, as the puppet of power he most certainly was.

    My own den of despicable American puppet thieves list?

    A Hamilton, A Lincoln, Woody Wilson, FDR & Nixon.

    All of whom sold liberty out for their euro-shylock masters.

    Authors Forum: “Lincoln Unmasked” | Thomas J. DiLorenzo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWBev7vMyI&feature=related

    • Yes the Austrians like dumping on Lincoln, mainly because they believed the bullcrap that the greenback was interest free.

      They’re not always wrong about everything marxbites. Just about usury, deflation, money power and gold.

      • Also because many Austrians (like DiLorenzo) are Jesuit-influenced and can’t wait to denounce Lincoln.

      • the Austrians like dumping on Lincoln, mainly because they believed the bullcrap that the greenback was interest free.
        Jct: Didn’t you just agree that the Greenback was interest-free, that it was the 6% bonds backing them up that were the trick? And now you contradict yourself and call our own first statement bullcrap. Backward again. This statement is your bullcrap.

        • let’s not make it a wordgame John: if bonds were backing the greenback, it was not interest-free

          • if bonds were backing the greenback,
            Jct: They weren’t backed by bonds just like Continentals, Tallies, Aes Grave, wampum, LETS timebanks, Buchanan’s Greenbacks, weren’t backed by bonds, they were backed by work. I keep challenging you to to explain why bonds are needed to back up Greenbacks paid out in exchange for work? You never did and now you repeat that challenged error as some kind of proof you’re right? How many times have I challenged you to explain any need for bonds to back up the government paper other than tax-payment? Why did Lincoln need bonds and not Buchanan? There’s no reason for bonds to back it up, never before, not then. It’s a silly argument.
            And as for Lincoln being a Money Power agent, when I pointed out they must have loved him for costing them hundreds or thousands of millions in debt service, I was joking. No one’s backed up that silly statement in the face of the results either.

          • Listen: Usury is the enemy. Why? Because it is the ultimate centralizer of power. All the usury ultimately ends up at the very top of the food chain.

            The enemy is always centralizing power and Usury is only their most favored tool, but far from their only one. The article makes patently clear that Lincoln was the ultimate centralizer of power in the Republic during the 19th century. He created the transnational railroad, killed state rights, killed state currency, killed the legislative’s domination of the executive and killed hundreds of thousands in the process. He laid the foundation for that uncanny scourge to the world that would soon, in the Philipines, manifest its destiny as the very greatest killer of innocents of them all. The Money Power built up the US to conquer the world for them.

            Combine this with the clear and proven record for him to support a National Bank (Hamilton, ring a bell???). The fact that he would have blindly signed the Federal Reserve Act, as it was basically what the wigs had been campaigning for throughout the 19th century.

            If that is not enough for you to wake up and smell the coffee, I won’t vote for you as King of the Paupers, because your clinging to your favored beliefs destine you to remain half a pauper yourself, notwithstanding your incredible track record in the usury free movement.

            OBVIOUSLY the Greenback did not need backing by Bonds. You seem to make the hard to imagine leap of the mind that because there was no need for backing, there was no backing. However, the Treasury sells Bonds to the Fed. Do they need to? Only rip off the taxpayer (although nowadays even that interest is refunded to the treasury). The point: there is no need for backing, but the Money Power wants backing.

            However, having said all this. You do have a point in that Name has not, for as far as I have seen, proven conclusively that the Greenback was backed by Bonds, the interest for which went to the Crown.

            Name, help two nitwits on the history of American Banking out and show us the money: give us the proof in the records that the Greenback was NOT printed without interest bearing bonds backing them. If you please.

            Thank you.

          • Anthony Migchels: Listen: Usury is the enemy. Why? Because
            it is the ultimate centralizer of power. All the usury
            ultimately ends up at the very top of the food chain.

            JCT: You forgot to mention the starved corpses at the
            bottom.

            AM: The enemy is always centralizing power and Usury is only
            their most favored tool, but far from their only one.
            Jct: You conflate the symptom of power centralization with
            the cause, taking from the poor 99% to give to the rich 1%.

            AM: The article makes patently clear that Lincoln was the
            ultimate centralizer of power in the Republic during the
            19th century.
            Jct: And I keep pointing out that that’s off-topic.

            AM: He created the transnational railroad, killed state
            rights, killed state currency, killed the legislative’s
            domination of the executive and killed hundreds of thousands
            in the process. He laid the foundation for that uncanny
            scourge to the world that would soon, in the Philipines,
            manifest its destiny as the very greatest killer of
            innocents of them all. The Money Power built up the US to
            conquer the world for them.
            Jct: And I keep pointing out that that’s off-topic.

            AM: Combine this with the clear and proven record for him to
            support a National Bank (Hamilton, ring a bell???). The fact
            that he would have blindly signed the Federal Reserve Act,
            as it was basically what the wigs had been campaigning for
            throughout the 19th century.
            Jct: So maybe he just caught on when his banker friends
            demanded 36% for the loan and turned on them. Face the
            results, hundreds or thousands of millions of debt service
            lost! I don’t care what he supported in his ignorant youth.

            AM: If that is not enough for you to wake up and smell the
            coffee, I won’t vote for you as King of the Paupers, because
            your clinging to your favored beliefs destine you to remain
            half a pauper yourself, notwithstanding your incredible
            track record in the usury free movement.
            Jct: I may be impelled to seek your vote for KingofthePlanet
            for a day to instsal UNILETS and end poverty forever. But I
            don’t need your vote for KingofthePaupers, that impulsion
            was duty as the only qualified engineer specialised in
            computers and gambling to deal with the malfunctioning mort-
            gage death-gamble bank software.

            Am: OBVIOUSLY the Greenback did not need backing by Bonds.
            Jct: Okay, now that we agree the Greenback needed no other
            backing than labor, now explain how the 6% bonds fit in?

            AM: You seem to make the hard to imagine leap of the mind
            that because there was no need for backing, there was no
            backing.
            Jct: No, it’s not so great a leap of the mind to wonder: if
            there’s no need for backing, how did they connect the
            backing up to the Greenbacks? Once you admit there’s no need
            for that circuit, now explain how that circuit could be
            connected before you ask me to accept that it was when it
            never was before.

            AM: However, the Treasury sells Bonds to the Fed. Do they
            need to?
            Jct: That’s the bad way. Lincoln paid bonds to the people
            (if you see that paper bonds are the same as paper bills)
            the right way. So don’t bring up the bad way trying to
            discredit the good way. Lincoln’s Treasury sold his
            Greenbacks to no one.

            AM: Only rip off the taxpayer (although nowadays even that
            interest is refunded to the treasury). The point: there is
            no need for backing, but the Money Power wants backing.
            Jct: They can wish for a stairway to heaven all they want
            but if the circuit can’t be connected… wish away..

            AM: However, having said all this. You do have a point in
            that Name has not, for as far as I have seen, proven
            conclusively that the Greenback was backed by Bonds, the
            interest for which went to the Crown.
            Jct: Yes, Mr. Low-Tech disinfo bull-crapper hasn’t piped up
            much since he was challenged to explain how the bond circuit
            attached to the Greenback circuit. Har har har.

            Am: Name, help two nitwits on the history of American
            Banking out
            Jct: Speak for yourself, not the Banking Systems Engineer.
            But yes, Name, do help your false proposition out.

            AM: and show us the money: give us the proof in the records
            that the Greenback was NOT printed without interest bearing
            bonds backing them. If you please.
            Jct: And explain not only how the circuit connects but what
            happened to the cash for the bonds they sold backing the
            Greenbacks! Hzr har har har.

            AM: Thank you.
            Jct: I’d bet he stays piped.

          • I did not forget the corpses at the bottom. Instead of wasting the time of the multitudes with ‘the eleventh marble’ and the mechanical improprieties of the system that nobody cares about, Real Currencies is the only site on the web that has consistently pointed out that the poorest 80% pay ALL the interest and that the poorest pay most relative to their income.

            But for the rest: I try to avoid scoring points, because I happen to find all this a pretty serious issue. So I’ll forget about wisecracks and say this:

            You have shown the problem in your thought: you consider power centralization the symptom, whereas I, correctly, pointed out that:
            “The enemy is always centralizing power and Usury is only their most favored tool, but far from their only one.”

            So there you have it. Usury is a subset of power centralization. To you Usury is bigger than power centralization.

            That’s homework for you to contemplate John. Thirty years in the business is giving you tunnel vision and your losing track of the grander scheme of things.

            Satan wants ALL for himself. All power, all sex, all attention, all goods, all space, all humans. All. Usury is his way of getting all this in the economic plane, and, like I said, it’s his most important tool. But it’s a tool nonetheless. Centralization of power and unlimited egotism is the real issue.

            Name789 is 100% right to scoff at you for thinking the Money Power wanted the republic destroyed. Their way is ALWAYS larger entities. If you cannot see this, or the importance of it, you’re missing out big time.

            Worse still, real history shows that the US was a Money Power project from day one: Columbus was sent to ‘discover’ the continent, which they had known about for centuries and were then ready to exploit. All the framers were masons. The war of independence a hoax, as it did not solve its main aim, getting rid of scarce British money. It was built up to conquer the world for the Money Power, which it duly did, killing at least 100 million in the process.

            So Lincoln was a Money Power agent. He left their main hallmarks all over the Republic after the war: massive indebtedness that cost billions in interest in the decades after and immense power centralization in Washington.

            So even if we don’t settle the (important) Greenback issue, it’s clear they got everything they ever wanted.

            Name789 has answered in another thread under the latest article on the homepage.
            It’s alas a little bit unfathomable, as he is offering 700 pages of legalese: the text of the original act.

          • AM: To you Usury is bigger than power centralization. That’s homework for you to contemplate John. Thirty years in the business is giving you tunnel vision and your losing track of the grander scheme of things.
            Jct: Usury centralizes money, money is economic power, what other kind of power are you talking about if not the power of financial life and death? Centralization doesn’t spawn usury, usury spawns centralization. Nehemiah said: Let the exacting of usury stop,” not” let the centralization of power stop.” Jesus and Mohammed too.

            AM: Name789 is 100% right to scoff at you for thinking the Money Power wanted the republic destroyed.
            Jct: Is that what you thought Name789 was thinking I was thinking? Where did I ever speak of anything the Money Power wanted but their debt service. Did I say they were for or against the Republic. I bet they would have been for if Lincoln had taken their loan and probably against when he didn’t. And Name789 was never right to scoff at The Engineer since it led you to adopt his false premises and get your brain slapped around defending his errors he’s now chickened out on.

            AM: Lincoln was a Money Power agent.
            Jct: Despite the fact he cost them tons of debt service, you keep repeating what makes no sense. The brain slaps haven’t seemed to help.

            AM: Name789 has answered in another thread under the latest article on the homepage. It’s alas a little bit unfathomable, as he is offering 700 pages of legalese: the text of the original act.
            Jct: There you go, lots for you to try to rebut me with, if you can find it, since you can’t right now. And why make you run around searching it, why not post it here! Har har har har har har.

          • Jct: Usury centralizes money, money is economic power, what other kind of power are you talking about if not the power of financial life and death? Centralization doesn’t spawn usury, usury spawns centralization. Nehemiah said: Let the exacting of usury stop,” not” let the centralization of power stop.” Jesus and Mohammed too.

            Not so: for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

            Usury is only one, very major, of Satan’s tools. Satan is the enemy, we attack his armour and that’s why we fight usury.

            Careful deliberation of Satan’s nature shows he’s a complete egotist. He wants it all and he wants it now and he wants it for himself.

            That’s the essential nature of the opposition and that is the essential nature of centralization of power

          • btw John. Why are we having this particular conversation? You don’t need me to point out this blatantly obvious no brainer?

            Don’t try to be right or score points, you’re wasting both our time. The only reason I’m in this conversation is to learn.

            Sometimes you are right, then I learn. Sometimes I’m right, then you learn. Net effect: the Usury Free movement learns always.

            In case you haven’t noticed: I’m one of the more reliable Anti Usury activists in your camp.

          • AM: btw John. Why are we having this particular conversation?
            Jct: Because Name789 sucked you into believing there was a bond circuit connected to the Greenback circuit and you got your brain slapped around for not first obtaining proof.
            AM: You don’t need me to point out this blatantly obvious no brainer?
            Jct: I say the “no-brainer” is Lincoln costing the bankers hundreds or thousands of millions makes him NOT a banker agent. Evidently, you’ve decided that he was helping the bankers cost themselves money and they loved him for it. If it’s such a “no brainer,” why haven’t you been able to answer me and why have I been answer you. And why can’t you even elucidate what your “no-brainer” is.
            AM: Don’t try to be right
            Jct: You keep trying to be wrong, I’ll keep trying to be right.

            AM: or score points,
            Jct: It’s my profession. Besides, you keep giving opportunities to score.
            AM: you’re wasting both our time.
            Jct: Sure I may be wasting my time with you but when I score points against your errors and people see you back down with no answer, they learn who’s right and who’s wrong.
            AK: The only reason I’m in this conversation is to learn.
            Jct: If that were so, you wouldn’t keep repeating your unsubstantiated and illogical errors. I see one financial circuit, Greenbacks going out for work coming in and Greenbacks back in for tax receipts going out. How many times do I have to laugh at your inability to connect the 6% bond circuit, bonds out for cash in, bonds in for cash out (plus interest). Two simple financial flow circuits you and Name789 claim are connected but when challenged, cannot show how they’re connected, let alone that they are, or have ever been connected. Both are independent circuits on their own. Mutually exclusive.
            AM: Sometimes you are right, then I learn. Sometimes I’m right, then you learn.
            Jct: I don’t remember you being right where I was wrong and learning anything I didn’t that already know except for the new illogical allegations against Lincoln. That’s why I’m here defending him. Just as his Greenbacks cost the banksters a fortune in debt service, I hope my LETS timebanks do the same. So I won’t let you denigrate the man who successfully did what I’m trying to do no matter his previous record. “Repent and sin no more and all your sins will be forgotten.” (Ezekiel). I don’t care if he was a bankers’ toady until the moment he made his fateful decision to turn down the loan and use Greenbacks. Get it? You denigrated one of my historical heroes (only based on the fruit of the tree, not the tree) and I rose to his defence. Through this discussion, people have now learned that Greenbacks, Argentine bonds, whatever government paper, is backed by the work it paid for and has nothing to do with bonds. You can repeat it all you want but no one can believe you when Name789 did not respond to your call for proof.
            AM: Net effect: the Usury Free movement learns always
            Jct: You don’t seem to have learned.
            AM: In case you haven’t noticed: I’m one of the more reliable Anti Usury activists in your camp.
            Jct: No you’re not. You propagate error despite correction and you challenge the Banking Systems Engineer on Banking Systems Engineering. That error should be the definition of “no-brainer.”

  2. O.K. for the exact same article i became dirt among circle of friends of E.B., B.S., and some others; we’ll see how you fare. Just two years ago Makov published an article in defence of Lincoln.

    to the point:
    In a way, the war was about slavery, too: it is an age-old method to bring in alien races and some time later make them citizens

    “The last century of the republic was characterised by the collapse of popular government, because of the wide extension of the citizenship, the considerable adulteration of the citizen body at Rome by the introduction of un-Romanized orientals, chiefly through the manumission of slaves, the growth in Rome of an unemployed proletariat, the rise of demagogues, and the complexity of the problems of government. The increasingly corrupt senate had lost control of the assemblies, the armies and the generals. The financiers as well as the governors, saw in the provinces only a field for exploitation.”

