The State Remedy: How to Protect Your Wealth, Restore Comity for All, and Save Our Republic for Future Generations

I am on a mission to re-establish a sound monetary system, one which uses gold and silver. Given the development of government controlled digital currencies and ledgers, the abuse of those who can least afford it by the Federal Reserve, and the state of America's affairs, there is no more important mission.

The first step is to educate people in a short time-frame on what should be a very simple topic, constitutional money; unfortunately, the matter becomes more complex when the subject expands to encompass currency. I have written “The State Remedy” to jump-start this mission. I summarize relevant history and current events. Extending that education, I propose a means to establish legal standing, which is required for a trial court to hear the case. A solid legal argument follows in the full text of “The State Remedy,” one that utilizes the Supreme Court’s own rulings in favor of the remedy sought.

A sound monetary system and freedom of speech are fundamental to a harmonious society, where the free and fair exchange of goods and services and expression of conflicting viewpoints occurs, enabling the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Both are rights protected, not granted, by the Constitution. Failure to exercise these rights is leading to the demise of our republic; she is withering on the vine akin to how an unused muscle atrophies. Indeed, unrestrained currency and a lack of fiscal responsibility has amplified the power of the purse; corruption flourishes. General distrust and lack of respect between individual and government, individuals, peoples, and nations prevails; there is no longer comity.

The freedom of speech, protected by the First Amendment, was discussed in a hearing held on 20 July 2023 by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Per Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “The First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for." He also said that we need to address issues that affect the American people, and that “We can’t do that without the First Amendment.” ¹

A specific property right not mentioned in the hearing is the right to a sound monetary system. The right to a sound monetary system is an essential element to property rights, ordered liberty, and a republican form of government; despite being addressed in numerous sections of the Constitution, it has nearly all but been discarded.

Do you wish to protect your wealth from unconstitutional attacks – from the increase of the money supply (inflation) that results in rising prices of goods and services (wages are the price of labor), ultimately a taxation on wealth and income? The fallout from the current Federal Reserve System monetary policy disproportionately and negatively impacts lower income Americans, widening the comity gap. Are you concerned and prepared for the more direct attack, the instantaneous declaration of a new currency as legal tender that can interfere with obligations of contracts? Such an occurrence would not be a first in America, and certainly not among the nations of the world.

Property rights and free speech may appear at first to be two unrelated topics. According to a recent report published by the House Judiciary Committee and a Select Subcommittee, the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) tried to cover up censorship practices that required cooperation with the likes of Twitter and Facebook². Block chain technology and the Federal Reserve’s (FED) proposed Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) can be used to monitor transactions. The FED claims that if the digital dollar is implemented that “an appropriate balance between safeguarding the privacy rights of consumers and affording the transparency necessary to deter criminal activity” will transpire³. In that scenario, the federal government will no longer need to engage private big technology companies in an attempt to regulate, censor, close, freeze or otherwise interfere with account holders. The new digital dollar certainly has the potential to displace paper dollars (Federal Reserve Notes, aka FRNs) even if Congress does not declare CBDCs as legal tender; CBDCs will most likely will replace the FRN if Congress declares them legal tender.

The enumerated Constitutional powers granted to the federal and state governments in regard to money and currency have been transcended; apparently the Constitutional prohibitions are optional. Legal tender paper currency has displaced (not supplemented) legal tender money (United States minted gold and silver coin) – all are currently legal tender. The quantity of currency has no limits, as opposed to the finite quantity of legal tender gold and silver coin, and even commodity money (gold and silver bullion). The FED has had the “privilege” and authority of issuing the world reserve currency since 1944, despite defaulting on backing the FRN dollar with gold in 1971. The United States government has abused the privilege and weaponized it, e.g., issuing sanctions against foreign peoples and governments. Will regulations and perhaps sanctions be used by the federal government against its own people through a new CDBD currency?

What If the Privately Funded Federal Reserve Directly Funded More Government Agencies Outside of Congress' Appropriations?

While the member banks of the Federal Reserve are private entities, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve is an independent federal government agency, its seven members (or ‘governors’) appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate⁴. Among the five general functions of the FED to promote the effective operation of the U.S. economy and public interest are: the promotion of the stability of the financial system, promotion of the safety and soundness of individual institutions, and promotion of consumer protection and community development through consumer-focused supervision and examination and administration of consumer laws and regulations⁵. Its operations are not funded by Congressional appropriations; rather, it funds itself through interest income and fees for services to depository institutions.⁶ Congress intentionally created this situation in the spirit of “autonomy,” and more recently created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) in 2010 as an independent bureau within the already independent FED. CFBP operations are funded via monetary transfers from the FED subject only to a statutory cap and the CFBP director’s identified need.

