from Bill Still
Good morning, I’m still reporting on the economy.
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that abolitionist leader, Harriet Tubman would be replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill.
However friends of Alexander Hamilton were able to fight off his dismissal from the front of the $10 bill after a what Lew described as a long and difficult decision-making process.
However, there is another reason Jackson is getting the demotion. It’s all about President Obama’s ongoing efforts to make America not-so-great again.
And so it’s time to wheel out the nearly forgotten story of why Andrew Jackson first adorned America’s money and why he should keep his place on the $20 bill, and Alexander Hamilton should be the one replaced.
Hamilton epitomizes the big banker mentality. He was the assistant to Robert Morris, the head of this nation’s first privately-owned central bank, the Bank of North America, founded in 1781.
Interestingly, Morris was such a Tory at heart that he refused to sign the Declaration of Independence until weeks later, hoping that reconciliation with England could be achieved.
During the Constitutional Convention, very little of Hamilton’s proposals made it into the final document – except – one little item.
It was Hamilton who encouraged the insertion of what’s known as the “borrowing clause” into Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
“The Congress shall have Power To…borrow Money on the credit of the United States….”
Yes, Alexander Hamilton’s main achievement was as the founding father of our national debt. In fact Hamilton’s most famous quote is from a letter he wrote to banker, Robert Morris:
“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”
But a blessing to whom? Certainly not we, the people. This idea of a national debt was anathema to Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton’s elder by 12 years.
“We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.”
Andrew Jackson, 12 younger than Hamilton, was Hamilton’s exact opposite. He hated national debt and saw it as an evil force which allowed Congress to spend corruptly, and created an economic system where bankers always took the Lion’s share of America’s national profit.
Jackson’s greatness has been deliberately obscured by the very same forces that are destroying this nation today; those who encourage greater and greater levels of national debt, which only brings less power to the will of the American people.
But the story of Jackson’s 8-year battle against those who would indebt America in perpetuity, is one that needs to never be forgotten.
And that is why those who understand our history deeply placed Jackson on the 20 dollar bill, and a larger-than-life bronze statue of Andrew Jackson riding his horse, Duke, in front of the White House – only 200 yards north from the President’s front door.
Interestingly, this statue, erected in 1853, was not only the first bronze statue ever cast in the United States, but was the first in the world showing a horse rearing up on its hind legs.
Jackson is there to remind every future president just what his responsibilities are to the people of our entire nation, not just the banking class.
The similarities between Jackson’s embittered presidency and what a President Trump will have to fight are eerily similar. As Mark Twain put it:
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
Since the founding of America, powerful bankers have tried to control who gets to issue the money, because he who issues the nation’s money ultimately becomes the sovereign. The founders of this nation intended sovereignty to rest in the “people’s house” – the U.S. Congress.
Three privately-owned central banks have been voted in by Congress, then voted out again when they only benefited the bankers. America is now working on ridding itself of the 4th version of this bank – The Federal Reserve System.
When the election of 1828 came around, the existing central bank – called the 2nd Bank of the United States, or BUS, had a big problem. It needed it’s 20 year charter renewed by Congress or it too would die.
The BUS was created in 1816 and given a 20-year charter. It was sold as the best way for Congress to borrow money.
Of course most politicians love the idea of a national debt. They get the money immediately to spend on their re-elections, but who gets the bill – the next generation — after they are long gone.
Without a national debt, the only way politicians could get money would be to raise taxes – never a good idea before an election.
But as Proverbs 22:7 tells us:
“The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.”
That includes Congress, and at issue is sovereignty.
When central bank power grows, the power of the people declines