    • That’s certainly an instructive quote. Gibbons?

      Makow doesn’t care about friends: he considered the material dynamite, he just didn’t know, like me.

    • I just read the article you were referring to (on Makow’s site). Hamilton. National Banking.
      The Hamiltonians (like LaRouche) always claim the UK and its ‘free trade’ (totally orwellian word, of course) was the US’s main enemy and that tariffs and Hamiltonian economics were the answer.

      You also consider Vampire UK the enemy. Can you comment on this?

      • I like the book “Vampire of the Continent”

        I have said/wrote for a decade that the US has only one enemy during its existence: the United Kingdom, and this enemy did defeat the United States
        My comment of the 3 world war on the frot page, i consider the frame of the history of the past 200 years. I don’t care for LaRouche and Tarpley, the history of UK speaks for itself long before LaRouche.
        It has been very well demonstrated by non-conspiracist, actual historians, that WW1 was fomented and set in motion by UK, Ed Grey being the main war criminal
        The war against Napoleon was also England’s doing, and not the result of Napoleon’s conquering mania.

        As to Hamilton being in opposition to Whigs:
        would have to ask them how they are able to arrive at such conclusion
        1) in the 19th century tarrif laws were enacted for the benefit of monopolies (incidental benefit to the people was a side effect)
        2) how can you protect the US from british bankers by establishing a Bank of England in the US in which Baring and brothers own 1million out of 25 and 7-tenths of it is owned by british money men ?
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/clay1811.html

        Tarpley is a learned man, so he must be purposely misguiding the reader
        The whole American revolution for independence was supported by and made possible by Whigs in England –Cornwallis, a Whig, did everything in his power NOT to defeat Washington and the insurgents. After the war the Whigs came to collect. During wars and revolutions nothing goes according to plans

        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/beard/civi_08.html

        it took some decades and a civil war to arrange things in the US according to Whig ideals
        http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/beard/const_index.html

        __________
        Austrians and Treasury notes:–
        They hate the idea of Treasury notes as currency (even if interest-bearing and promising to pay), they want bank-notes to circulate. They hated Treasury notes in 1857, 1837 because it puts them out of business.
        greenbacks would have been a good concept without the Whig crew, so goldites don’t want people to learn from history and mistakes

        • That’s indeed a great book (vampire UK), I read it. From your site of course. The first chapter is about Holland. Put a completely new twist to the history of my country, which I thought I knew quite well.

          I think the truth is quite simple: The Money Power, thinking centuries ahead, was building a strong US to bludgeon the rest of the world into the One World, One Order march.

          Hence it allowed the US to build up with the ‘anti Britain’ tariffs.

          • Like Hitler and his (almost) interest free economy, which they needed to have him build a credible threat.

  3. bourchakoun permalink

    By now you really have to be suspicious of the whole topic of history.

    I wonder what THEY will make JFK into, who was so much part of them, but obviously opposed them later on.

    In order to study any subjects you might have to delve into all available newspapers (because most would be money-power-owned even then) and publications of that time and best also have out-of-the-body-time-travelling-abilities.

    No doubt Lincoln was surrounded at all sides by the money powers, who got their ways at certain occasions.

    I have read that part of the Illuminati wished to separate the US into at least 3 parts, which they then could control more easily. I wonder if that is so much superior to what has happened otherwise. Maybe having had 2 more internal wars until 1914.

    Either way – the farther back history goes – the more unreliable our given “facts” are. They have not hired historians everywhere for nothing in order to edit and “change” the perception and facts of history.

    I wonder if we will ever know what has transpired.

    • True. But certain telltales can be recognized and the truth about the greenback says all.

    • The true history was always there….
      Kennedy was NOT saint Jack the day before he was shot, only became one after. Contemporary newspapers, books, speeches, recollections, etc are available, people simply preferred the myth
      Contemporary observer Revelo Oliver tells that Kennedy was shot because he was worth a lot more dead than alive.

      The record on Lincoln and greenback (and the history of central banking) is also well-preserved and available. The Congress of the United States spent money and effort to record, to keep, to make available to anyone the Record. There is a depositary library in your city, you just need to walk in and read

      http://catalog.gpo.gov/fdlpdir/FDLPdir.jsp
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/speeches.html

    • I wonder if we will ever know what has transpired.
      Jct: So we can only look at the results. Lincoln cost the banks big, saved the people debt service big, took on the big boys and paid for it.

  4. “So why was he murdered? Nobody knows.”

    Anthony, you forget the Jesuit connection…

    http://www.truthontheweb.org/abe.htm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Chiniquy

    I know that some people think that this whole “Jesuit story” is another blind alley designed to deceive truthseekers.

    But we have historical evidence that the connection between Lincoln’s murder and the Jesuits/Vatican was suspected at the highest political levels:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See%E2%80%93United_States_relations#1797.E2.80.931867

    “The United States maintained consular relations with the Papal States from 1797 under President Washington and Pope Pius VI to 1867 and President Grant and Pope Pius IX. Diplomatic relations existed with the Pope, in his capacity as head of the Papal States, from 1848 under President Polk to 1867 under President Andrew Johnson, though not at the ambassadorial level. These relations lapsed when on February 28, 1867 Congress passed legislation that prohibited any future funding to United States diplomatic missions to the Holy See. This decision was based on mounting anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States,[1] fueled by persistent and unfounded rumors,[citation needed] such as the alleged involvement of the Vatican in the conspiracy to murder President Lincoln, and the allegation that the Pope had forbidden the celebration of Protestant religious services, previously held weekly in the home of the American Minister in Rome, within the walls of the city. That prohibition lasted until September 22, 1983, when it was repealed by the so called “Lugar Bill”.”

  5. The Rothchilds did want and agitate for a civil war in the United States, and not for their usual reason to make a fortune suppling both sides with loans for war supplies. In the case of this civil war, the Rothchilds had England prepared to invade the United States from Canada and the French from Mexico after the country would be weakened by internecine warfare between the north and south. What stopped this from happen was Russia’s Nicholas I sending his navy to the United States to defend them. So the primary intention was to physically invade and take over the United States and make the states fiefdoms of the banking empire in England and France.

    According to Ellen Brown in her book “Web of Debt” greenbacks were :

    Offi cially called United States Notes,
    these nineteenth century tallies were popularly called “ Greenbacks”
    because they were printed on the back with green ink (a feature the dollar
    retains today). They were basically just receipts acknowledging work
    done or goods delivered, which could be traded in the community for
    an equivalent value of goods or services. The Greenbacks represented
    man-hours rather than borrowed gold. Lincoln is quoted as saying, “The
    wages of men should be recognized as more important than the wages of money.”
    Over 400 million Greenback dollars were printed and used to pay soldiers
    and government employees, and to buy supplies for the war.(pg. 83)

    And that Lincoln the reason for creating greenback’s she further states :

    To fund the War between the States, the Eastern banks had offered a
    loan package that was little short of extortion – $150 million advanced
    at interest rates of 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln knew the loan would be
    impossible to pay off. (p83)

    I believe this account to be accurate and find nothing quoted from the banker owned newspapers in 789’s blog to be a reliable refutation. His vulgar attacks on Bill Stil, and Ellen Brown are both gratutious and groundless

    Sorry but i can’t be on board for this installment.

    • Of course, you can’t aboard, you have not got a leg to stand on, and certainly are not in the position offer anything to refute.
      To demonstrate her complete lack of knowledge book-pedler Brown publishes such statements but can offer nothing to back it
      What is accurate does NOT depend on your belief system, but on facts; that is why you prefer the ware of book-peddlers instead of documents.
      What is vulgar is filling books with fabrications, fake quotes and selling them to ignorant people

      • The information in Ellen Brown’s book are all sourced and footnoted. You’re crass vulgar disgorgings are opinionated nonesense taken from banker owned newspapers. Rubbish.

        • you keep repeating that the Moon is made of cheese, but unable to offer evidence. you are not even able to read, otherwise you would have noticed that I quote the Record of congress –600 pages of it– not newspapers.
          I have seen Brown’s book, there is no source in it. What source could you give for fabrications ? Oh yes, she did give an explanaition that if something has been repeated enough by book-peddlers it becomes genuine.
          You obviously have not read the act authorizing greenbacks, how could you, you learned everything you know from book-peddler Brown and the Lizzard of Oz. Please explain to us what section 2 means

          An Act to authorize the issue of United States notes, and for the redemption or funding thereof, and for funding the floatinq debt of the United States.

          § 2. And be it further enacted, That to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to fund the Treasury notes and floating debt of the United States, he is hereby authorized to issue on the credit of the United States coupon bonds or registered bonds, to an amount not exceeding five hundred million dollars, and redeemable at the pleasure of the United States after five years, and payable twenty years from date, and bearing interest at the rate of six per centum per annum, payable semi-annually ; and the bonds herein authorized shall be of such denomination, not less than fifty dollars, as may be determined upon by the Secretary of the Treasury ; and the Secretary of the Treasury may dispose of such bonds at any time at the market value thereof, for lawful money, the coin of the United States, or for any of the Treasury notes that have been, or may hereafter be, issued under any former act of Congress, or for the United States notes that may be issued under the provisions of this act ; and all stocks, bonds, and other securities of the United States held by individuals, corporations or associations within the United States, shall be exempt from taxation by or under State authority.

      • selling them to ignorant people
        Jct: The cracked pot calling the kettle black.

    • I forgot to add this quote from Web of Debt estblishing the legal definition of the Greenback:

      The Legal Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863 made all the
      “coins and currency” issued by the U.S. Government “legal tender for
      all debts, public and private.” Government-issued paper notes were
      made a legal substitute for gold and silver, even for the payment of
      pre-existing debts(pg. 86)

      • But unfortunately these government notes were backed by interest bearing bonds.

        While the Treasury circulated interest free notes routinely before Lincoln.

        • The money wasn;t backed by interest bearing bonds until the banking Act of 1863-4. Greenbacks existed even after this act passed and they were gradually swapped out for gold by the bankers.

          789 doesn’t know what he talking about and you should not have citing him as being an authority.

          • Sad as it is, 789 is the only authority on the subject, because he alone had the courage to read the freely available story of the greenbacks

            Money-reformist bozos prefer the mythological Lincoln invented by Sarah Emery

          • That’s why we’re so happy to have you here and share the great bounty of your studies with us name789! I know I am, anyway!

          • 789 is the only authority on the subject
            Jct: That’s why he can’t answer my questions! Har har har har har har.

          • Anthony Migchels: That’s why we’re so happy to have you here and share the great bounty of your studies with us name789! I know I am, anyway!
            Jct: Anthony’s impressed by the great bounty of 789’s studies! Har har har har har har. Birds of a feather flock up together!

        • But unfortunately these government notes were backed by interest bearing bonds.
          Jct: Anthony, you couldn’t explain how that could work the first time around and now you repeat the silly allegation again. What’s the purpose of Greenbacks if the guys buying the bonds to get the 6% are buying them with cash, like everyone else. You couldn’t answer then, and you repeat your error now? I’ll Paypal you $50 if you can explain how London backed the bonds to get their 6%! Geez, Anthony, how many times do you have to get slapped in the brain?

    • Here’s another fact that debunk the notion that Lincoln’s greenbacks were banker instruments:

      In 1972, the United States Treasury Department was asked to compute
      the amount of interest that would have been paid if the $400 million
      in Greenbacks had been borrowed from the banks instead. According
      to the Treasury Department’s calculations, in his short tenure Lincoln
      saved the government a total of $4 billion in interest, just by avoiding
      this $400 million loan( web of Debt pg. 87)

      • like the article states: the greenbacks were interest free.

        But they were backed by interest bearing bonds.

        that’s a fairly typical Money Power sleight of hand.

        Compare that to fractional reserve banking: the bank needs a deposit.
        But it does not lend the deposit: it creates the money anew.

        • The greenbacks Lincoln originally brought into existence were not backed yb interest bearing bonds. After the Banking Act of 1863-4 was passed money became backed by interest bonds, but this money was not greenbacks.

      • http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/in-defense-of-ellen-brown/#comment-751

        :Please read this comment: it calculates the greenbacks actually costed more than 2 billion in interest

      • Jct: And I’d guestimated 3 billion total debt. But the Treasury was probably counting the future interest after the war in their number, not the net it would have been during the war. I’d retreated to accept that even $200 million (@6%) was good reason to kill him but I think I’ll stick with my 2.5 billion (@36%) guestimate again.

    • If you want to know the truth about someone, go check their enemies.

      Here’s what Gary North had to say about the ‘wages of money’ quote:
      http://www.garynorth.com/public/6924.cfm

    • Like I said Rex, and I’m not agitating, I’m feeling the same thing as you are, the 30% story is an urban legend.

      Unless, of course, you could cite Ellen’s source.

      • Ellen Brown in my quotation references the work of Bill Still’s Money Masters documentary. http://mailstar.net/money-masters.html

        I tracked the sources used to make this film in his book “No More National Debt” p. 125-27.

        Regarding the Eastern bankers demanding up to 36% interest on loans to finance the civil war: General Revenue Revision: hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 85th Congress, Second Session, (Washington, D.C. U.S. Government printing Office, 1958), Vol. 1 p. 246.

        Regarding the issuance of Greenbacks as interest free legal tender: Congressman E. G. Spaulding, 1862 speech to Congress, History of the Legal Tender paper Money issued During the Great Rebellion Beinga Loan With Interest and a ntional Currency (Buffalo, New York, Express printing Company, 1869), p. 37

        If this isn’t sufficient i suggest you buy your own copies of the books as i cannot copy and paste and must painstakingly type everything.

        • interesting Rex!

        • Short ten years ago, have I prepared and uploaded the e-text of Spaulding’s book:

          http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/spaulding/green_index.html

          Nice title “a loan without interest and a national currency”; had it been true, would have been all good.

          Had you bothered to actually read what Mr. Spaulding wrote:–
          ” Legal tender notes issued direct from the Treasury constitute a loan to the Government without interest. Bank notes, under this bill, would be loaned to the Government and the people at six and seven per cent. interest. We give to the banking associations the interest on the national currency issued by them, as an inducement to them to form these associations and become liable for its redemption. Instead of the Government issuing this national currency direct to the soldiers and other creditors without interest, it sells its own six per cent. bonds to the banking associations, and takes its pay in legal tender notes”
          you would have been a lot closer to the truth, than by just looking at the title page

          By 1869 Mr. Spaulding was showing his true colours, not the ones he in 1862 assumed. In his book he severily edit even his own speeches, not to mention Stevens’, Hooper’s, Vallandigham’s, Sherman’s.

          I was kind enough to prepare and upload the e-text (the full text) of the debates of the act of February 25, 1862, (only 700 pages) in which the real truth is frankly told.