Is this not concerning? What agencies or bureaus in government should be autonomous, free from oversight by elected representation? What if the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), or the DHS itself were funded by monetary transfers from the FED? Many have called upon the FED to fight racism; should another bureau be created toward this objective, an autonomous one funded by FED money transfers, or simply append it as essential to one or more of the FED’s Congressionally mandated functions? Like the FED, our military leadership is intended to be independent, free from disruptive changes when new administrations take office after elections; but their funding is dependent upon Congressional appropriations.

Imagine Congress authorizing the military leaders of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines to charge fees to the companies in the military industrial complex in order to pay for their salaries, rather than rely upon the Treasury of the United States according to appropriations made by Congress? One might argue that this is a political question, rather than a question for the Supreme Court; but isn’t the foundation of a republican form of government one that specifically subjects the government to the will of the people through its elected representatives, rather than the creation of autonomous bodies of unelected officials, whose funding sources, in the least, raises questions about conflicts of interest?

Can the FED even support these monetary transfers to federal agencies or bureaus? Surely there are limitations on the FED’s balance sheet, right? There would be for any commercial bank or institution, where losses or expenditures that exceed its capital assets lead to insolvency. However, under FED accounting rules it can carry losses in excess of capital as a negative liability on its balance sheet called “Earnings Remittances Due to the Treasury”^7,8. So to avoid insolvency, the FED redefines a loss as an asset; if a private entity adopted this practice, it would be illegal. Is Congress just beginning to tap into this alternative accounting rule of (unlimited) negative liabilities to fund government operations, bypassing a need for a Congressionally approved budget and avoiding increases in (or reducing the rate of increase of) the national deficit and debt?

Does the Fed Really Keep Gold Reserves Only as a Tradition?

According to an exchange between then Chair of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke and then Chair of the House subcommittee on monetary policy Ron Paul on 13 July 2011, per Bernanke – gold is not money; the FED keeps gold on reserve merely as a tradition⁹. Whereas, in fact, gold and silver coin have been legal tender in the United States, not only per the Constitution, but repetitively via Congressional statutes since the 1792 Coinage Act and remain so even today [31 USC 5103: Legal Tender¹⁰]; the only exception being Roosevelt and Congress’ usurpation of property outlawing ownership of gold and gold coin (not silver or silver coin) from 1933 to 1974 [Executive Order 6102, 5 April 1933¹¹; the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, 30 January 1934¹²]; meanwhile, per the Federal Reserve’s own website on its history – during WWII “Britain and other allies paid for war materials and other supplies produced domestically by shipping gold to the United States”¹³. When the Federal Reserve was first established in 1913, subscriptions for stock by national banks were purchased with gold or gold certificates [1913 Federal Reserve Act, Sec 2¹⁴; now 12 USC 282¹⁵], U.S. minted gold and silver coin are constitutionally and statutorily legal tender, not merely tradition. Furthermore, the federal government reports that since 1913 the FRN dollar has lost more than 95 percent of its purchasing power¹⁶.

Russia and China have increased their gold reserves from less than 500 metric tons to over 2,000 metric tons between the years 2000 and 2022¹⁷. Currently, the United States reports to hold about 8,100 metric tons, Germany about 3,400 and Italy & France each about 2,400 metric tons. These countries collectively hold more than 50 percent of the gold held by central banks; the gold held in reserves collectively by all central banks is about 35,000 metric tons, about one-fifth of the gold in the world. Countries have increased the rate of repatriation of their gold holdings since the sanctions placed upon Russia resulting in seizing about $640 billion dollars in gold and forex reserves from Russia, equivalent to about 10,800 metric tons of gold¹⁸. Gold appears to be a strong global tradition.

What happens if the FRN is no longer the world reserve currency? Demand for dollars will dwindle; with imports currently far exceeding exports, our ability to export dollars for real goods & services will drastically diminish. Dollars will flood back to the United States fueling inflation, perhaps hyper-inflation. How about financial panics? When the Great Recession initially took place in 2008, large financial institutions began to accept gold instead of FRNs as payments for debt – apparently merely part of the tradition. Was this situation good or bad for the debtor? How about the creditor?

