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ROGER SHERMAN (1721 1793) should be a name familiar to every American and at least as familiar as those of Washington, Madison, Jefferson and Adams. Sherman is the only man to have signed all 4 documents surrounding the formation of the United States of America: The Continental Association of 1774, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and The United States Constitution. He was a Judge of the Superior Court in New Haven, Connecticut, serving that office with distinction from 1766 until 1788. He served as Treasurer of Yale University from 1765 to 1776. He was renowned for his high intelligence and unswerving honesty and was described by John Adams “as honest as an angel and as firm in the cause of American independence as Mount Atlas.” He served in the U.S.Senate from 1791 until his death in 1793.
Why is Roger Sherman*s name unfamiliar? HE WAS AN ENEMY OF PAPER MONEY!! In 1751, Roger Sherman and his brother William sued James Battle for paying a debt to their shop in New Milford, Connecticut, in depreciating paper currency. Over a period of 15 months, Battle had charged “divers wares and merchandizes” amounting to 129 pounds of what Sherman assumed were pounds of Connecticut “Old Tenor”, a stable currency whose value were well preserved by taxation taking it out of circulation. But Battle assumed the debt was denominated in pounds of ever depreciating Rhode Island currency, tendered in same, and Sherman took a beating in the payment and sued for recovery of loss by depreciation. Sherman lost when Battle argued that he was merely following the accepted custom of the day. In 1752, Sherman wrote his book “A Caveat Against Injustice or An Inquiry into the Evils of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange” indicting UNBACKED PAPER MONEY.
It was this experience that Sherman brought to the Constitutional Convention and prompted him to rise on August 28,1787 and propose new, more restrictive wording to Article 1,Section 10. The standing version under consideration was worded this way: “No state shall coin money; nor grant letters of marque and reprisal; nor enter into any Treaty, alliance, or confederation; nor grant any title of Nobility.” (From Madison’s Notes of the Convention) “Judge Sherman and Mr. Wilson moved to insert the words *coin money* the words *nor emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts* making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S. Mr. Sherman thought this a FAVORABLE CRISIS FOR CRUSHING PAPER MONEY. If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it.” Mr. Sherman*s and Mr. Wilson*s motion was quickly agreed to and became the supreme law of the land.
Some additional quotations to ponder:
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation” (John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1787)
“I deny the power of the general government to making paper money, or anything else, a legal tender.” (Thomas Jefferson)
“You have been doubtless been informed, from time to time, of the happy progress of our affairs. The principal difficulties seem in great measure to have been surmounted. Our revenues have been considerably
more productive than it was imagined they would be. I mention this to show the spirit of enterprise that prevails.” (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, June 3, 1790 AFTER the United States Constitution prohibited unbacked paper money at Article 1, Section 10)
“Since the federal constitution has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced fifty percent. Our monied people can trust their cash abroad, and have brought their coin into circulation.” (December 16, 1789 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette)
“Our country, my dear sir, is fast progressing in its political importance and social happiness.” (George Washington in a letter to the Marquis de LaFayette, March 19, 1791)
“The United States enjoys a sense of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for.” (George Washington in a letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, July 19,1791)
“Tranquility reigns among the people with that disposition towards the general government which is likely to preserve it. Our public credit stands on that high ground which three years ago would have been considered as a species of madness to have foretold.” (George Washington in a letter to David Humphreys, July 20, 1791)
“It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals.
These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of PAPER CURRENCY.” (Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress, December 5, 1836)
DESPITE WHAT YOU WERE TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, THE HISTORICAL RECORD IS CRYSTAL CLEAR: AMERICA WAS TO HAVE BEEN SPARED THE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS OF AN UNBACKED PAPER MONEY SYSTEM. MOST OF THE PROBLEMS WE FACE TODAY CAN BE TRACED TO WHAT ANDREW JACKSON CALLED “THE PERNICIOUS EXPEDIENT OF PAPER MONEY”.