          Unfortunately, B.S. Heath, Sarah Emery’s mentor and the grand-daddy of all them greenback literature, only read what Spaulding published and not the actual Record. Using the copy & paste method, in 1877 Mr. Heath slapped together a pamphlet “The greenback dollar“; freely and shamelessly helping himself to Spaulding’s and Berkey’s work. But he did not know that Spaulding painted a false picture –although one thing Spaulding did tell honestly: that the greenbacks were only a war measure, which B.S. Heath did not copy & paste. Sarah Emery learned most of what she knew from B.S. Heath, and popularized the false picture that originated with Gerry Spaulding. The next 100 years book-peddlers simply regurgitated what Sarah Emery popularized……

      • The bankers sabotaged the Greenbacks shortly after they were issued: “Seemingly unimportant limitations on the use of Greenbacks (printed on the green back), insisted on by the bankers, forbidding their use to pay import duties and interest on the public debt, were utilized by the banks to slap a surcharge on Greenbacks of up to 185%. This undermined the confidence of the people in Greenbacks and necessitated further concessions to the bankers to obtain more, discounted as the Greenbacks now were.” Still, Money Masters

        This lead to the bankers forcing Lincoln to passing the National Banking Act 1863 which gave the private banks monopoly on creation of money created from sale of interest bearing bonds. Greenbacks still circulated but their quanty was halted. The National bank was as “national” as the Fed is Federal. And you are right to criticize the usurous money issued from this national bank, but wrong to confuse Greenbacks with this money. It is my opinion that many do encourage this confusion in order to disparage the real history of interest free fiat and true national banks.

      • AM: like the article states: the greenbacks were interest free. But they were backed by interest bearing bonds. that’s a fairly typical Money Power sleight of hand.
        Jct: Sure, costing themselves fortunes in interest is typical! Har har har.
        Contrarian Rex: The greenbacks Lincoln originally brought into existence were not backed yb interest bearing bonds. After the Banking Act of 1863-4 was passed money became backed by interest bonds, but this money was not greenbacks.
        Jct: I’ll bet $100 on Rex.

        AM: Like I said Rex, and I’m not agitating, I’m feeling the same thing as you are, the 30% story is an urban legend.
        Jct: Do I have to repeat the quote where they admitted there was no easy money? What basis do you have to say there was? 789 told you so? Right on your own page, the quote that there was no money left, let alone easy money! And you repeat your silly doubt about Lincoln being offered expensive money? I bet you $50 you can’t disprove that quote to establish that Lincoln did have access to cheaper money than that claimed in Ellen’s book?

        AM: Unless, of course, you could cite Ellen’s source.
        Jct: I have a huge library of money reform history books and can produce the quote in them before Ellen came on the scene. I’m not going to bother proving you wrong while you can’t back up what you say now. Try to disprove the “no easy money” and I’ll then try to defend it.

    • Jct: No talk about his Greenbacks being backed by anything other than the labor of the people who then used the Greenbacks to pay their taxes like King Henry the Great’s Tallies:

      The record most successful case was in the British Isle,
      Where “Tallies,” sticks of money, left King Henry I with smile.
      Accountants in the Treasury would split the stick in two,
      One half would be the money and the other half its due.
      A tally worth a pound of gold to pay the King’s expense,
      The other half amounted to taxation that made sense.
      The only question left is how the tax should be assessed,
      For goods and services? A simple formula to test.
      For services, he’d levy tax at end of every year.
      For assets, tax to pay depreciation. It was clear.
      The tax collectors through the land all had an easy way,
      Since people had their tallies and enough the tax to pay.
      The tallies funded projects and could pay for everything,
      With tallies matching tax, a hero, Henry I, their King.
      For over 700 years, the tallies were in use,
      But having lost control of money now is Crown’s excuse.

      King Henry’s tallies weren’t backed by bonds and I doubt the story
      that Greenbacks were backed by 6% bonds either. Totally unnecessary
      when Lincoln was “over-subscribed” selling his regular 6% bonds for cash.
      I’ve challenge the low-techs to explain how that worked by asking who got
      the 6% interest, Anthony guessed London, and why didn’t they have to put
      cash like everyone else? And if they put up cash, why Greenbacks? So the
      clowns have been caught by the illogic of their premise and foam at the
      mouth in response. But while no one can explain how the bond backing
      for greenbacks worked, let alone explain why the need if they were
      getting the cash, nor how costing the banks hundreds if not thousands of
      millions in debt service was a banker plot. Har har har har har har. Can’t
      help always finding that funny! No matter how much of a bank agent he
      may have been forced to be, he died a hero for turning on them or he
      simply was a hero for taking them on. And I don’t care about any other
      crap on his record, I look at his record saving the oppressed from the
      moneylenders, his real contribution to civilization.

  6. Here is a victim of one of those allegedly evil banks, the ING!
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brief-naar-de-Bank
    Alexander and Linda.

    Maybe the Gelre Foundation or some participants in the gelre credit system can help them out with a few hundred thousand euros or whatever they need? I read here on the site that mutual credit is easy and can start right now!

  7. Brand new interesting article (sorry about the typos, I will correct them in the morning):
    http://rudhar.com/economi/monydebt/en/008slfnd.htm

    In this article, it seems I have to admit you guys were right about the money out of thin air, and I was wrong all along … ??!?

  8. Abu Aardvark permalink

    Anthony, you wrote: “It aches my heart to admit it, but for the longest time I thought Lincoln was a Prince of the People”

    And you also commented later: “Yes the Austrians like dumping on Lincoln, mainly because they believed the bullcrap that the greenback was interest free.”

    ——————————–

    Poor Anthony, you could have known the truth about Lincoln long ago – like ten years or so – if only you had cared to look …

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761536418/ludwigvonmisesinst

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster21.html

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo12.html

    http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=282

    http://mises.org/daily/4887

    The above is just a small selection of a wide range of available material – all for free and to be found in a matter of seconds.

    Having said that, I really wonder if you are able to substantiate your claim that “the Austrians like dumping on Lincoln, mainly because they believed the bullcrap that the greenback was interest free”

    Can you prove what you wrote? Please provide verified quotes of Austrians who “mainly” attacked Lincoln because “the greenback was interest free”, or is you claim just another lame and transparent attempt to smear Austrian Economics with false claims?

    As as side note: Since you also claimed that Austrians are always wrong about deflation – Debunk this:

    “Why the Deflationists’ Argument Is Wrong in Both Theory and Historical Fact”

    http://www.garynorth.com/public/9871.cfm

    • we all learn little by little Abu!

      Some very little by very little!

      • Abu Aardvark permalink

        Gee, I still wonder if you are able to substantiate your claim that “the Austrians like dumping on Lincoln, mainly because they believed the bullcrap that the greenback was interest free”

        Can you prove what you wrote? Please provide verified quotes of Austrians who “mainly” attacked Lincoln because “the greenback was interest free”, or is you claim just another lame and transparent attempt to smear Austrian Economics with false claims?

        • the point was that Lincoln is about a debt free greenback, to most people anyway. The daily bell in many discussions went along with the ‘interest free’ part. I do realize (now) north did not.

          • Abu Aardvark permalink

            No, Anthony. Your “point” was your allegation that Austrians “mainly”
            attacked Lincoln because “the greenback was interest free”.

            YOU WROTE IT.

            I take note that once more you cannot substantiate your claims.

            No surprise here, then …

        • Jct: Are you saying Lincoln issued his own government chips and decided to pay himself interest?

  9. Hey Anthony,

    I sent this comment (updated here) to the article at Henry Makow’s site, but it didn’t get posted:

    They say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” You and other anti-usury utopians have made yourselves the enemies of both the Austrian school (austerity) and the American System (protectionism), and jump back and forth across the fence to join one side in attacking the other on various grounds. Whether witting or not, this is the Fabian strategy I wrote about recently in connection to social credit and similar schemes.

    There is a clear line of individuals and ideas connecting Alexander Hamilton to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln corresponded with Hamilton’s son, and in his campaign for president, labeled himself a “Henry Clay whig,” Henry Clay being among last remaining remnants of the Hamiltonians in Lincoln’s time:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_System_%28economic_plan%29

    Forget whoever this colonel Dick was. Lincoln was surrounded and mentored by people like Clay, Daniel Webster, John Q. Adams, Henry C. Carey and many others who were intimately familiar with the Hamiltonian system. Lincoln pushed through a transcontinental railroad and other major infrastructure, high tariffs (from ~15% under the Democrat Buchanan up to 45% under protege US Grant), free farmland for people like my German and Danish ancestors in the upper midwest, the land grant University system, and the list goes on.

    What did it mean for Lincoln’s Treasury to have sold interest- bearing bonds (this was insisted and organized by the somewhat dubious Treasury Sec. Salmon Chase)? It meant the financial community had a vested interest in the health of the Greenback, and wouldn’t conduct financial warfare against it.

    I love how many of those who call Lincoln a dictator praise Hitler for his use of dictatorship, and scorn Lincoln for his weakness. Under the US system, and with the political problems of his day, Lincoln couldn’t just step into the oval office, start blasting cannons at Wall Street and usher in paradise. He coaxed the financial system along, in the same way Franklin Roosevelt did (though he might have done better to create his own national bank). Look at the historical process to judge Lincoln’s intention and effects. The proof is in the pudding. The Greenback was an unparalleled success, Andrew Jackson’s “independent” banking was an unparalleled disaster.

    I should add that the series of inflammatory posts by your schizophrenic friend “Name789” includes clear statements that Lincoln was indeed trying to establish a National Bank and destroy the “independent” (London/Wall Street-controlled) Treasury:

    “Whig Lincoln was an outspoken advocate of the destruction of the Independent Treasury, because the destruction of the Independent Treasury was essential before a national-currency-issuing central bank could be established.”

    This is a bad thing?

  10. Lincoln’s Greenbacks had a major flaw; that is that they were demand (debt) notes that paid interest. They could and should have been created debt free based on the national credit of the country – true wealth money – and then spent into the economy.

    No doubt, this would tempt politicians to over-spend and there would need to be some constraints as to how; and for what purpose, the money should be created. Of course, they over-spend with debt money too which is by far worse.

    Anyways, I think some checks and balances would be needed in the creation of new debt free money. First, I would have the congress create all new money which would then be placed in a pool. I would have the states actually spend the money into circulation. Besides being a check, this pushes the decisions closer to the people while de-centralizing power.

    And the states should be limited to only spend money on infrastructure improvements that benefit all. The money should not be used for social programs or for the sinews of war. This may sound cold but it helps ensure that new money will always accompany new tangible assets which require the creative use of human and natural resources. This also limits the creation of new debt free money consistent with our productive capacity.

    The states could share in the pool through a population/geographic formula to ensure equal opportunity free from the whims of the federal government.

    A second pool could be created from which commercial banks would draw for customer loans. The money would be available to commercial banks interest free with a transaction fee to fund treasury operations. The banks in turn would be prohibited from charging interest on their loans as they would find profit in transaction fees and services. As the loans are repaid, the money would be returned to the pool (to be re-circulated) rather than being destroyed as we do now.

    Private borrowers would still need to be credit worthy and all loans should be backed with full collateral. Speculative and un-collaterialized loans would not qualify.

    I mention commercial banks and see no need for the mega (too big to fail) investment banks. They are neither needed nor wanted in a sovereign monetary system.

  11. When greeks bring you gift, be aware, you might be sadomized.
    If bankers bring you greenbacks, for certain, ye will be sadomized.

    House bill 240 originated in the Sub-Committee of Ways and Means of the House of Representatives. Who were the members of this sub-committee ? Gerry Spaulding, Erastus Corning, Samuel Hooper. Who were these fine upstanding gentlemen ?
    Gerry Spaulding — banker before, during and after his tour in the House
    Erastus Corning — a robber baron, present Secretary of State, William Seward, used to be his corporate lawyer
    Samuel Hooper — a rich merchant before he entered public service; Ten years earlier Mr. Hooper was instrumental in enacting the Free Banking law in his own State, Massachusetts, and introducing a public debt-based, private bank-currency there; now he is implementing the same system federally. Ten years from now he will be instrumental in sneaking through and passing of the February 12th 1873, Mint act which demonetized silver

    Samuel Hooper was a greenbacker, an honest man, and he told us that there was a plan, and what that plan was:-

    “Thus are secured all the benefits of the old United States Bank without many of those objectionable features which aroused opposition. … It will be as if the Bank of the United States had been divided into many parts, and each part endowed with the life, motion, and similitude of the whole, revolving in its own orbit, managed by its own board of directors, attending to the business interests of its own locality; and yet to the bills of each will be given as wide a circulation and as fixed a value as were ever given to those of the Bank of the United States in its palmiest days. …. The Government simply authorizes the investment of capital in the loans, and the use of the bonds representing the loans as the basis of a sound circulation.”

    “This tax bill will give to the bonds of the United States the character so much desired by capitalists, that of a sure interest-paying security. With such a character there would be no harm done if the principal were never paid, so far as those holding the bonds are concerned, because capitalists in the aggregate do not care for the payment of their principal; the only value which they place upon the capital is derived from the fact that it will yield them a revenue; and if at any time the capitalist should wish to use the principal of his bond he knows that he can always sell it to another who desires to invest as much as he desires to sell. The amount of debt of the British Government is so great that the most sanguine political economist can devise no method by which it can be extinguished; but yet the bonds representing that very debt are of great value. Capital seeks them for investment because the interest is sure; and the only reason that they are ever below par is, not because the payment of the principal is more or less hopeless, but because the rates of interest in the market at the time being are higher than the rate provided for in the bonds.”

    The much reviled Senator John Sherman, the perennial villain of book-peddlers’ tales, was also a greenbacker and an honest man, and he told it like it was (10 years from now, Mr. Sherman will be instrumental in getting through the Senate the bill that de-monetized silver)
    http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/clark/shylock_12.html) :–

    “But I do not intend to rest here. I desire to show the necessity of it[legal-tender clause] from reason. We have to raise and pay out of the Treasury of the United States before the 1st day of July next, according to the estimate of the Committee of Ways and Means, the sum of $343,235,000. Of this sum, $100,000,000 is now due and payable to your soldiers, to contractors, to the men who have furnished provisions and clothing for your Army; to your officers, your judges, and your civil magistrates. Where will you get this money ? A question of hard necessity presses you. We know very well that this money cannot be obtained of the banks. The banks, with a patriotic feeling not usually attributed to money corporations, which are supposed to have neither souls nor bodies, have already exhausted their means. The aggregate capital of the banks of the three principal cities of the United States is but $100,000,000, and they have taken more than their capital in the bonds of the United States. It is, therefore, idle to look to them for relief. They can lend you no more money. You must look to other sources. They have already tied up their whole capital in your bonds. The men who have thus loaned you money, and enabled you to carry on the war thus far, are the very men who now beg you for this measure of financial aid. They ask this currency to enable them to assist you further in carrying on the Government. Among others, the cashier of the Bank of Commerce, the largest bank corporation in the United States, and one that has done much to sustain the Government, appeared before the Committee on Finance, and stated explicitly that the Bank of Commerce, as well as other banks of New York, could not further aid the Government unless your proposed currency was stamped by and invested with the legal form and authority of lawful money, which they could pay to others as well as receive themselves.”

    “But that is not all. The circulation of this large amount of demand notes will enable capitalists to buy your bonds. If it were not for this reason, I would not vote for this bill myself. I know the great danger of the inflation of paper money. I would not vote to furnish these demand notes as a circulating medium, unless I supposed there would be some limit to them, and unless I knew that the effect would be to enable capitalists to buy our bonds. Now they cannot do it, because there is no currency in which they can pay for the bonds. You refuse to take the circulation of the banks, and they cannot get you gold, and so they cannot buy your bonds. If you give them a circulating medium, ample and not too great, well secured, sanctioned by all the power of the Government, you may then be able to reach the purse of the capitalist, you may be able to reach the stocking of the poor but patriotic citizens, you may be able to gather in from all this broad extent of country the savings of your people. But you cannot do it otherwise. As long as you have your present system, without any medium of exchange except gold and silver, you cannot reach the real capital of this country, because the people cannot pay you in that which circulates among them, and they cannot get gold and silver. This will be the basis of currency, a medium of circulation in convenient form, by which a man can pay his debts.”

    Who was this Henry F. Vail (1812-1881), cashier of the Bank of Commerce, and why did he ask that the proposed Treasury notes be made legal tender? He apprenticed at the Bank of the United States, where he learned the tricks of his trade. (was he a greenbacker ?)

    In the Senate of the United States, December 17, 1867, Mr. Sherman (as Chairman of the Committee on Finance) made a Report:–

    “But it was found that with such restrictions upon the notes [greenbacks] the bonds could not be negotiated, and it became necessary to depreciate the notes[greenbacks] in order to create a market for the bonds. The limit of notes[greenbacks] was trebled and the right to convert them taken away. ”

    Dear, oh dear, the proponents of legal-tender Treasury notes purposely issued 300million more notes than it was necessary.

    Gerry Spaulding was not an honest man, but he was a greenbacker and occasionally told the truth:
    “The bill, [national currency bank bill] in all its essential features, is like the free banking law of the State of New York, which has been in successful operation in that State since 1838. The free banking law is proposed by the Executive for the purpose of combining private capital with the credit of the Government in the issue of bank bills, similar in all respects to legal tender notes. Legal tender notes issued direct from the Treasury constitute a loan to the Government without interest. Bank notes, under this bill, would be loaned to the Government and the people at six and seven per cent. interest. We give to the banking associations the interest on the national currency issued by them, as an inducement to them to form these associations and become liable for its redemption. Instead of the Government issuing this national currency direct to the soldiers and other creditors without interest, it sells its own six per cent. bonds to the banking associations, and takes its pay in legal tender notes;”
    The exact opposite of what Senator Calhoun asked 25 years earlier: why should the government gift its credit to banks, then borrow it back at 6 percent ? As Mr. Spaulding tells, in 1863 H.A. Lincoln proposed the exact same thing what he proposed in 1839.

    _________
    Please calculate –you can do it, you have a calculator, you don’t need the alleged estimate of some body– what would have been the interest charge in 80 years if the greenbacks had paid 7.3% interest.
    Unfortunately for ye calculators, the greenbacks came in a package which included a civil war, a permanent national debt, a national banking system (a 3rd Bank of the United States) and a national bank currency. How much did the national debt and the national bank currency cost in 80 years ?

    _____________
    If the system introduced during the civil war was an unparalleled success, then what objection may anyone have to the federal reserve system ? 200million acres of land give-away to robber barons is success ? (how much land would have been given away if it had failed?)

    http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/meanwhile-at-the-daily-bell-they-may-have-a-point-about-ms-brown-and-ows/

    • at 7.3 percent over 80 years? about 6 times the principal

      • Jct: Not 6 times, 256 timese the principal. At 7.3%, 72/7.3% is about 10 years to double. In 80 years, that’s 8 doubles, 256 times the original principal.

    • 1. Treasury bonds do not have a guaranteed rate of return. 2. The bank can create enough new money to make the net cost of those bonds effectively zero.

      I don’t know if it was the best way to do it then or now – just suggesting there was a good reason to secure the debt of the greenback by selling it for a modest return. To the extent you’re dependent upon other nations for trade, you can’t isolate yourself from the global monetary system without inviting currency, trade or actual war.

      The biggest problem with the federal reserve is they lend at zero percent to derivatives traders, and at the market rate to manufacturers. Our debt burden increases while our ability to pay decreases. FDR tamed them to an extent by forcing them to lend to industry, and by regulating Wall Street heavily. Not ideal, but better. The Greenback would have been better had it been financed entirely by the “full faith and credit of the USA” but that apparently wasn’t enough at the time, and still might not be today.

      • nah Dick, this is far fetched.

        They were doing it at the time, circulating interest free treasury notes, basically backed by future tax income, to be paid by same treasury notes.

        The Whigs were simply Rothschild’s party. Lincoln wanted the indebtedness.

        Also: you claim they had to trade with britain and had to keep good relations with them? While the Hamiltonian/’American’ economic system was about autarky and independence from Britain?

        • In the 1860s, the US had considerable trade with Japan, China (even the opium wars were a proxy war by Britain against other western powers), continental Europe, Mexico, the middle east, and the list goes on.

          From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Note

          “Legal tender status guaranteed that creditors would have to accept the notes despite the fact that they were not backed by gold, bank deposits, or government reserves, and bore no interest. However, the First Legal Tender Act did not make the notes an unlimited legal tender as they could not be used by merchants to pay customs duties on imports and could not be used by the government to pay interest on its bonds. The Act did provide that the notes be receivable by the government for short term deposits at 5% interest, and for the purchase of 6% interest 20-year bonds at par. The rationale for these terms was that the Union government would preserve its credit-worthiness by supporting the value of its bonds by paying their interest in gold. Early in the war, customs duties were a large part of government tax revenue and by making these payable in gold, the government would generate the coin necessary to make the interest payments on the bonds. Lastly, by making the bonds available for purchase at par in United States Notes, the value of the latter would be supported as well.”

          – This argument is that the government purchased 20-year bank bonds at 6%, and paid the interest in gold. Putting the gold in circulation then facilitated the banks’ payment of tariffs in gold. Between 1860 and 1864, tariff revenue doubled (from $53M to 102M), which more than accounted for the interest paid on the bonds.

          – Lincoln’s Treasury was a de facto national bank – the bond purchase “preserved credit-worthiness”, basically in the way I suggested, and greased the wheels of the financial system. But the bigger point is that a huge volume of new credit was emitted for wealth-producing activities: railroads, agriculture, steel, etc. Compare this to an interest-free gold currency sitting in the vaults or a pure “consumer credit” which wouldn’t have produced ANY of the dramatic physical changes achieved by the USA during that decade.

          • This is all good and well deadeye.

            But the question is: where did the interest end up?

          • Certainly there were bank profits. But the banks to whom the paper principal and gold interest were paid lent the money out for real purposes – or at least didn’t have derivatives to play with. As I suggested, this is not an ideal situation, but it was apparently; 1) necessary to maintain trade and creditworthiness, and 2) politically necessary to deal with gold-bugs and others in congress.

            http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/a-lesson-on-the-federal-reserve-board-and-the-deficit

            “Although you will not hear it discussed in the Washington Post, the Fed refunds the interest it earns each year back to the Treasury. If it hold $3 trillion in bonds that earn an average interest rate of 5 percent a year (the Congressional Budget Office’s projected interest rate for the longer term), this translates into $150 billion a year refunded to the Treasury.”

            The biggest problem with the Fed, which is worse than what Lincoln had to work with, is not that it charges interest – that interest is repaid to the Treasury, and is of late effectively zero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate). The problem is that the lending decisions are made by bankers. So you get the TARP, et al, lending cash to the major banks at 0% to play the markets, and no credit facility for building trains, bridges, power plants, donut shops, etc.

            I think one of the major mystifications of anti-Fed “scholarship” is the idea that “the Fed” – meaning some secret cabal sitting around a table – makes any profit. It does not. The Fed is basically the agent of JPMorgan, BoA, and other major banks. If the Treasury is going to lend or spend, the Fed ensures the credit flows toward big banks without purpose or restriction. The cash cow is derivatives, futures, etc. The Fed is just another example of “regulatory capture”.

            Instead of credit stimulus, which was basically the nature of Lincoln’s economic program (and the less “borrowing” in terms of selling bonds, the better), the Fed gives free cash to gamblers, which turns into under-taxed capital gains, doesn’t employ anybody, and pulls down the real value of the money supply.

          • It is true that the Fed repays the interest.

            The banks do not. And they are one massive cartel: all the banks own each other, AND the Fed, which, like you said, does the bidding of its owners. The 150 billion it returns to the treasury is a small loss to the banks, the more so since the Fed Govt is owned by the same people as the banking cartel.

            the key tell tales with this national banking thing is that it is not interest free. All the interest ends up with the plutocracy. The national government is owned by the same people, power centralization either through monopoly capitalism or statism.

            And, as you know, the US was built by Freemasonry to conquer the world. Hence the relatively successful ‘American system’, which basically is state capitalism/corporatism/fascism.

            Whereas in the usury free medieval era the common man worked 14 weeks per year. With that he could feed his family. The rest of the year he spent building cathedrals, visiting cathedrals elsewhere, studying and whatever pleased him.

            Let’s forget about empire building and all relax a bit.

          • And mind you, I’m not really sure you are aware, but we could easily have interest free credit. We don’t need interest for savers and all that kind of nonsense both mainstream and austrianism try to sell us.

          • Your comments are getting cut off a little, but I get the gist. I agree that an interest-free currency is ideal, when it comes to socially necessary lending (infrastructure, production, education, housing, etc.). I’m just pointing to some historical reasons the greenback was not.

          • Deadeye, point (cut off comments) taken. I’m in the middle of some very stressful personal business, because of which I cannot give my normal best.

            But bear with me. I will soon publish a next article on these vital issues.

            It’s good to hear you accept interest free currency as ‘ideal’. I hope you also can see that it is not utopic. It’s simply easily within our reach: the REAL American system, as name789 has, I think, very convincingly established, included the circulation of interest free treasury notes. Let’s also not forget about the continental and the scrip the colonies used. And yes: these were inflated, mainly because of wars (according to wiki), but they were interest free.

          • Jim Evans permalink

            Anthony Migchels, I suggest you don’t have sufficient background context on Lincoln: The Slave Power, the pre-Civil War Money Power in 1850’s America was politically led by the Democratic Party. The Republican Party was formed in opposition to the Slave Power and, of course, Lincoln was the first Republican Party president.

            The American System is nationalist in character in opposition of the transnational so-called “free trade” espoused by Great Britain. The U. S. federal government was not large under the American System.

            Anthony Migchels, I find it interesting you now denounce Lincoln, but based on either Libertarian analysis or “anything based on interest is evil”.

            Lincoln operated on ‘necessity’ to save the Union. The results of the war boiled down to the Union being dissolved or the federal government being made stronger by the ‘necessity’ of having governmental structures which could bring about victory.

            I agree that the United States of America underwent fundamental change as a result of the Civil War and I regret this promoted a centralized government — war does that to governmental structures, but you don’t hear Libertarians lamenting the South withdrawing from the Union and causing a war which ended up centralizing governmental structures in the North’s efforts to preserve the Union.

            The Civil War was about the majority of Northerners being against the spread of slavory to the territories and Southerners being fearful of losing power in the Congress if slavory couldn’t expand into the territories and eventually be brought into the Union as slave states.

            The protectionist American System was a grievence for the agricultural South for sure, but, as opposed to Libertarian myth, the issue which caused the Civil War was slavory and its spread to or restriction from the territories of the United States (see Kansas-Nebraska Act).

            Libertarians reject this explanation for obvious reasons.

            The Money Power (European based) wanted to divide and weaken the economic powerhouse on the North American continent which threatened their powerful status quo.

            To my understanding almost all Lincoln contempories did not believe you could pay for an existential war on ‘faith’ alone, because “printing money” from thin-air would have undermined the currency system (yes, Money Power transnational bankers were doing the same thing, but that wasn’t well-known at the time, whereas, it would have been well-known if the government was “printing money” with nothing to back it except for a full failth and credit clause of a nation that might not exist at the end of the war).

            And, yes, interest bearing bonds did give buyers of those bonds incentive to make sure the war was supported by them and successful in saving the Union, more so, than, just printing up money would have accomplished.

            The fact that Lincoln recognized the supreme power of the state controlling the currency is critical to the analysis:

            “The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power.”

            This statement alone should tell you Lincoln was not an agent of the Money Power.

            Anthony Migchels, you have fallen under the influence of Libertarian thinking without knowing it because of your support of interest free money (in that I agree with you).

            But at the time and in the context, issuing 400 million Dollars in paper currency without interest and nothing backing it likely would have brought calamity to the currency system, which likely would have fatally undermined the war effort.

            Yes, the “Dixiecrat” Libertarians in the crowd would have liked that!

          • http://www.heritech.com/ymagchy/mcgeer/conq_05.html
            http://www.heritech.com/ymagchy/mcgeer/index.html

            Dear, oh dear, building a whole entire theory based on figment of somebody’s imagination. If you are interested in what Lincoln said, please read what Lincoln said, not what Mr. McGeer’s fertile and wishful mind invented.

            Fake quotes are not good foundations

          • Jim Evans permalink

            Any evidence McGeer’s quotes are fake?

            Or we supposed to take your word for it?

          • The Treasury was not the de facto national bank; the National currency Banks were the de facto national bank
            The banks did NOT pay tariff, the importers did
            The greenbackers in Congress purposely removed the convertibility of U.S. notes, and issued 300million extra notes, to depreciate (purposely) them because otherwise nobody would buy the bonds, which was the main goal

            The trans-continental railway (because in 1862 Congress had nothing better to do than to gift a 40-mile wide strip from Chicago to San Francisco to robber barons); in those days a mile could be built for $9,000 to $25,000, the residents of the United States ended up paying $125,000 for each mile, and Union Pacific retained ownership –how could they have done any worse, without this great friend, Lincoln?

    • “When greeks bring you gift, be aware, you might be sadomized.
      If bankers bring you greenbacks, for certain, ye will be sadomized.”

      If this is your way of thinking, it this is your attitude in life, how can you ever be objective? How can you learn something? How you ever accept the possibility that some people ARE sincere?

      I’m really glad I am not like this, that I do not have to live with such a burden.

      Oh, and there is a name for it: paranoia.

      • Well, Ruud, experience has shown that in real life people can be really, really mean. Worse:

        The powerful they are, the meaner get.

        Everybody knows some people are sincere.

        Sincere people usually dont join the banking industry though.

    • Jct: For the guys arguing Lincoln was in an easy money era, har har har:
      We know very well that this money cannot be obtained of the banks. The banks, with a patriotic feeling not usually attributed to money corporations, which are supposed to have neither souls nor bodies, have already exhausted their means. The aggregate capital of the banks of the three principal cities of the United States is but $100,000,000, and they have taken more than their capital in the bonds of the United States. It is, therefore, idle to look to them for relief. They can lend you no more money.
      Jct: Har har har har har har har har har.

  12. bourchakoun permalink

    Questioning the effective interest rate that Lincoln was supposedly demanded by the money powers 30% ? It might have been true.

    Just that wealthy private individuals can get a 6% loan, does not mean that a contry on the verge of a disastrous war can get the same conditions.

    Good example in our times: Greece:
    http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-bond-yield – the Greek cuntry and thus the Greek people are paying currently 25% to even 40% interest on 10-year-bonds. I am sure that many Greek billionaires can get loans at 3% even nominated in Euro.

    THEY create our credit worthiness, in earlier times – they did not even need their own “impartial” rating agencies. They could have easily demanded 30%.

