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.It laid the foundation of a stupendous public debt, which the holders thereof would strive to perpetuate byevery means in their power, and it was the first step to fasten on the people the most powerful andmerciless tyranny that ever cursed a free people - the centralized money power known as the nationalbanking system.The bill, as amended, became a law on July 11, 1862, and, from that time, began the depreciation of thegreenback currency.The banking power, which had succeeded in inducing Congress and the President to cripple thatcurrency, which eventually saved the Union, afterward pointed the finger of scorn at this money as adebased currency, and they, therefore, impliedly damned their own nefarious conduct by denouncing it ashttp://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/comingbattle/cbchap2.htm (5 of 25) [9/11/2000 18:21:25]The Coming Battle, Chapter 2"rag-baby" money.As a result of this act as amended, the merchant who52paid duties on merchandise imported from abroad was compelled to pay the taxes levied thereon, in coin.To obtain that kigid of money he must proceed to the bullion broker, and pay him a large premium forthe coin to mate his payment of the customs levied on his merchandise.The bond holder was paid hisinterest on government bonds in gold, which was afterward sold by him to the importer, at a highpremium.This legislation was the result toward which the bullion brokers and gold gamblers of Wall street bent alltheir energies to procure, when they induced the government to rob the greenback of its full legal tenderdebt-paying power.It was the consummation of the most dishonest financial scheme ever perpetratedupon a heavily taxed and patriotic people.Immediately following the visit of these bankers to Washington, a circular was issued by the Londonbankers, and distributed by one Hazard, who was their representative in this country at that time.The contents of this famous circular are as follows: -"Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed.This I and myEuropean friends are in favor of; for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of thelaborer, while the European plan, led on by England, is capital control of labor by controlling wages.This can bc done by controlling the money.The debt, that capitalists will see is to be made out of thewar, most be used as a measure to control the volume of money.To accomplish this the bonds must beused as a banking basis.We are now waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to make hisrecommendation to Congress.It wil1 not do to allow the greenback (as it is called) to circulate as moneyany length of time, for we cannot control it."53The existence of this remarkable circular has been strenuously denied time and again by the nationalbanking money power.Notwithstanding these denials, the line of action indicated in that circular hasbeen consistently pursued from that day to this.The advice of said Hazard was at once acted upon by the organized banks, and they proceeded to mateknown their demands to Congress.Therefore, a bill was speedily brought forward by Senator Sherman in the United States Senate,providing for the incorporation and organization of the present system of national banks as banks of issue- a bill whose passage meant the creation of moneyed institutions, whose interests would bc, or could bemade, antagonistic to the nation.Is it not exceedingly strange, that Senator Sherman, who, in his able speech of February 13, 1862,advanced powerful arguments in behalf of Government legal tender currency, or greenbacks, in which hestated that he preferred the credit of the United States, based, as it was, upon all the productions andproperty of the people, to the issue of any corporation however well guarded and managed, would thussuddenly change his position?http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/comingbattle/cbchap2.htm (6 of 25) [9/11/2000 18:21:25]The Coming Battle, Chapter 2In less than a year from the time he so ably defended legal tender greenback currency, he reversed hisposition, and fathered a, financial measure which brought into being a dangerous rival to the Governmentwhen it was engaged in a death struggle.In substance, this act provided for the incorporation of banking companies, by which not less than fivepersons could, under certain restrictions, organize a bank, by depositing with the Secretary of theTreasury54United States bonds to secure the circulation of national bank notes as currency.The capitalists thus organizing themselves into a national bank association, were required to enter intoarticles of association which should specify, in general terms, the object for which the association wasformed.These articles were to be signed by the persons uniting to form the association, and a copy of them wasto be forwarded to the Comptroller of the Currency to be filed and preserved in his office.No association could bc organized as a national bank with a less capital than one hundred thousanddollars; except that banks with a capital of not less than fifty thousand dollars could, with the approval ofthe Secretary of the Treasury, bc organized in any place having a population not exceeding six thousandinhabitants
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