Dollar Is a Substitute for Money, Thus Currency Controlled by Congress and Is a Promise to Pay Money – Welcome to the Legal Tender Cases

To answer these questions, we turn to history and adjudication of the highest court in the United States of America. In the Legal Tender Cases, the Supreme Court of the United States addressed paper money (greenbacks) issued by Congress according to the 1862 & 1863 Legal Tender Acts, and other related act with regards to resumption of species (gold and silver coin) payments for said greenbacks. The Court ruled that contracts for general dollars, before or after the Legal Tender Acts, now mean paper dollars, not gold or silver coined money dollars as previously intended and ruled upon by the Court; a debtor now must discharge debt for general dollars with paper dollars unless the debtor waives his right and tenders something else that the creditor acquiesces in receiving. The decision flipped on its head historical common law and Supreme Court precedent, where general dollars due by contract were gold or silver coins unless the creditor waived his right and accepted something else that the debtor tendered as payment of debt, e.g., private bank notes or some other form of paper money¹⁹.

One principle used by the Court for this ruling was that a “dollar” is whatever the law says it is at the time that the debt is due, i.e., Congress has the authority to declare what is legal tender. The Court relied upon the power of sovereignty, specifically Queen Elizabeth’s power to debase the currency at will, undertaken in the late 1500s during the Tyrone Rebellion or Nine Years' War.

The Court relied upon another principle, one based upon the implied power for Congress to control currency, that which circulates and serves as a money substitute. Thereby, Congress has the power to give paper money or anything it chooses the characteristics and qualities of money in order to provide for a common currency. But per the Court, Congress cannot make “any Thing” money, nor is the emission of bills of credit (e.g., government creating paper money) the coining of money, nor does the power to do so derive from the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Instead, the Court claims that the power comes from power over a larger subject, currency. The Court clarified that paper dollars (greenbacks at the time) are not money; instead, they are promises to pay money, gold and silver coin; they are “compelled borrowing” whereby paper dollars per the Legal Tender Acts have equal legal value as do gold and silver coin dollars (i.e., paper dollars are at par with coin dollars, although economically they may not be equal in value). Furthermore, greenbacks are ultimately redeemable in gold and silver coin (initially greenbacks were not redeemable in coin, economically being worth only thirty percent of gold and silver coin dollars, until about a decade later when they were redeemable in gold and silver coin). Greenbacks (and now today FRNs) function as a money substitute but are not strictly speaking money (gold and silver coin) – they are currency.

Can Gold Clauses in Contracts Save Us from a Digital Dollar Currency?

Fortunately, the Court explicitly pointed out that the ruling does not apply to expressly exempt contracts, which are contracts that specify another species, such as gold or silver coined dollars (legal tender money) or bullion (commodity money), another commodity (e.g., oil), or some other species of asset. Between the 1860s and 1933, society clearly understood (not necessarily agreeing with) the basis of the Court’s ruling, responding by utilizing gold clauses in contracts to both legally and economically protect their property – choosing not to waive their right to legal tender coin dollars for paper dollars. In contrast, the super majority of today’s society fails to comprehend the Court’s ruling and almost exclusively utilizes paper dollars (FRNs).

What if Congress decides to create a new legal tender currency, e.g., the digital dollar, to replace paper FRNs or coin dollars, akin to the displacement of gold or silver coin as it did in 1862 with greenbacks and later in 1913 with FRNs? Or if Congress simply decrees that the current dollar be replaced with a new dollar at a ratio of its choosing, e.g. 10:1 or 100:1, perhaps through the FED’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)? As a creditor, are your contracts for general dollars subject to whatever the federal government declares by law to be a dollar, or are your contracts expressly exempt?

What follows is a summary of my journey starting in 2008 during the Great Recession to seek an understanding of the monetary system in the United States of America. What I discovered is not new, but nevertheless was transformational in gaining some understanding of what is wrong with our monetary system, for how long and why; most importantly I was inspired to seek a means to achieve a remedy in the courts. While others are surely aware of the situation, I did not find one organization willing to even consider my offer to dedicate my resources and time in conjunction with existing efforts towards a legal confrontation seeking a remedy to the unconstitutional monetary system that exists today in the several States of the Union, Washington D.C., and United States territories. None of the following responded to my requests: Tom Woods, the Ron Paul Institute, the Birch Society, Jeff Deist at the Mises Institute, and Judge Andrew Napolitano, to name a few. Perhaps the lack of response in some respects is understandable as you, they, and I are all very busy people. But weren’t the Founding Fathers of this country quite busy, too?