    • Yes, swiss cheese could be the main ingredient of the Moon; it is hard to prove a negative, especially if it is the figment someone’s imagination.
      Perhaps, you could, now, exert yourself in offer up something substantive to support this figment of imagination…..
      While you are doing that, here is some reality for you: $500million 6% bonds were not only sold, but over-subscribed

      You could also look into at what rate of interest the South received loans (they did not have Lincoln and his Dick to help them out)

      • Bourchakoun permalink

        Well – kudos – I have to conceed, that I have not looked into the matter sufficiently. Rest my case regarding Lincoln. At best he could have been an erring man, who tried to rectify some things and was taken out because of that. Thanks – have to look more into it and make up my own mind.

      • swiss cheese could be the main ingredient of the Moon
        Jct: When he’s reduced to babbling, I guess he lost the debate.

      • While you are doing that, here is some reality for you: $500million 6% bonds were not only sold, but over-subscribed
        Jct: Fine, Abe had lots of bonds sold and lots of cash. So why screw the banks out of a lousy $200 million by paying people with Treasury Greenbacks when the funding for his war was oversubscribed! Har har har. And if the bonds were sold for cash, then they weren’t the basis for Greenbacks, were they!

        • Jct: Finally, when Buchanan first used Treasury notes as everyone here agrees Lincoln did not originate, why didn’t he need any bonds to back them up?

    • Jct: I notice no one could rebut. There’s a big difference between “cheap money” and “available cheap money.”

  13. Spaulding, Hooper, Sherman were pro-ponents of the legal-tender clause, and supported Lincoln’s policy; and following the war revealed their true colours.
    However, there was a very vocal opponent of the legal-tender clause and Lincoln’s policies: Clement Laird Vallandigham (1820-1871), Representative from Ohio. Lincoln’s crew eventually had enough of him and evicted him from the country.

    July 10, 1861:
    http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/act1861.html
    “Sir, the power and rights of the States and the people, and of their Representatives, have been usurped; the sanctity of the private house and of private property has been invaded; and the liberty of the person wantonly and wickedly stricken down; free speech, too, has been repeatedly denied; and all this under the plea of necessity. Sir, the right of petition will follow next — nay, it has already been shaken; the freedom of the press will soon fall after it; and let me whisper in your ear, that there will be few to mourn over its loss, unless, indeed, its ancient high and honorable character shall be rescued and redeemed from its present reckless mendacity and degradation. Freedom of religion will yield too, at last, amid the exultant shouts of millions, who have seen its holy temples defiled, and its white robes of a former innocency trampled now under the polluting hoofs of an ambitious and faithless or fanatical clergy. Meantime national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and permanent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous expenditures, gigantic and stupendous peculation, anarchy first, and a strong government afterward — no more State lines, no more State governments, and a consolidated monarchy or vast centralized military despotism must all follow in the history of the future, as in the history of the past they have, centuries ago, been written. Sir, I have said nothing, and have time to say nothing now, of the immense indebtedness and the vast expenditures which have already accrued, nor of the folly and mismanagement of the war so far, nor of the atrocious and shameless peculations and frauds which have disgraced it in the State governments and the Federal Government from the beginning.”

    Fabruary 3rd, 1862:
    “And now, sir, what are your United States notes ? They, too, are payable to bearer; payable –not to be paid– in gold and silver, payable “at the pleasure of the United States,” and meant to circulate generally and permanently as currency, at least till the Secretary’s grand fiscal machine, his magnificent NATIONAL PAPER MILL, founded upon the very stocks provided for by this bill, can be put in operation, when this sort of bills of credit is to be supplanted by another sort of bills of credit, which are to become the sole currency of the country, and to drive all gold and silver, and ordinary bank paper, out of circulation. This, sir, is what is meant by the phrase in the third line of the bill, “for temporary purposes,” and nothing else is meant. And now, sir, how, meantime, are these United States notes to be floated ? By voluntary credit, founded on adequate taxation ? Not at all, sir. Taxation to nearly or perhaps two thirds the same amount would, as I shall presently prove, float these notes at par with gold and silver indefinitely. But if taxation is meant, then no other means of credit are needed. How comes it, then, that force, coercion, is to be resorted to to compel these notes into circulation ? The faith of the United States, supported by taxation, is to be abandoned, and this paper money is to be floated in every commercial and business transaction of the country, by main force of law, and not voluntary credit because of the solvency of the United States, till a year or two hence the Secretary shall have stocks enough to enable him to execute his financial schemes and contrivances in full. This, then, is the first step in the direction of his grand fiscal and monetary agent which is to maintain the credit of the Government and supply the sole paper currency of the country; and in further proof, I refer to the fact that in his late annual report, the Secretary styles the notes to be “prepared for circulation under national direction,” and issued by this monster FISCALITY, “United States notes.” These, then, sir, are the reasons why the ancient, approved, constitutional term “Treasury note,” sanctioned by eighty-two acts of Congress, and sustained by judicial decisions, is to be cast off and abandoned for one just freshly coined for the new financial nomenclature of the Secretary of the Treasury.”

    “And now, sir, what, I beg to know, is the object of all this, if it be not to create an enormous and endless public debt, to be interwoven with every political, social, and business relation of life; to subjugate the States and the people perpetually to the Federal Government, and therefore never to be extinguished ? ”

    History has proven that Mr. Vallandigham clearly saw through the Whig plan. After the war Mr. Vallandigham and Mr. Pendleton were vocal proponents of paying greenbacks for the 5/20s, while those who in 1862 voted for the legal-tender clause supported gold payment and reduction of greenbacks.

  14. Jim Evans permalink

    Don’t trust Libertarian condemnation of Lincoln. A lot of that criticism is “Dixiecrat” in nature.

    Anthony Migchels, yes, greenbacks were backed by interest bearing bonds.

    But you have to analyze the situation confronting the U. S. federal government at the time. If the U. S. federal government had simply issued 400 million in unbacked treasury notes, likely an inflation and crisis in financial matters would have inflicted a devastating blow on the federal government’s attempt to preserve the Union.

    Many Libertarians apparently would’ve wanted or been okay with the dissolution of the Union.

    But they are a 150 years too late, that issue has been decided.

    Anthony Migchels, many of these Libertarians are useful idiots for those who want a “law of the jungle” to prevail. Lincoln was a supporter of the American System, which is a potent expression of American Nationalism.

    Many Libertarians are luke warm on nationalism, they play into the hands of international bankers.

    Lincoln wasn’t perfect, but given the circumstances, he did “save the Union”.

    Be suspect of criticism of Lincoln. It usually has more to do with contempary ideology than the facts on the ground in 1860 or the run up to the Civil War.

    The best evidence currently available is that Lincoln was not an agent of the Money Power (or the Slave Power, as it was known in pre-Civil War America).

    • Jim Evans: If the U. S. federal government had simply issued 400 million in unbacked treasury notes, likely an inflation
      Jct: No, not if they were paid out in exchange for work and a tax levied for their return to make them valuable as tax-payment paper like when Argentine provinces paid employees with provincial bonds (usable for HTML Hydropower, Taxes, Medical, Licenses). The central bank decried inflation by all the new local currencies but inflation went from 1,000% down to 36% after the injection new funds that permitted reduction in foreclosuers. Remember, printing money reduces inflation Shift B caused by foreclosure of the collateral backing the money, untaught in Economics and discovered by yours truly, Shift B inflation, my claim to the last Nobel Prize in Economics. Once you’ve discovered that inflation is not a) Up in the Money Supply but untaught b) down in the Collateral Supply, and the riddle is solved, no need for more prizes for coming close.
      JE: yes, greenbacks were backed by interest bearing bonds.
      Jct: No, I say that is silly. They were backed by tax-payments. Put it this way, explain how the Argentine provinces should have used bonds to back up their paper, all they used were tax-payment and inflation went down? Now explain how Lincoln did use bonds to back up his paper? No purpose! And since no one has answered my question, doubtful.

  15. H.A. Lincoln, the saviour of the Union.
    Lincoln saved the Union, alright. Unfortunately for the Union –the union of sovereign States for common defence and mutual benefit, for which Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence; well, that union died in the process. What Lincoln saved was a grand central Federal State, of which the States are simple sub-divisions. Just as the members of the United States of Europe lose their sovereignty and become mere administrative districts.

    Lincoln the nationalist ?…..
    Joe Stalin also was a nationalist; a lot of good it did. (both of them were dictators first). Joe Stalin, the most succesful greenbacker of the past 200 years, used government-issued paper money –backed by the credit of the government and hard work and productivity of the people– to build railroads, power-plants, still-mills, heavy and light industry. But, the ungratefull people of the Soviet Union did not appreciate these benefits, and left these countries, if they could; and, in their ignorance, where did they go? where did they prefer to reside? they re-located to countries firmly under the control of the Rothschild banking system; go figure……

    who asked for the legal-tender clause?
    http://www.yamaguchy.com/forum/index.php?topic=5.0
    the bankers did

  16. Its great as your other posts : D, thanks for putting up. “As experience widens, one begins to see how much upon a level all human things are.” by Joseph Farrell.

  17. Representative Roscoe Conkling, also, noticed the nefarious plans of those who brought you greenbacks:
    House of representatives
    February 4th 1862

    “With very great respect to that portion of the committee favoring this bill, I venture to suggest some criticism upon it. It has not been put forward as a measure calculated or able to stand alone; it is admitted to be incomplete in itself. It is to be propped up by a tax bill. So far, so good; but the two together cannot stand without something else upon which to loan; but are both intended, as is now admitted, as a kind of pedal attachment to a bigger thing– a great banking scheme, a creature of gigantic proportions, ‘fearfully and wonderfully made !’

    “Now, sir, this banking scheme which the present bill is intended by some to usher in, and render necessary, I hope gentlemen will mark it; this forthcoming mammoth, this elephantine machine, will be a great lion when it comes here. It will be as much of a lion as the Great Eastern, or Japanese embassy, and we adjourned to see the Japanese come ashore with their trunks, didn’t we ? Well, sir, we ought to do something for this expected visitor undoubtedly, something handsome. The fatted calf ought to be killed; but it seems to me that $100,000,000 of paper money, as a legal tender, to pave the way, is, considering our moderate circumstances, rather ostentatious hospitality. I do not wish to say anything disrespectful of this great banking invention; but with him of old ‘I fear the Greeks,’ and when this Trojan horse is trotted out, I hope some doubter with a spear will investigate his bowels and see what he is likely to emit, whether armed men or something else; and if armed men, we’ll add them to that army which my colleague from the Onondaga district [Mr. Sedgwick] said the other day goes into winter quarters in summer weather.”

    • Roscoe was proven right in his suspicion (that these legal tender were issued to pave the way) when a year later the National Currency Bank bill was passed and its section 41 stipulated “That every such association shall at all times have on hand, in lawful money of the United States [greenbacks], an amount equal to at least twenty-five per centum of the aggregate amount of its outstanding notes of circulation and its deposits;”

      Greenbacker John Sherman, January 16th 1873:
      “United States notes were issued under the authority of the acts of Congress passed February 25, 1862, July 11, 1862, and March 3, 1863. … They are made the basis of the entire system of national banks, whose notes are payable in United States notes.”

      Greenbacks survived for 50 years because National Banks needed them and kept them in their vaults. After the Federal Reserve System was established there was no more need for these U.S. notes and they were withdrawn and redeemed in gold….. (so much for the alleged savings in interest in the fairy tale)

    • Jct: I’d bet there were lots who didn’t like the idea of using money that did earn their masters their unearned income. Oh how much better it would have been to avoid such “banking scheme” and just pay the bankers debt service for their currency as usual. Notice the critique actually has no critique, it’s pure name-calling.

      • Jct: And notice he thinks $100,000,000 is a big number. So I guess $200 million interest wasn’t to be sneezed at either even if they only got 6% and not 38%.

  18. >>>>>Lincoln is way overrated

    Who over-rated this Lincoln ?
    Was it the bankers ? the Federal Reserve ?

    or,
    was it the charlatans?, the book-peddlers?, the greenbackers,? the conspiracists ?

    and why did they over-rate Lincoln ?

    • I don’t know about all that. But I certainly did!

      • And just who gave you the idea to over-rate? “writers” of one of them books.

        If it is true that Lincoln is over-rated; then it is also true that those who over-rated him knew not what they were talking about when they compled and sold you those books.
        If you take out lincoln and the greenbacks from “Web of Debt” or “Money Master” and hundred other products, what is left ? empty pages with page numbers ?
        If you take out a whole floor from the house of card, how can it remain standing ?

        ______________
        On a different note:–

        The United Kingdom was the pioneer in establishing the Postal Savings-bank System. The law was passed May 17, 1861, and became effective September 16, 1861.

        Post -office savings banks were authorized by the Canadian Parliament in December, 1867, and the system began operation in April, 1868.

        The postal savings-bank system was established in Italy by the law of May 27, 1875.

        The Postal Savings System of the Netherlands was instituted in April, 1881.

        The Royal Post-Office savings bank of Hungary came into existence February 1, 1886.

        In the United States the Postal Savings System was established in 1910 (by an act of Congress) in order to provide depository facilities for small savers.

        ============

        G.M. Boissevain, “Currency elasticity in Holland” 1897

        Richard van der Borght, “The bank of the Netherlands” 1911

        Willem Cornelis Mees, “Proeve eener geschiedenis van het bankwezen in Nederland, gedurende den tijd der republiek” 1838

        Gideon Maria Boissevain, “Money and banking in the United States” translated from the Dutch, 1909

        Julius Landmann, “Das schweizerische Bankgesetz” 1905

        Sidney Albert Bolles, “The financial history of the United States, from 1774 to 1789: embracing the period of the American revolution”

        James William Gilbart, “The history of banking in America” 1837

        Pelatiah Webster, “Political essays on the nature and operation of money” 1791

        Ludwig Bendix, “Der Aldrich Plan; seine Bedeutung für das amerikanische Bankwesen und den internationalen Geldmarkt” 1912

        Yves Guyot, “Les national banks et le projet Aldrich” 1911

        Paul M Warburg, “Central bank of the United States”
        “A central bank system and the United States of America”
        “Defects and needs of our banking system”
        “A modified central bank of issue; a suggestion of a bill”
        “A plan for a modified central bank”
        “A United reserve bank of the United States; a plan and a reply”
        “The discount system in Europe”

        Joseph Edkins, “Chinese currency” 1901

        Joseph Dubois, “L’empire de l’argent etude sur la Chine financiere” 1906

        Henry Wolff, “Co-operative banking, its principles and practice” 1907
        “People’s banks: a record of social and economic success” 1910

      • over-rate Lincoln?
        AM: I certainly did!
        Jct: I still do rate Lincoln for what he did, screw the banksters out of the interest on $450 million dollars instead of agreeing to pay them 38%.
        Would they have ever loved him had he taken out their loan!
        And you think banksters loved him when he printed up his own.

        • Jct: Pretty good defence, eh, to those who say Lincoln’s interest-free Greenbacks were a banker’s plot to cost themselves hundreds of millions in interest! Har har har, har har har!