History teaches that an “artificial” money creates an equally “artificial” world where the price for some item…even our most popular welfare “program”…can be deferred to future generations (our multi-trillion national debt) or “paid” with a “money” created out of thin air which robs the value from the money we might be unfortunate enough to have in our pockets at that moment (inflation).
And one thing you must remember about inflation is that it is not an “equal opportunity” destroyer: Those first in line to get their hands on the new money rolling off the presses (the modern friends of paper money) have a chance to spend it before it loses more value. The little people (that’s us, folks!) farthest down the line are the ones who feel the fullest effects of this destructive process.
And that’s because it was planned that way.
WHY THE POLITCAL RULING CLASS NO LONGER LISTENS TO US!
Among others, Mr. Jefferson warned that the financial disaster we now face would be but one of many problems paper money would visit upon us if we allowed our “leaders” to remove the backing from the currency, to wit:
“When the servants if the people are paid with something other than that which the people themselves have produced (i.e. the real, tangible products of their labors or some fixed and real medium of that exchange), the roles of master and servant will be reversed.”
It was believed by Roger Sherman and a majority of those at the Constitutional Convention that un-backed currency would so damage the fabric of the nation that they ATTEMPTED to prohibit it with these few words at Article 1, Section 10, requiring the states to enforce the prohibition: “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;”
If the people and their states grew inattentive to this matter (and they have!), Jefferson also saw this problem ahead:
In a letter to John Taylor in 1816, he wrote, “And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
We have been “…swindling futurity…” for a long time and this is now where we find ourselves. If the government, through its banker masters at the Federal Reserve, can create “money” from thin air, they certainly don’t need ours every April 15th. That annual sheep shearing is simply an attempt to vacuum enough of the excess paper from the system to keep the rest of us from catching on to the biggest theft ring in the history of man. They have now created so much that their attempt is failing and failing badly to a point where all but the dullest among us (Obama voters and his growing cadres of personal and corporate welfare beneficiaries) are starting to “get it.”
If you understood that last paragraph, you can now make the small leap to an understanding as to why the “progressive” utopian welfare state hacks in Washington don’t give a damn WHAT you think. Their power to create all the “money” they need to fuel their infernal machine and fill the gaping maws of enough of those hoards of welfare constituents to assure their perpetual re-election means that they – ready? – NO LONGER NEED YOU! They have become, as Mr. Jefferson predicted, our MASTERS.
That they are taking down a nation and a system that has provided more wealth, safety and abundance to more people than any other in history matters not to them. Failing to grasp the lesson of the French Revolution, they believe themselves to be above the impending disaster.
We’re running out of time to get this increasingly rapacious beast back into the cage from which we have carelessly allowed it to escape.
Some additional history of the destructive impact of unbacked, fiat currency.
DEPRECIATION OF CONTINENTAL CURRENCY AGAINST THE SPANISH MILLED DOLLAR. 1779
January 14, 1779……….8 Continentals to 1 Milled Dollar
February 3……….10 to 1
April 2……….17 to 1
May 5……….20 to 1
June 4……….22 to 1
September 17……….24 to 1
October 14……….30 to 1
November 17……….38 to 1
In January, 1781, these Continental notes were redeemable at 100 to 1.
In May, 1781, they CEASED passing as currency and quietly died in the hands of their owners. Repeatedly, new series were issued, only to follow a similar pattern.
A contemporary of the Revolution, Peletiah Webster, recorded the pernicious effects of fiat currency this way:
“It ceased to pass as currency (in May, 1781), but afterwards bought and sold as an article of speculation, at very uncertain and desultory prices, from 500 to 1,000 to 1.”
One of the laws passed to force citizens to accept the fast eroding paper “money” was worded thusly:
“If any person shall hereafter be so lost to all virtue and regard for his country as to refuse to accept its notes, such person shall be deemed an enemy of his Country.”
And later in our history, the words of another attempted to warn us.
“It is apparent from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the history of the times which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish a currency consisting of the precious metals. These were adopted by a permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as certain agricultural commodities recognized by statutes of some States as tender for debts, of the still MORE PERNICIOUS EXPEDIENT OF PAPER CURRENCY.”
Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress, December 5, 1836