(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

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Bills of credits were IOUs. Federal reserve notes are not IOUs. You're conflating federal reserve notes with bills of credit because you think it gives you this sooper-sekrit insight into this totes unconstitutional practice. I hate to break it to you—it doesn't.

Congress' power to coin money was not limited, in any way, shape, or form, by the constitution to creating gold and silver currency. Hell, in Section 10, the Constitution limits a state's ability to make anything except gold and silver coin legal tender. If the Framers wanted to limit Congress's ability to coin to gold and silver, don't you think they'd have DONE IT?

The constitutional basis for allowing congress to coin paper money is: "The Congress shall have the power to coin money." Period.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

transitive verb

–verb (used with object)
7. to make (coinage) by stamping metal: The mint is coining pennies.
8. to convert (metal) into coinage: The mint used to coin gold into dollars.
9. to make; invent; fabricate: to coin an expression.
10. Metalworking. to shape the surface of (metal) by squeezing between two dies. Compare emboss (def. 3).

[jennem.livejournal.com]

I direct your attention to #9: to make.

As in, the power "to make" money.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

That's actually an expression -- not money. As in, "she coined a new phrase to make fun of her opponent because her legal arguments lacked sufficient strength".

[jennem.livejournal.com]

No. That's just the example the dictionary used. Its not limited to "an expression."

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

If it's not limited to "an expression", what else besides an expression and paper money can be coined?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

At any rate, let's pretend for the sake of argument that you're totally right. The federal government has been getting away with this huge constitutional violation for the last 70 years or so, and you're the bright guy that's going to shine the light on this illicit and unconstitutional practice.

What's to stop the federal government from making something out of a metal (any metal, pick your poison), and saying, "this is worth $1, this is worth $10, this is worth $20, this is worth $50, and so on). Based on your limited interpretation of the word "coin" (to exclude paper, and include metal), such a practice would be completely constitutional. (Note: they already do this with the penny, nickels, quarters, etc. Are you seriously arguing that the constitution requires us to walk around with a bunch of coins that jangle in our pockets (weighing us down). You really thinks that's what the constitution requires?)

If you put a little sliver of metal in a paper dollar, does that fix your constitutional conundrum?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Show me past and present state legal tender laws -- something to the effect of the states saying "you can accept these cupro-nickel coins if they're minted by our super secret state bank which works outside of the constitutional restriction stating we cannot coin money". Until then, no, it doesn't.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

What do past and present state legal tender laws have to do with the federal government's power to assign coined (according to your definition) money value?

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

The federal government solely has the power to coin money. That is legal tender because it's money. States cannot coin money, but they can make something a tender in payment of debts. Can their power to make something a tender in payment of debts a power of legislation reserved to them via the 10th amendment?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

What does that have to do with Congress' power to coin money using metal (as required by your myopic definition of the word "coined'), and then assigning that tiny little coin a specific value.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Here you go.

For nearly three-quarters of a century after the adoption of the constitution, and until the legislation during the recent civil war, no jurist and no statesman of any position in the country ever pretended that a power to impart the quality of legal tender to its notes was vested in the general government. There is no recorded word of even one in favor of its possessing the power. All conceded, as an axiom of constitutional law, that the power did not exist.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=110&invol=421

The power did not exist then, and the power still does not exist today.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

You're not answering my question. The Constitution does not specifically require Congress to coin money on a gold standard. According to your limited definition of "coin," the Constitution only permits Congress to create money out of metallurgical elements.

Given the absence of a gold or silver standard requirement, would it be constitutional (in yahvah world) for Congress to create coins out of various metals and assign those coins value. If it is unconstitutional for Congress to do that in yahvah world, why?

If it is constitutional for Congress to do that, could "paper money" be constitutionalized by placing small strands of metallurgical elements in it?

You've avoided answering a fairly direct question for the past few comments. You're either interested in discussion, or you are not interested in discussion. If you're not interested in having a discussion, I have to wonder what the hell you're doing in this community.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Is that a 1789 dictionary you are using?

Cause if you are arguing for the never-changing meaning of the precise wording of the Constitution, you'd better not be using a lexicon of English words from more than 200 years after the fact.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

Do you think a 1789 English lexicon defined the verb coin to include printing paper money?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

I think if the Framers intended to limit Congress' ability to coin money to a gold or silver standard, they would have said so in the text of the Constitution (this reasoning is supported by evidence that the Framers* considered such limitations as applicable to the states, as you've pointed out yourself).

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting to see state legal tender laws. If the states are restricted from making something a tender in payment of debts, I want to see the laws based upon that interpretation of "no state shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts". It has to be consistent with the fact that only the feds can coin money and regulate the value thereof, which means, really, the only thing the states can consider money is what the feds make.

[jennem.livejournal.com]

You're not making any sense.

It has to be consistent with the fact that only the feds can coin money and regulate the value thereof, which means, really, the only thing the states can consider money is what the feds make.

I'd say, that's a "yes." What that has to do with your interpretation on the limit of the federal government's power to create legal tender only in the form of a metallurgical coin, I'm not sure.

At any rate, I'm going to bed. I think my position is pretty well established in the 10+ comments that have been made. I'm comfortable leaving the conversation as is for others to read and consider.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

I'd say, that's a "yes."

If you say that's a "yes," then maybe if the founders meant for any other thing to be money, they shouldn't have used the noun phrase "gold or silver coin". Maybe they should've thought of all those other metals which were already well-used long before they were even born?

[jennem.livejournal.com]

Maybe they should've thought of all those other metals which were already well-used long before they were even born?

Maybe it didn't really matter because states couldn't coin money in the first instance? State's can't make money, and they can't require their citizens to take anything other than gold or silver as legal tender.

The constitution explicitly limited the power of state governments to make legal tender anything other than gold or silver coin. (In addition to counting lower metallurgical elements out, it also counts out all other forms of legal tender, e.g. chickens, cotton, slaves (at that time), etc.) Are you seriously insinuating that such a limitation necessarily extends to limit the power of the federal government? There's a whole section limiting the federal government's power. If the Framers wanted to limit such a power, given the limitation on state power, don't you think they would have? If the Framers wanted "to coin money" to mean and only mean "to coin gold or silver money," don't you think they would have included such words? They obviously thought about using something other than gold or silver when they limited the power of the states.

That's really what you want to rest your argument on: the Constitution limited the states' power, so ergo, the federal government's power must also be limited to a gold and silver standard?

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Now you are getting it.

[yahvah.livejournal.com]

No, don't think that I'm suddenly joining the side of all the people who are totally wrong and have an inconsistent position. Once again, let me try to make this as clear as possible.

Law 1: Congress can coin money.
Law 2: No state can coin money.
Law 3: No state can make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.

States do not make money, nor has it been sufficiently shown by the opposition that states made or make laws saying what is money. It has not been sufficiently shown that the phrase "a tender in payment of debts" does not synonymously mean "offered as payment of debts". Until it's sufficiently shown, states cannot make any form of money, and can only offer gold and silver coins as payment. States offer federal reserve notes as payment, which are not gold and silver coins. Law 3 is not upheld.

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

Accept/offer and make are not the same thing.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I think you aren't using a dictionary that allows you to answer that question either.

And it isn't like "to coin" is the only word you are defining via the dictionary.