          • Jct: Do you have any idea how much interest would have accrued over 5 years before the US could start to pay the $450 million @ 38% back after the war? By the rule of 72, the debt doubles in 72/38 years, 1.9 years. $900M owed less than 2 years later, $1,800M owed less than 4 years later and over $2,000 million in 5 years when the national debt only starts to be paid down. Now add in the interest on that debt from now on. Had the President agreed, they’d have profited by over $1,500 million in interest before the debt even started to be repaid! Could interest-free Lincoln Treasury Greenbacks be a plot to cost the bankers over $2,000 million in interest that they would have been forced to accept with another President who was not in on the plot to lose them $2 billion dollars and migjht take the loan. Har har har har har har har har har. It’s just too too funny to call Lincoln an Agent of the Money Power! Har har har har har har.

          • John, the 38% interest is a hoax: Lincoln could have borrowed at 6% no sweat, as the article explains.

            Colonel Dick is a hoax. Treasury notes were well established, as you agreed. Not only that: there is also the Continental as an example, although that was discredited due to overprinting in the war of Independence.

            He also destroyed state rights, including their own scrip, and massively centralized power in Washington, which was a Money Power ambition ever since the Republic was created.

            And let’s not forget the simple fact he COULD have printed his own cash, but he didn’t.

          • And forget not: he’s on record with scheming for a ‘national bank’ for decades before he became president.

          • Jct: If it’s true he could have gotten the loan at an easy 6% to win the war to please Big Money, why didn’t he? Oh, right, he must have:
            Federal debt in 1861: 70million Federal debt in 1865: 2.700million
            Jct: And so, the $450 issued in Greenbacks were a lousy 16.6% of the other debt. So they obviously kept selling bonds too! Right? How else could the national debt grow if they weren’t borrowing? It wasn’t the Treasury notes that added to that debt.
            But let’s presume that he could have gotten it at 6%. 72/6=12 years to double so in 5 years, Abe cost them about $200 million in interest on the $450 million!
            Jct: Again, who is supposed to buy those bonds? And if no one’s buying them, what are they needed for?
            So lots of people bought the bonds to get the debt up to $2.7B. The question is the bonds that are said to back the Greenbacks.What are they needed for? There’s $2.7B outstanding and part of it is said to be backing for the Greenbacks and part not! Try to explain that. I can’t even guess at how to explain that Greenbacks are backed by more than the taxation they can pay, by bonds receiving money they do nothing with?

          • Finally, when you read about how easy money was to obtain at the time, remember in recent years when the interest rate in the US went to zero. And yet, how many Americans borrowed money at zero percent to pay off their interest-bearing loans? What a great opportunity for Americans, interest-free loans, possibly a small service charge. So with interest-free loans available, why were most Americans too stupid to convert their interest-bearing debts to interest-free ones? Did anybody here avail themselves of the zero interest period? Why not? Because though the rate was zero, the banks would lend it out. So when a rich senator says: money was cheap, do you think he means it was cheap for people on the street? We can say that you had zero interest funds available too. Does that convince you that anybody fot any of those funds at zero interest too? Get it? There’s a big difference between “money is cheap” and “cheap money is available.” It wasn’t in our era and I’d bet it wasn’t in theirs either.

          • smoke weed everyday:— But let’s presume that he could have gotten it at 6%.

            The point, which zoomed miles over your head, is that you demonstrate your complete ignorance of the facts when you say that 38% was asked for; had you known anything about the greenbacks you would have known that no banker asked for more than 6%; and now you slither, whereas a man would recognize his error and learn from it.

            Based on this complete lack of knowledge regarding Lincoln and the greenbacks you (and the rest) build up a vision, an fantom, a religious dogma, of a Lincoln who sadomized the money power, without being able to offer any evidence to support this mythology; because your invented Lincoln never existed; the Lincoln who did exist, was a Whig all through his life, he wanted to grant the gvernment’s credit to private bankers, he wanted private bankers –using this credit– to issue and circulate their notes as the nation’s currency; and in 1863 that is exactly what signed into law (but, in your drug-induced logic, this somehow constituted srewing the money power).

            Neither do you know any more about the Treasury notes issued during Buchanan’s presidency (much less about the treasury notes issued in 1812, in 1837); they bore 6% interest. To know this you would have had to read –if not the history– at least the text of those acts; but such texts are not included in regurgitators’ compilations, and it would be too much to ask from a comic relief to read actual history, not just fiction.

            You also know nothing about Garfield, that is why you never heard any one disrespecting him; but, once again, in your manliness, you slither

            Like I said, stick to dope and casinos; that is where you are at home; and leave the question of Lincoln and the U.S. notes to those who are familiar with the subject.

          • Jct: Foam at the mouth all you want but you can’t explain how Lincoln costing the banks a fortune made him a banker’s agent. Even if he ever was, he turned on them to do what he did.

  19. Anthony Migchels: at the time the Treasury routinely circulated debt free Treasury notes. The ins and outs of this tool was common knowledge among senior politicians, of which Lincoln, who had been in Washington for 30 years, certainly was one.
    Jct: Yes, President Buchanan issued some 30 million US Treasury Greenbacks before Lincoln did. So he wasn’t first and people have wrongly credited him with its first use because of its first major use.
    AM: What was the Greenback? There were $450million non-interest-bearing US notes, backed by $500million bonds bearing 6% interest.
    Jim Evans: yes, greenbacks were backed by interest bearing bonds.
    Jct: Okay, what exactly does printing up $500 million in 6% bonds to back up his $450 million in zero-percent notes mean? Now, if he printed up $500 million in 6% bonds too and sold them for cash, okay, but to print up $500 million in bonds to exchange them for his own $450 million in notes makes no sense. No way can I accept that a guy who could have borrowed bankers’ gold at high percent but chose to use national money at no interest to the middlemen was an agent for the middlemen. And it’s the first time I’ve ever heard Garfield disrespected.

    • I know John, it’s weird, I always thought Lincoln was a good guy, but here’s how name killed that belief:
      http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/meanwhile-at-the-daily-bell-they-may-have-a-point-about-ms-brown-and-ows/
      I defended Lincoln, but I was blown away by the stone cold facts and they are at the link for all to see in the comments.

      About Garfield: see the sources that name offers in the comments of this article, if you’re interested.
      http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/understand-that-the-banking-system-is-one/

      • AM: Government printed interest-bearing cash is a Money Power operation.
        Jct: No it’s not. Government would receive the interest if that were so. Actually, the government’s printed bonds are exchanged for Bank-created interest-bearing credit, that’s a Money Power operation so they can receive the interest. Government printing their own cash so the Money Power gets no interest would be a pretty stupid Money Power operation?

    • In 1866, Mr. Garfield heartily supported and voted for the reduction of currency –on March 19th, 1866, he and Rep. Beaman submitted the resolution to resuscitate the comatose currency contraction bill, the first version of which had been voted down three nights before; in 1869 he voted for the credit strengthening act (some opponent of bankers and bondholders he was)
      The debates of the act to reduce the currency starts here:–
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/act1866apr.html
      Mr. Garfield speaks for himself eloquently (20th century conspiracists and greenbackers, of course, would never have read such record)


      Conspiracists, especially the book-peddler kind
      , to demonstrate that they have not studied the story of banking in the United States, often regurgitate the fabrication that James A. Garfield, sometime President of the United States, was an opponent of the banking interests, and for this reason the intenational money power hired someone to eliminate him. For whatever reason he was wasted, it was certainly not because he was against bankers; throughout his political career he was a dedicated servant of bond and gold interests. His congressional activities have shown this, and
      at the time it was very well know whose side he was on
      ; only 20th century know-nothing wannabees made him out to be a martyr, a victim of bankers who wanted to stand up for the nation.

      § 2.  And be it further enacted, That to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to fund the Treasury notes and floating debt of the United States, he is hereby authorized to issue, on the credit of the United States, coupon bonds, or registered bonds, to an amount not exceeding $500,000,000, and redeemable at the pleasure of the Government, after twenty years from date, and bearing interest at the rate of six per centum per annum, payable semi-annually ;  and the bonds herein authorized shall be of such denominations, not less than fifty dollars, as may be determined upon by the Secretary of the Treasury ;  and the Secretary of the Treasury may dispose of such bonds at any time for lawful money of the United States, or for any of the Treasury notes that have been, or may hereafter be, issued under any former act of Congress, or for United States notes that may be issued under the provisions of this act ;  and all stocks, bonds, and other securities of the United States, held by individuals, corporations, or associations, within the United States, shall be exempt from taxation by any State or county.

      The bill, in all its essential features, is like the free banking law of the State of New York, which has been in successful operation in that State since 1838. The free banking law is proposed by the Executive for the purpose of combining private capital with the credit of the Government in the issue of bank bills, similar in all respects to legal tender notes.

      We do not pretend, that a National Bank can establish and maintain a sound and uniform state of currency in the country, in spite of the National Government; but we do say, that it has established and maintained such a currency, and can do so again, by the aid of that Government; and we further say, that no duty is more imperative on that Government, than the duty it owes the people, of furnishing them a sound and uniform currency.

      ==============
      the weather:
      February 8th, 2013, Friday.
      Just peachy; a whisker above freezing; blue sky from here to China; sun is blazing in seven directions

      • to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to fund the Treasury notes of the United States, he is hereby authorized to issue, on the credit of the United States, coupon bonds, or registered bonds, to an amount not exceeding $500,000.
        Jct: Again, who is supposed to buy those bonds? And if no one’s buying them, what are they needed for?

        • You may wallow in your ignorance all you want; if you are afraid to read the record, just stick to your forte, pot smoking and gambling.

          It is very well known who purchased the 500million bonds, issued to support 150 million greenbacks –one day one of these greenback pot-heads should explain how can 150million greenbacks be considered interest-free when they came in a package with 3-times more 6% bonds–; Lincoln’s government paid interest, in gold, semi-annually, on these bonds to holders of these bonds

          The exact same people who brought you greenbacks, also brought you national currency bank act, reduction of currency act, credit strengthening act

          Federal debt in 1861: 70million
          Federal debt in 1865: 2.700million

          Read the record sometime, not just what Sarah Emery compiled

          To show what kind of a people’s hero this Garfield was:—

          House of Representatives
          February 25, 1869.

          Recording a Vote

          Mr. Garfield. I move that the rules be suspended to allow me to record my vote on the bill (H.R. No. 1744) to strengthen the public credit, and relating to contracts for the payment of coin. I was sick yesterday when the vote was taken.

          The rules were suspended; and leave was accordingly granted.

          Mr. Garfield. I vote “ay.”

          The House passed the act with a large majority –yeas 120, nays 60, not voting 42– so Mr. Garfield’s vote did not make any difference, but he was that kind of a guy that he wanted to be on Record that he voted FOR the credit strengthening act (an act which Sarah Emery listed as one of the crimes); yet, gas-bags, morons and village idiots made this Garfield out to be some kind of opponent of banks, gold and bonds….

          • Jct: You sure foamed a lot at the mouth but you didn’t answer the question. Again:
            Jct: Again, who is supposed to buy those bonds? And if no one’s buying them, what are they needed for?
            Har har har har har har har har har.
            Oh, I didn’t say Garfield didn’t make mistakes, I said sometimes he didn’t.

  20. “My firm conviction is, that any other solution to our present difficulties than a reconstruction of but one government over all the states of our confederacy would entail upon us and our children an inheritance of the most fearful consequences, which would end in the utter disintegration and ruin of the whole country.” —New Port, Rhode Island, July 20, 1862.

    The origin of Lincoln’s National Currency
    (take it now the easy way ! or we will make you take it later, the hard way !)

    In the House of Representatives
    September 10, 1841.

    —On the (second) veto of President Tyler (of a bill to establish a central bank, this time called Fiscal Corporation of the United States)

    “Who could have believed, at the commencement of this session, that we should be obliged, after months of patient and severe toil, to return to our constitutents and tell them that all the well-meant efforts of the Whigs in Congress to establish a national currency and restore the exchanges of the country, had been frustrated by the unexpected interposition of Executive veto ? Who could have foreseen or believed that the head of the Whig party in the Union would, in the short space of five months after his accession to the Presidency, refuse to co-operate with his friends in sustaining the principles that brought them and him into power ? Who could have believed that the condemned and repudiated doctrines and practices of the worst days of Jackson’s rule would have been revived within the first half year of a Whig administration ?”

    President Tyler prevented the people of the United States from receiving the blessings of this National Currency and stood in their way of enjoying the benefits this Fiscal Corporation which would have bestowed upon the nation this benevolent Bank Paper.

    Twenty years later Mr. Tyler naively went to Washington with the delegation suing for peaceful settlement. He did not understand, or could not bring himself to believe, that the scum of the Earth that took the mantle from the previous generation of Whigs (Lincoln, Chase, Fessenden, Seward, &c.) meant to carry out the threat of the Halcyon Summer: they meant to give the South a servile war, they meant to make the South (and West and North) take the shaft the hard way (and permanently). H.A. Lincoln, the hero of Sarah Emery and Ellen Brown (and everybody in between), wouldn’t even see the man who vetoed two central bank bills –some opponent of bankers this Lincoln was.

    “If I oppose this, or any other system, on account of its unequal operation –nay, sir, if I were to go even to the daring and presumptuous length of complaining that it was unjust in a sectional point of view, am I to receive the suggestions of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Sergeant] as a hint to submit without murmur, or else to prepare for the horrors of civil and of servile war, which that foreign and hired libeler of Southern, ay, and of Northern feeling, [Edinburgh Review] has foretold for us ?”

    600,000 war dead later the United States was a safe place for National Currency, National Banking, funded debt and 200million acre land give-away.

    How could the people of the U.S. have done any worse without this “great leader” of Sarah Emery’s fantasy ?!? If she had only bothered to read the history of the United States, she would not have picked a psycho killer for her knight.

    http://www.yamaguchy.com
    the source of your finagled wisdom

  21. “My firm conviction is, that any other solution to our present difficulties than a reconstruction of but one government over all the states of our confederacy would entail upon us and our children an inheritance of the most fearful consequences, which would end in the utter disintegration and ruin of the whole country.”

    For 100 years, now, bozos often regurgitate an other section of the conspiracist house of cards: the brain-fucked idea that somehow N.M. Rothschild wanted to split the United States into two units. Nothing could be farther from the truth than a conspiracist; the Rothschilds are not morons, the conspiracists are.

    Even without having read above statement, or having studied the history of central banking in the U.S., they should have known that the aim has always been the same: large empires or large confederations; not smaller units.

    Above quote indicates very clearly that the aim of N.M. Rothschild was to re-construct the United States as one unit, under the firm control of a central government.
    H.A. Lincoln was more then willing to oblige N.M. Rothschild in their aim.
    Thaddeus Stevens, occasionally referred to as ‘grand old commoner’ was also very eager to assist N.M. Rothschild in their aim to re-construct the united States.
    Thaddeus Stevens’ congressional tag-team partner, the greenbacker Charles Sumner, too, was very willing to help N.M. Rothschild to accomplish their aim.

    Mr. Sumner used his very considerable persuasive power to re-educate members of the Senate, along the re-constructionist lines. Charles Sumner voted for the legal-tender clause; had he opposed it, had he used his power to persuade senators to reject it, the legal-tender clause would not have passed the Senate !!! (If the three great greenbacker senators, John Sherman, Zachariah Chandler, Charles Sumner had voted against the legal-tender clause, there would never have been legal-tender United States notes issued. Sarah Emery did not know this; even if she had know it, she could not have told her listeners who gave the nation ‘the best currency it ever had’, and for what purposes.)
    Who else supported N.M. Rothschild in their aim ?
    None other than the galactically stupid, the Tsar of Russia. This paragon of national sovereignty and individual freedom rushed to the aid of a central government that wanted to reconstruct these united States along the lines of a centralized dictatorship (similar to what Russia was). Far from being an opponent of the House of Rothschild, the head of the Romanovs actively aided N.M. Rothschild in accomplishig their aims.

     
    http://www.yamaguchy.com
    the source of your finagled wisdom

  22. http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/act1861.html

    Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office to support the Constitution, and delivered his inaugural — a message, I regret to say, not written in the direct and straightforward language which becomes an American President and an American statesman, and which was expected from the plain, blunt, honest man of the Northwest, but with the forked tongue and crooked counsel of the New York politician

    But there was another and yet stronger impelling cause, without which this horrid calamity of civil war might have been postponed, and, perhaps, finally averted. One of the last and worst acts of a Congress which, born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion, literally did those things which it ought not to have done, and left undone those things which it ought to have done, was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as “The Morrill Tariff.” Just about the same time, too, the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, adopted our old tariff of 1857, which we had rejected to make way for the Morrill act, fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty per cent. lower than ours. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce — and especially the trade and commerce of the West — began to look to the South. Turned out of their natural course, years ago, by the canals and railroads of Pennsylvania and New York, and diverted eastward at a heavy cost to the West, they threatened now to resume their ancient and accustomed channels — the water-courses — the Ohio and the Mississippi. And political association and union, it was well known, must soon follow the direction of trade and interest. The city of New York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the North-west, the chief granary of the Union, began to clamor now, loudly, for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England — and Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace — demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the price of preserving either from destruction. Ay, sir, Pennsylvania, the great key-stone of the arch of the Union, was willing to levy the whole weight of her iron upon that sacred arch, and crush it beneath the load. The subjugation of the South — ay, sir, the subjugation of the South! — I am not talking to children or fools; for there is not a man in this House fit to be a Representative here, who does not know that the South can not be forced to yield obedience to your laws and authority again, until you have conquered and subjugated her — the subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports — first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace — was deliberately resolved upon by the East. And, sir, when once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning commerce, and threatened loss of trade, impelled the great city of New York, and her merchants and her politicians and her press — with here and there an honorable exception — to place herself in the very front rank among the worshipers of Moloch. Much, indeed, of that outburst and uprising in the North, which followed the proclamation of the 15th of April, as well, perhaps, as the proclamation itself, was called forth, not so much by the fall of Sumter — an event long anticipated — as by the notion that the “insurrection,” as it was called, might be crushed out in a few weeks, if not by the display, certainly, at least, by the presence of an overwhelming force.

    These, sir, were the chief causes which, along with others, led to a change in the policy of the Administration, and, instead of peace, forced us, headlong, into civil war, with all its accumulated horrors.

    “Sir, I am obliged to pass by for want of time, other grave and dangerous infractions and usurpations of the President since the 4th of March. I only allude casually to the quartering of soldiers in private houses without the consent of the owners, and without any manner having been prescribed by law; to the subversion in a part, at least, of Maryland of her own State Government and of the authorities under it; to the censorship over the telegraph, and the infringement, repeatedly, in one or more of the States, of the right of the people to keep and to bear arms for their defense. But if all these things, I ask, have been done in the first two months after the commencement of this war, and by men not military chieftains, and unused to arbitrary power, what may we not expect to see in three years, and by the successful heroes of the fight? Sir, the power and rights of the States and the people, and of their Representatives, have been usurped; the sanctity of the private house and of private property has been invaded; and the liberty of the person wantonly and wickedly stricken down; free speech, too, has been repeatedly denied; and all this under the plea of necessity. Sir, the right of petition will follow next — nay, it has already been shaken; the freedom of the press will soon fall after it; and let me whisper in your ear, that there will be few to mourn over its loss, unless, indeed, its ancient high and honorable character shall be rescued and redeemed from its present reckless mendacity and degradation. Freedom of religion will yield too, at last, amid the exultant shouts of millions, who have seen its holy temples defiled, and its white robes of a former innocency trampled now under the polluting hoofs of an ambitious and faithless or fanatical clergy. Meantime national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and permanent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous expenditures, gigantic and stupendous peculation, anarchy first, and a strong government afterward — no more State lines, no more State governments, and a consolidated monarchy or vast centralized military despotism must all follow in the history of the future, as in the history of the past they have, centuries ago, been written. Sir, I have said nothing, and have time to say nothing now, of the immense indebtedness and the vast expenditures which have already accrued, nor of the folly and mismanagement of the war so far, nor of the atrocious and shameless peculations and frauds which have disgraced it in the State governments and the Federal Government from the beginning. The avenging hour for all these will come hereafter, and I pass by them now.”

    http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/valland62.html

    The faith of the United States, supported by taxation, is to be abandoned, and this paper money is to be floated in every commercial and business transaction of the country, by main force of law, and not voluntary credit because of the solvency of the United States, till a year or two hence the Secretary shall have stocks enough to enable him to execute his financial schemes and contrivances in full. This, then, is the first step in the direction of his grand fiscal and monetary agent which is to maintain the credit of the Government and supply the sole paper currency of the country

    And now, sir, what, I beg to know, is the object of all this, if it be not to create an enormous and endless public debt, to be interwoven with every political, social, and business relation of life; to subjugate the States and the people perpetually to the Federal Government, and therefore never to be extinguished ?

    I cannot and I will not vote to bring down upon the wretched people of this once happy and prosperous country, the triple ruin of a forced currency, enormous taxation, and a public debt never to be extinguished.

  23. Jct: Usury centralizes money, money is economic power, what other kind of power are you talking about if not the power of financial life and death? Centralization doesn’t spawn usury, usury spawns centralization. Nehemiah said: Let the exacting of usury stop,” not” let the centralization of power stop.” Jesus and Mohammed too.
    AM: Not so:
    Jct: Yes, so, Jesus, Mohammed and Nehemiah et al condemned usury and did not condemn power being concentrated in the hands of a righteous king. “Not so.” Aren’t you tired of always being wrong?

    AM: for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
    Jct: So we’re wrestling not against people but against a malevolent system, big deal. How does who’s driving the machine relate to how to fix the machine?

    AM: Usury is only one, very major, of Satan’s tools.
    Jct: I may not be as familiar with Satan as you but usury isn’t his tool, it’s our chain of oppression.

    AM: Satan is the enemy, we attack his armour and that’s why we fight usury.
    Jct: You go fight Satan, the Banking Systems Engineer will fight to upgrade bad software.
    AM: Careful deliberation of Satan’s nature shows he’s a complete egotist. He wants it all and he wants it now and he wants it for himself.
    Jct: And I thought that was the Super Rich who are getting it.

    AM: That’s the essential nature of the opposition and that is the essential nature of centralization of power
    Jct: With who’s driving the malfunctioning machine being of little other than historical interest to The Engineer trying fix the malfunctioning machine.

    • blowing air up in the horse’s ass
      Whose money did he use to waste the court’s time ?

      • Jct: Har har har. That’s Name789’s answer to our discussion of Banking Systems Engineering? He found some half-truth mainstream-media hatchet job and thinks it’s going to embarrass me? That’s how you prove the Greenbacks were backed by bonds? Har har har har har har. As for my court loss over the Dragons’ Den hatchet job, I used my own money to seek justice all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. And I’m stiffing them for the court costs and they have no way of collecting off a professional gambler and pauper with nothing to his name. But they had to give me the tape of the whole 15-minute confrontation, not just the 1 minute hatchet job, whose copyright I beat by sitting in front of the screen and creating new content while I watched it. Go see the whole truth if you think your Dragons didn’t get scorched. Har har har, he tries to smear me with one of my finest moments making a billionaire back down from a $500 bet and lwalking off the stage laughing: “Flash the cash, bye bye trash!”

        KingofthePaupers on Dragons Den for Brantford Bucks 10% Royalty http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV0L2hyqAZc   

        Anyway, now you’ve shown yourself to be a fact-less smear-artist and you blew smearing Lincoln and you blew smearing me. Now why don’t you try to get back to the topic you’ve been challenged to. Gutless coward name-caller. (I can be pretty good too except mine fit).

        • 🙂
          Only a clown would go on TV and ask for $100,000 for casino chips; then you get offended when the guy calls you a comic relief.

          Obviously you practice what you preach, and smoked your brain out a long time ago. And you are doing a very good job discrediting social credit; normal people see/hear you once and consider the whole thing a joke forever.

          So, have you had the courage to read the Greenback act, for the first time in your life ?

          Would you dare to tell us why you never heard Garfield disrespected ?
          Would you dare to tell us what Lincoln did that earned your eternal devotion ? Do you even know anything about Lincoln ?
          Would you have the courage to tell us about your concept of gambling your way out of debt; what great benefit a black jack den may bestow upon society; what a great way it is for Ontario to put its financial house in order by opening up casinos ?

          Would you tell us what great benefit it is for Canada to import everything the people use from Asia ?

          Would you tell us what great benefit the United Nations is ?

          Smoke weed, every day;
          then gamble your way out of debt;
          then free-trade your economic problems away

          When we need advice on how to beat the table in Vegas, we should ask you, you are an expert on that –about Lincoln and the greenbacks you know nothing, and you are afraid to learn anything

  24. First batch: act of July 17, 1861

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby authorized to borrow on the credit of the United States, within twelve months from the passage of this act, a sum not exceeding two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, or so much thereof as he may deem necessary for the public service, for which he is authorized to issue coupon bonds, or registered bonds, or treasury notes, in such proportions of each as he may deem advisable; the bonds to bear interest not exceeding seven per centum per annum, payable semi-annually, irredeemable for twenty years, and after that period redeemable at the pleasure of the United States; and the treasury notes to be of any denomination fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury, not less than fifty dollars, and to be payable three years after date, with interest at the rate of seven and three tenths per centum per annum, payable semi-annually. And the Secretary of the Treasury may also issue in exchange for coin, and as part of the above loan, or may pay for salaries or other dues from the United States, treasury notes of a less denomination than fifty dollars, not bearing interest, but payable on demand by the Assistant Treasurers of the United States at Philadelphia, New York, or Boston, or treasury notes bearing interest at the rate of three and sixty-five hundredths per centum, payable in one year from date, and exchangeable at any time for treasury notes for fifty dollars, and upwards, issuable under the authority of this act, and bearing interest as specified above: Provided, That no exchange of such notes in any less amount than one hundred dollars shall be made at any one time: And provided further, That no treasury notes shall be issued of a less denomination than ten dollars, and that the whole amount of treasury notes, not bearing interest, issued under the authority of this act, shall not exceed fifty millions of dollars.

    250million at 7.30% and 50million at 0% is interest-free.

    Other batch, act of February 25, 1862:

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to issue on the credit of the United States one hundred and fifty millions of dollars of United States notes, not bearing interest, payable to bearer, at the Treasury of the United States, and of such denominations as he may deem expedient, not less than five dollars each.

    And be it further enacted, That to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to fund the Treasury notes and floating debt of the United States, he is hereby authorized to issue on the credit of the United States coupon bonds or registered bonds, to an amount not exceeding five hundred million dollars, and redeemable at the pleasure of the United States after five years, and payable twenty years from date, and bearing interest at the rate of six per centum per annum, payable semi-annually ; and the bonds herein authorized shall be of such denomination, not less than fifty dollars, as may be determined upon by the Secretary of the Treasury ; and the Secretary of the Treasury may dispose of such bonds at any time at the market value thereof, for lawful money, the coin of the United States, or for any of the Treasury notes that have been, or may hereafter be, issued under any former act of Congress, or for the United States notes that may be issued under the provisions of this act ; and all stocks, bonds, and other securities of the United States held by individuals, corporations or associations within the United States, shall be exempt from taxation by or under State authority.

    500million at 6% and 150million at 0% is interest-free

    Another batch, Act of June 30, 1864 (signed by H.A. Lincoln)

    Be it enacted &c
    Secretary of the Treasury may issue ….. treasury notes …. bearing interest not exceeding 7.30% ….. shall be legal tender to the same extent as United States notes

    At the end of the war, Honest A. Lincoln’s hand-picked Secretary of the Treasury used 830million of these 7.30s to pay off the soldiers of the disbanding army

    Circulating notes of the United States on October 31, 1865. Many of these notes, of course, didn’t circulate much, because banks and insurance companies held onto those which paid them 6-7% gold interest, and issued 270million of their own, interest-free notes, instead (bad money drives out good)

    Compound interest notes 6% $173,012,141.00
    Treasury notes 7.3% 830,000,000.00
    Temporary loans, 4-5-6% 99,107,745.46
    Certificates of indebtedness 6% 55,905,000.00
    Treasury notes, 5% 32,536,901.00
    United States notes 0%, (funded by 6% bonds) 428,160,569.00
    Fractional currency 0% 26,057,469.20
    what would be the average interest on these 1,400million notes ?

    “Congress, instead of adopting a plain, simple system, easily understood by the public, such as the legal tender Treasury note sustained by an interest bearing bond, persisted in authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue government securities, bearing interest, and mostly payable in three years, in all sorts of forms and shapes. Government obligations were issued during the war by the Treasury Department in 15 different forms”

    • It seems the issue is settled.

      Thank you name789.

      • Why p align=”right” does not work in comments ? that list would have looked better right justified

        >>>>It seems the issue is
        (I gave you the same list last year when the issue first came up)

        The issue is (and remains) that these charlatan book-peddlers and their low-information groupies know nothing of greenbacks and Lincoln.
        (now which one of ye would be brave enough to produce the e-text of the act of June 1864?)

        —-
        None of us can read a dead man’s mind, but based on his actions and utterances I consider Lincoln a willing participant, not an innocent dupe/tool; and there were several people then and there who did tell how the war should be financed without establishing a permanent debt and a national banking system

        Re: Jackson
        Andrew Jackson could not have vetoed the renewal without the support of State banks which were opposed to the Baring branch bank. As i said before –and as it was observed at the time of Jackson– the struggle for a central bank wasn’t just a war for a bank, but a war for whose central bank. It took some decades, and it took Lincoln and his war but finally N.M. Rothschild came out winner (and there has been no bank agitation since). In 1862 and 1863 senators and representatives who supported the new national bank system, also supported the legal-tender clause; senators and representatives who were friends of the old State banks, opposed the legal-tender clause……..

        the way things were, when the Record was delivered to your mail-box

    • Well – at the very least it proves that Lincoln was in dire need of literature like Silvio Gsell’s. What truly transpired there behind the scenes cannot be assessed by documents signed by Lincoln though it is surely a telltale sygnal of what CERTAINLY HAPPENED. Andrew Jackson was another case, who obviously got rid of the 2nd central bank, but left the fractional reserve banking system intact. Financial literacy is obviously not a matter of intelligence or a lot more people in the world would catch on to the worldwide-scam. Though in pre-internet times people caught on by reading a wide variety of alternative literature – Norman Dodd from the later Reece Commission caught on like that as well as many others. Apart from that John Turmel is a flashy unusual guy, but at least he is one of the loud voices out there who do promote some sort of interest-free-currencies – though some commodity-based unnecessarily. If the Illuminati-money masters can agree despite major differences on a few good things: kill most of THEM, get absolute and total control even to the most minute levels of THEIR life and create a lovely system of Super-Evil-Brave-New-World for the servs with human sacrifice galore then we certainly can agree that WE DO NOT WANT any of that. Financial reform has likely to be the first change. Many of those gold-and-silver-bugs would be very surprised of what riches an Illuminati-owned-commidity-based currency would truly bring them. Besides – most of those well-meaning “bugs” would accept alternative interest-free-currencies and JAK-bank-like interest-free credit and the advantages would be evident extremely fast. Divide and conquer is one of the strategies employed.

