The Gold Seizure Court Cases

Michael S. Rozeff, on May 18, 2010, published part ten of his brilliant story on America’s decline into unconstitutional money, entitled "The U.S. Constitution and Money".

Rozeff's mission is to summarize one of my favorite monetary books of all time, Edwin Vieira’s Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution.

Part ten of the series is on the gold seizure court cases and Rozeff states, "Through lawyer tricks explained here, the Supreme Court refused to hear the challenges to gold seizure made by Frederick Campbell, but we review his lower court case. The Court did hear the Gold Clause Cases. We inspect how low the Court sank in rubber-stamping the unconstitutional actions of the other branches. Vieira believes that the Constitution’s enumerated powers on money make for a sound hard-money system in which banking can be made to play a proper role. In such a system, the government does not attempt to or in fact control the economy. His view is that it has taken considerable unconstitutional action and interpretation to create the unsound fiat-money system and government control of the economy that we now have and that he thinks is headed for disaster. His book documents the constitutional and monetary history by which the Constitution has been overcome in the monetary sphere. The removal of gold was a crucial step in this process that Vieira terms “the declension of the monetary system from bimetallism to fiat currency."

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 1 and Part 2, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 3 and Part 4, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 5, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 6, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 7, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 8, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 9, can be found here.

The U.S. Constitution and Money: The Gold Seizure Court Cases (Part 10)

The U.S. Constitution and Money, Part 11, can be found here.

Michael S. Rozeff is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire.