(no subject)

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

1) If any state makes any thing a tender in payment of debts which isn't gold and silver coin, then that state has broken the supreme law of the land vis-a-vis Article one Section ten.
2) All fifty states make federal reserve notes a tender in payment of debts.
Therefore:
3) All fifty states have broken the supreme law of the land.

Some of you want to say the U.S. constitution is irrelevant, or the interpretation of the U.S. constitution is somehow fallacious. I'd like to point you to Cornell Law School's site. Notice how there's a hyperlink in section nine for the direct taxes clause, and the link takes you to the sixteenth amendment. The U.S. went through the amendment process to invalidate an original law of the constitution, but the Federal Reserve Act merely went through Congress and then to the President's desk. The exact same thing happens with the war on drugs. We amend the constitution to prohibit alcohol, but we don't amend the constitution to prohibit a less harmful drug like marijuana.

Where's the irrefutable logic which shows how the U.S. doesn't have to amend the constitution?

Comments

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

A nation is not a mathematical structure and the constitution is not a set of axioms that somehow logically determine everything that that should be. Considering the ass-backwards nature of some of the things in the original constitution I'm not excited, nor do I have any faith that walking lock step to the commandments of this version will result in a utopia-- Or even be moral or consistent.

The laws that exist are only those the enforced.

That has never changed once in the course of human history.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Selective enforcement which isn't based on some other precedent or rule of interpretation is arbitrary, and calling a law arbitrary is a contradiction in terms. There are some laws in the U.S. constitution which are axioms, like the ninth amendment. The ninth amendment is derived from Thomas Jefferson's statement about holding certain truths to be self-evident. What's self-evident is all men are created with certain natural rights, and the ninth amendment is a source of natural rights. They're rights which existed before the constitution and continue to exist after the ratification of the constitution.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

the constitution is not a set of axioms that somehow logically determine everything that that should be.

Actually, it is a set of axioms that logically determines everything that the government should be.

nor do I have any faith that walking lock step to the commandments of this version will result in a utopia-- Or even be moral or consistent.

It's not supposed to result in that. But not following them will result in a failed system.

The laws that exist are only those the enforced.

Incorrect. All laws that are written down could and should be enforced. Selective enforcement degrades the rule of law and makes life arbitrarily bound to the whim of those in power.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

How do you think the States may purchase said federal reserve tender to meet the Constitutional needs?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

They call a constitutional convention and make the federal government obey the law.

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Ad Fontes!! (http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A1Sec10.html)

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Strictly speaking, the federal government only has power to coin money and states are restricted from coining money. Emitting bills of credit is what the founders meant by issuing paper currency, as can be seen from the federalist papers (like #44). A paper currency being considered money is strictly unconstitutional. The restriction on states to only use gold and silver coin is legalese for "no thing shall be money except gold and silver coin".

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

States don't make things legal tender the federal government does and the federal government has the constitutional power to allow for paper money.

In other words you're reading it wrong.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Oh.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

No state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts

No, I'm not reading it wrong.

I noticed that too.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Mr. Field seems to be out of the loop on the drafting of the Constitution.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I disagree with proposition 2).

Article one, Section ten specifically refers to "no state" making things other forms of payment legal tender, but does not prohibit the union from making other forms of payment legal tender. Which indeed the union does.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Your disagreement with the second proposition is in conflict with the word tender when it's used as a noun for this reason. The states are not to offer anything but gold and silver coin as payment for debts; offer is the word used in the definition of tender as a verb and as a noun. No states can coin money; only the federal government can coin money. You're saying the federal government can say something can be offered as a payment of debt, but that's in direct contradiction with the statement that no state can offer anything but gold and silver coin as a payment of debt.

You cannot resolve the contradiction.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Where's the irrefutable logic which shows how the U.S. doesn't have to amend the constitution?

Because Article I, Section 10 limits a state's power and not the power of the United States government? Congressional acts making federal reserve notes legal tender preempts any state law on the matter. So, even assuming that every single state has passed an unconstitutional act making federal reserve notes legal tender (a proposition you have failed to actually support with evidence), the federal act making federal reserve notes legal tender, which is a constitutional exercise of the federal government's power under Article I, Section 8, would still control.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Congressional acts making federal reserve notes legal tender preempts any state law on the matter.

Which law in article 1 gives Congress the power to declare federal reserve notes legal tender? Is a federal reserve note a bill of credit, or is it a way of paying off a debt? You cannot say it's both.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

What a maroon sound bite (http://www.entertonement.com/clips/nsvdjzkfdz--What-a-maroonBugs-Bunny-Looney-Tunes-usmc-)  Bugs Bunny sound bites (http://www.entertonement.com/collections/6829/Bugs-Bunny?ht_link=1_2cfe3a98_15ed_11df_b6ba_0019b9e56dac)

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

The states don't make money. The federal government does. The value of that federal money is largely based upon the gold reserves of same.

So you fail there.

Further:

Even gold is a fiat currency.


Fiat \Fi"at\, n. [L., let it be done, 3d pers. sing., subj. pres., fr. fieri, used as pass. of facere to make. Cf. Be.]

1. An authoritative command or order to do something; an effectual decree. [1913 Webster]

His fiat laid the corner stone. --Willis. [1913 Webster]

2. (Eng. Law)
(a) A warrant of a judge for certain processes.
(b) An authority for certain proceedings given by the Lord Chancellor's signature. [1913 Webster]



We officially declare that gold has value beyond its usefulness in jewelry, dentistry, or electronics manufacture, and by that fiat it becomes money redeemable for goods or services. There is very little difference in fact or in practice between this and printing un-reproducible paper notes to fulfill the same purpose.

[readherring.livejournal.com]

Plus Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Massachusetts are Commonwealths, not states. I mean, if we're going to be literalists here...

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Saying because people accept federal reserve notes or state bank notes, and since people accept them, it's OK so I'm wrong, is not proof I'm wrong about the law being broken. We have no choice in the matter today, unlike the cases you cite.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Who decides how much gold and silver is worth?

THE HOLY MARKET AMEN!

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Who decides gold and silver are worth anything beyond mere industrial or crafting uses?
There's your fiat. =]

[http://users.livejournal.com/gaburieru_/]

Myth# 3: The Federal Reserve Act and paper money are unconstitutional. (http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/flaherty/flaherty3.html)

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

The bulk of that site's argument is concisely stated as "because Congress did it in the past, it's legal", but that's circular reasoning.

[gifa.livejournal.com]

Christ... re: the word "marijuana"... it's somehow become a "Godwin" word for me.

Gold is still a fiat currency.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Re: Gold is still a fiat currency.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

While specie-backed representative money entails the legal requirement that the bank of issue redeem it in fixed weights of specie, fiat money's value is unrelated to any physical quantity.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

#2 is wrong.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Not according to Justice Stephen Johnson Field. All others who say otherwise have a tenuous rationale.