The Relevance of Abraham Lincoln's 17-Point Monetary Declaration

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching which unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln (21st November 1864)

In 1865, just before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln had made a 17- point monetary declaration. I wish to bring that forward, as it has great importance in the current financial and economic scenario.

I found this in the book "How Unregulated Capital Caused The Crash of 2008," written and compiled by Arthur Swan.

1) Money is the creature of law and the creation of the original issue of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national government.

2) Money possesses no value to the State other then that given to it by circulation.

3) Capital has its proper place and is entitled to every protection. The wages of men (however) should be recognized in the structure of and in the order as more important than the wages of money.

4) No duty is more imperative for the Government than the duty it owes the people to furnish them with sound and uniform currency, and of regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labor will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.

5) The available supply of gold and silver being wholly inadequate to permit the issuance of coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in the volume required to serve the needs of the people, some other basis for the issuance of currency must be developed to prevent undue fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for money of intrinsic value that may come into use.

6) The monetary needs of an increasing number of people advancing towards higher standards of living can and should be met by the Government. Such needs can be served by the issue of National Currency and credit through the operation of a National Banking System.

7) The circulation of a medium of exchange issued and backed by the Government can be properly regulated and redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such amount as may be necessary by taxation, redeposit and otherwise.

8) Government has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the Nation.
9) Government stands behind its currency and credit and the bank deposit of the Nation. No individual should suffer loss of money through depreciation or inflated currency or bank bankruptcy.

10) Government possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise need not and should not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing Governmental work and public enterprise.

11) The Government should create, issue and circulate all currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and buying power of the Consumers.

12) By adoption of these principles the long felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied.

13) The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges.

14) The financing of all public enterprise, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration.

15) The people can be furnished with a currency as safe as their own Government.

16) Money will cease to be a master and become a servant of humanity.

17) Democracy will rise superior to the money power.

In my opinion, some of the points in this 17-point plan are of utmost importance in today's scenario. The points in bold are the ones I consider very important.

Today, the private banking system creates most of the money in circulation through debt. In my opinion, this needs to change or common people and corporates who have the real wealth will always be slaves to bankers, who have the power just to create money.

The Government should also recognize that its key role is to ensure a sound currency as mentioned in the fourth point. These days, sound currency seems to be a matter of little importance to the Government. Even if they talk about wanting a sound currency they do nothing to prove that they really want the same.

Unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln did not live to implement his policies. But his prediction of 1864 (refer to the quote at the beginning) is something which looks to be becoming a reality.

Comments

[Mansoor H. ...:]

Please see the following article which incorporates some of your ideas:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

Nov 02 08:25 AM

[cove3:]

Lincoln never said any of this. The first quote has been around for a hundred years but has been shown to be based on a forged letter.
www.de-fact-o.com/fact...

There are no seventeen points either. They don't appear in any of his writings assembled by Nicolay and Hay, his secretaries, nor at the official AL web site.

Lincoln, for all his greatness, was woefully lacking in understanding of monetary principles and delegated everything monetary/economic to his Secretary of the Treasury, Salamon P. Chase.

I wish it were true, as the ideas are all valid, but they did not come from Lincoln, as great a man as he was.

Ron

Nov 02 09:31 PM