      • Great comment Bourchakoun.

        Personally I like a bit of brainwrestling and am not averse to some temper tantrums and other symptoms of suffering ego. It’s unavoidable to grow.

        But we must overcome evil with good. Meaning we must focus on providing the solutions. Not by talking about them, but by implementing them. People cannot be convinced theoretically (great observation: “Financial literacy is obviously not a matter of intelligence or a lot more people in the world would catch on to the worldwide-scam.”), but they will buy added value any time.

    • Pridger was kind enough to compile a list of monetary acts

      http://www.heritech.com/pridger/monetaryacts.htm

  25. >>>>>an other reason why Migchels may hate GreeBacks, and love demurr bank paper

    quote

    The existence of this paper money is the chief embarrassment in managing the finances of the United States. Every person familiar with the operations of the Treasury knows and feels it. When you issue your paper money now, as you are compelled to issue it, it becomes the basis of other issues by the banks, and the inflation which you are compelled to give becomes a double inflation, from its consequences on the banks of the United States. When the Governtnent of the United States issued $150,000,000 of notes, if there had been no depreciated bank paper money in the United States, that $150,000,000 would this moment have been at par with gold; but the issue by the Government was made the basis of other issues by local banks. These local banks do not pay their paper in gold and silver. It was depreciated; and it is a financial rule that when there are two classes of currency open in the market, the poorer class will always drive out the best. Every man knows very well, that if he has two notes, and one is a little worse than the other, he will try to pass off the inferior note. That is the ordinary operation, the guiding motive of self-interest which actuates the conduct of men. Where there are two classes of notes in circulation, the inferior will always take the place of the superior.

    Treasury notes are now held and hoarded. The first issue of $60,000,000 of notes were issued with the right of being converted into six per cent. twenty years bonds, and with the privilege of being paid for duties in customs. They are now far above par, and are hoarded. They are no longer in circulation. This is the chief reason given why it is necessary to issue a greater amount. Why are they hoarded ? Simply because they have certain privileges and certain advantages which the bank paper of the United States has not. They are better than the local bank circulation, and therefore are driven out of circulation by being held in the banks; by being held for conversion into bonds, by being held in such a way that they do not enter into the ordinary circulation of the country, and in their place is issued, in still larger amounts than before, the paper money of the banks. The consequence is, the Government of the United States is either compelled to receive this bank paper, in violation of the sub-Treasury law, or it is compelled to issue a new emission of paper money, and thus depreciate and break down the whole.

    If Congress allows the issue of the paper money provided for in this bill, what is the consequence ? The banks will take it, and issue other paper money on the basis of it. Most of their charters require them to keep one third specie in their vaults; but under the operation of existing laws, instead of that specie they will now keep one third paper money. Every new issue of Treasury notes is only a bid for a new inflation by the banks, and thus the better money of the United States is hoarded and laid away, and the paper money which is issued on the credit of it is thrown on the country, producing inflation and derangement of our monetary system, and I believe in the end will produce disaster.

    You cannot issue three hundred millions of United States paper money, and upon that base the issue of three hundred millions more by the banks. One or the other must be driven out of existence. The paper of the banks being a depreciated, inferior paper money, will drive out of circulation the United States notes. That has been done already, and it will be done; and the more notes you issue, the more they will issue, and the more the business of the country will be deranged.
    /quote

  26. There is a glaring mistake in this article that renders the punchline “punch-less”:

    “The Greenback

    “The main problem with the ‘interest-free, debt-free Greenback’ was that it was….neither debt-free, nor interest-free.

    “What was the Greenback? There were $450million non-interest-bearing US notes, backed by $500million bonds bearing 6% interest (the 5/20s) and there were ~$1,000million Treasury notes bearing 6-7.3% interest.”

    As far as I can see, the greenbacks were DEBT and INTEREST FREE money that was spent into the economy. The result was that the circulation was strengthened which directly benefited commerce and helped increase employment. The bonds were totally separate.

    In the posts below, John Turmel attempts to debunk name789 but to no avail. Can we get the record straight?

    • name789 wrote: “First batch: act of July 17, 1861–

      “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled…”

      No, The “First Batch” of greenbacks were not passed until 1862:

      FEBRUARY 25, 1862 – LEGAL TENDER ACT PASSED

      1862 – LEGAL TENDER ACT PASSED
      A bill authorizing the issuance of $150 million non interest-bearing United States notes (commonly referred to as Greenbacks). Congress would later grant $300 million more in US notes. This was interest free US money. The adminstration of Republican President Abraham Lincoln wanted to avoid the nation going into debt borrowing money from private/corporate bankers to pay for the Civil War. Greenbacks were not bonds or notes or any other promises to pay “money” at some future time. They were money. Since they were not borrowed, they didn’t add to the national debt. What later made them inflationary was they were used to pay for war – which didn’t produce or add anything productive to the economy to offset the added money supply. The bill contained an “Exception Clause”, which stated that Greenbacks could not be used to pay the interest on the national debt, nor to pay taxes, excises or import duties.

      You are citing the wrong bill!

  27. Reblogged this on Jana Murray.

  28. I can’t begin to comment on the book-length comments already here, but since I too have a book out: AMERICA IS NOT BROKE! FOUR MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR PATHS TO A THRIVING AMERICA – https://tayen-lane.squarespace.com/america-is-not-broke that celebrates Lincoln and his Greenbacks, I thought I should at least add some things left out of the conversation that ought to make the anti-Lincolnists – if I may “coin” a phrase – wherein “coin” is used as it is in the Constitution, meaning “to make”.
    1. The Greenbacks, while initially pledged to be redeemable in gold, never actually were so redeemed, and after a couple of years, that fiction transaction option was dropped.
    2. The Greenbacks so scared the bankers that they strong-armed Congress and the president into passing the National Bank Act as a counter-measure.
    3. The bankers continued to try to drive the Greenback out of existence after Lincoln was assassinated (more on that in a moment), driving them down to $351m by 1879, at which point the de-currency moves were halted because it was clear a depression was forming from lack of circulating money. Greenbacks pretty much stayed at this level until 1996, when Treasury finally, phased them out – a long time!
    4. The Greenback Party formed and flourished through 3 presidential elections between 1874 and 1889 (OK, maybe not flourished towards the end), running Greenbacker Peter Cooper in 1886. Not to put too fine a point on it, but…were they all duped and stupid?
    5. Henry George was alive during the pre-Lincoln “Wildcat banking” (his phrase) days and after during the Greenback era, and wrote that government ought to produce all the money, not the banks. See my peer-reviewed paper here: http://peemconference2013.worldeconomicsassociation.org/?paper=a-brief-history-of-american-paper-money-with-emphasis-on-georgist-perspectives-scott-baker and also in my book, which is an anthology, BTW. George wrote there were 9 kinds of money in his time, and the Greenback was one of the4 most preferred, despite being backed by nothing. He wrote “We have at the present time in the United States nine kinds of money in circulation. Copper coins,
    nickel coins, silver coins, gold coins, silver notes, gold notes, national bank notes and direct
    treasury notes, or greenbacks. Of these nine kinds of money, only one kind, the gold coins, have an
    intrinsic value equal to their current value. But this one kind of money, which alone has intrinsic
    value equal to its current value, is not at all preferred by the people on that account. On the
    contrary, over the far greater part of the United States … silver notes, national bank notes, or even
    greenbacks, are preferred to gold as having an equal current value and being more portable; and
    all these nine kinds of money, differing greatly in intrinsic value and representative character, circulate interchangeably at par with one another. The induction is irresistible that it is not the intrinsic value of the money, or anything that is pledged for the redemption of the money, or is held by the United States as its representative, but the credit of the government itself which secures the common consent by virtue of which our money circulates. …”
    He further said: “The general government should be the only issuer of money, both for the general convenience and the protection (in the true sense of the term) of those who are most liable to have inferior money passed upon them, and because the issuing of credit money for general circulation is a valuable privilege, which ought to be shared by the whole people and not suffered to enrich a
    few.”
    6. On Lincoln’s Assassination and the attempted assassination of SoS Seward and SoW Stanton, Gerry McGeer made a pretty compelling case in his 1935 book “The Conquest of Poverty” that Lincoln’s assassination was financed by bankers and that evidence of this was forcefully suppressed at the subsequent court-martial trial (an interesting choice of trial type in itself): http://www.heritech.com/ymagchy/mcgeer/conq_05.html
    I was curious enough about this that I contacted an historian I know to see if she could trace down a bibliography or footnotes for the actual book. While she found the book, there was nothing more to it than the online version, though she said that is not unusual in books back then (BTW, she also endorsed my book, along with about a dozen Georgists, Greenbackers and other reformers).
    7. An awful lot of historians and economists seem to accept the generally accepted “story” that Lincoln did produce debt-free money, and while one should never evaluate history by majority vote, one does have to ask, what makes your information better than theirs?
    8. The Treasury’s debt report specifically excludes U.S. Notes from the debt owed to the United States (I list the table in my book too), and shows $239m still in circulation, which continues to be unusable to pay down the debt, as would be expected for a currency bankers saw as a threat to their monopoly.
    9. I have two $5 U.S. Notes, purchased at twice face value from eBay, and no one has asked for them back yet, so claims that they are actually “debt-money” seem a bit desperate.

    Thoughts?

    • gnomecoder0 permalink

      I agree. The article is only one degree less imprecise and presumptuous than the conspiracy theorists criticized.

      For example, I see no reason to substantially doubt the Appleton Cyclopedia (1861) at 296 as follows: “The money kings wanted 24 percent to 36 percent interest for loans to our government to conduct the Civil War.”

      At the time in question (after losing battles) there is no doubt that the Union was unable to sell government bonds except at an extortionate face-value discount. See History Of The Legal Tender Paper Money Issued During The Great Rebellion at https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=113&filepath=/docs/publications/books/1869histlegaltender/historyoflegaltender.pdf#scribd-open.

      Most important (same reference, Appendix p.36) is Lincoln’s most extraordinary veto of bank notes, in favor of interest-free greenbacks. This squelches the picture of Lincoln as a bankers’ man. See Lincoln’s Buried Bank Note Veto Applies Today at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Lincoln-s-buried-bank-note-by-Clifford-Johnson-130520-898.html.

      • Wonderful cites, albeit lengthy. But the first one is a genuine Congressional record of the introduction of U.S. Notes less than 10 years prior, and the second is your own well-researched article. Bravo and I hope this puts to rest Lincoln’s later-day critics regarding his relationship with the bankers of his day.

    • Another bookpeddler who sells book on Lincoln and greenbacks while knows nothing about either (I dare any of ye to read Lincoln’s collected papers and familiarize yourseves with his views on central banking and national currency)

      1) he obviously does not know (how could he, he never studied the subject) that in 1917, the freshly reorganized national currency banks presented $170million greenbacks and received $170million in gold from the Treasury

      2) he presents his ignorance-based day-time fantacy as fact; the truth is that the clerk of the largest bank in the United States travelled to Washington to request that the proposed treasury notes be made legal tender; the arch villain in the story, the bankers’ number one advocate, Senator John Sherman, spoke for an hour in support of the legal tender clause; if bankers had really been opposed to greenbacks the legal-tender clause would not have left the Senate; had Sherman, Chandler, Sumner voted against, it would have been enough

      3) the whole entire national currency banking system (given to ye by HA Lincoln) was based on greenbacks; from day one to day last these banks held 190million to 170million greenbacks as reserve, as required by the national currency bank act

      4) Peter Cooper died in 1883, he couldn’t run as candidate in 1886; he and Sam Carry ran in 1876, received 83,726 votes……..

      6) McGeer’s book is not history book, it is McGeer’s drug-induced fantacy

      8) I dont know how you read the reports, from day one united States notes were listed as outstanding debt; US notes do not circulate; please read some facts some time, too:
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/uregina/act1868.html

      As for Spaulding’s book
      http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/spaulding/green_index.html
      it is not the Record; but in it Spaulding clearly stated to everyone who dared to read and comprehend, that there was a plan,

      first, the issue of demand Treasury notes;

      second, a National currency, secured by a pledge of United States stocks, to be issued
      by banks and associations, with proper regulations for their redemption by the banks
      themselves.”

      “Resolved, that it is the duty of every loyal state to sustain the credit and promote the
      use of the National currency.” —1864 platform of the Republican Party.

      Lincoln, Stevens, Kelley, etc. were re-elect on that pledge, and the Party remained faithful to that pledge to this day

      In 1824, 32 years old Thaddeus Stevens met Nicholas Biddle and became his attorney
      In 1836 Thaddeus Stevens presented a bill in the Pennsylvania house of representatives which rechartered the Bank of the United States as a State bank
      In 1862 this bank-lawyer Stevens was the chairman of the committee of ways and means which drafted the greenback bill

      —[if you want real peer review, visit me some times]

      http://www.yamaguchy.com
      still the one and only source of your finagled wishdom

    • Mr. Baker obviously does not know the fable of the dolphin and the gilthead:

      “Look at that fat worm – how appetizing it is!” the gilthead said to the dolphin.
      “Don’t be a fool! It’s a bait and nothing more.”
      “If that were the case, I should be seeing it” the gilthead insisted, “Harmless worms must be floating around, too.”
      “Those anglers ary cunning fellows, who know to disguise their ways,” the dolphin reminds his companion, “Naturally you can’t see anything else: The worm hides the hook, while you have poor eyesight for any line. That this is so, the angler knew all along.”
      “You are a notorious pessimist,” the gilthead grumbled annoyedly, “At least, if there were no hook, nor line attached, it would be edible and a most delicious thing.”
      “In that case, no worm would ever have entered the waters” – thus spoke the dolphin, and swam away…

      With kind regards and many thanks to the great “yamaguchy”…

    • Mr. Baker obviously does not know the fable of the dolphin and the gilthead:

      “Look at that fat worm – how appetizing it is!” the gilthead said to the dolphin.
      “Don’t be a fool! It’s a bait and nothing more.”
      “If that were the case, I should be seeing it” the gilthead insisted, “Harmless worms must be floating around, too.”
      “Those anglers are cunning fellows, who know to disguise their ways,” the dolphin reminds the fish, “Naturally you can’t see anything else: The worm hides the hook, while you have poor eyesight for any line. That this is so, the angler knew all along.”
      “You are a notorious pessimist,” the gilthead grumbled annoyedly, “At least, if there were no hook, nor line attached, it would be edible and a most delicious thing.”
      “In that case, no worm would ever have entered the waters” – thus spoke the dolphin, and swam away…

      With kind regards and many thanks to the great “yamaguchy”…

  29. Sarah E Emmery wrote a good book about the greenbacks. They weren’t debt and interest free. Sarahs mentor Benjamin Heath talks bout it too.

    https://vimeo.com/199275335

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