Admittedly, my objective initially was to seek to overturn what are called the Legal Tender Cases; however, that is not remotely possible at this point in time. Perhaps they may be overturned at some point, but only if a “bridge” remedy paves a path that leads to circumstances that eventually support the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in rectifying their error. In fact, the bridge may ultimately extend and transform into its own complete remedy, a State remedy, that does not even requiring the Legal Tender Cases to be overturned.

Such an undertaking, if pursued and successful, would lead to eliminating or reducing one of the largest reasons to exist for the organizations that I reached out to. One might have argued the same about abortion, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 in the Dobbs case supports the “too busy” scenario.

Thank You, Dr. Vieira!

In contrast, Dr. Edwin Vieira, a lawyer and the author of Pieces of Eight, exchanged multiple emails with me on the matter. I inquired if he would represent me in court; he declined, having recently retired. He is “the expert” on the monetary powers and disabilities of the Constitution of the United States; and has previously represented numerous clients in cases heard by the Supreme Court, winning three landmark cases that “established constitutional and statutory limitations on the uses to which labor unions, in both the private and the public sectors, may apply fees extracted from nonunion workers as a condition of their employment”²⁰. Dr. Vieria did offer to consider assisting me by writing an amicus brief for the Supreme Court, which is a report offering additional, relevant information or arguments that the court may want to consider before making their ruling.

Regardless of your personal view on the right and morality of abortion, I think you will find, as will history, the Dobbs ruling to be monumental – not because of the abortion topic, which in and of itself is historic, but because the ruling along with several more recent rulings on the Second Amendment may be the beginning of the Court’s return to adjudicating based upon more sound constitutional and legal bases. Furthermore, only one year after Dobbs, the Supreme Court’s ruling to virtually ban affirmative action strengthens such an assumption.

Being completely transparent, my intentions in writing a book titled The State Remedy are as follows. I wish to assist in re-establishing a sound monetary system, one which uses gold and silver. The first step is to educate people in a short time-frame on what should be a very simple topic, constitutional money; unfortunately, the matter becomes more complex when the subject expands to encompass currency. I summarize relevant history and current events. Extending that education, I propose a means to establish legal standing, which is required for a trial court to hear the case. A solid legal argument follows in the full text of “The State Remedy,” one that utilizes the Supreme Court’s own rulings in favor of the remedy sought.

I ask you to join me and others like me to peacefully and legally pursue a remedy. “A right without a remedy is as if it were not. For every beneficial purpose, it may be said not to exist.”²¹

While I believe the information provided to be factual, the material is for educational purposes only. I am not a licensed or trained attorney; I highly advise you to consult a licensed attorney before making taking any action. I emphatically and distinctly denounce and do not support illegal action, especially violent illegal action.

Visit TheStateRemedy.com to download your free book and connect with others who share these goals to protect our wealth, restore comity to all, and save our republic for future generations.

1. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, 20 July 2023; https://judiciary.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-weaponization-federal-government-3
2. THE WEAPONIZATION OF CISA: HOW A “CYBERSECURITY” AGENCY COLLUDED WITH BIG TECH AND “DISINFORMATION” PARTNERS TO CENSOR AMERICANS, Interim Staff Report of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommitte on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, U.S. House of Representatives, 26 June 2023. See website: New Report Reveals CISA Tried to Cover Up Censorship Practices, 26 June 2023, Washington, D.C., Judiciary Committee, https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-report-reveals-cisa-tried-cover-censorship-practices
3. CBDC, Frequently Asked Questions, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://www.federalreserve.gov/cbdc-faqs.htm
4. https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-board.htm
5. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10031.pdf; https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/files/pf_1.pdf
6. https://www.frbsf.org/education/publications/doctor-econ/2006/may/federal-reserve-funding/
7. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4591412-the-fed-loses-money-for-the-first-time-in-107-years-why- it-matters
8. https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/chapter-6-reporting-requirements.htm
9. U.S. House Financial Services Committee Meeting, 13 July 2011, Ron Paul questioning Ben Bernanke starting at 4:30; see https://youtu.be/2NJnL10vZ1Y
10. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-1996-title31/pdf/USCODE-1996-title31-subtitleIV.pdf
11. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/federal-reserve-bank-new-york-circulars-466/1204-executive-order-forbidding-hoarding-gold-15910
12. https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/48/STATUTE-48-Pg337a.pdf
13. https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/wwii-and-its-aftermath#:~:text=An%20additional%20facto
14. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-1996-title12/pdf/USCODE-1996-title12-chap2-subchapVI_2.pdf
15. https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-1996-title12/USCODE-1996-title12-chap2-subchapVI_2-sec282/context
16. Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R
17. https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gold-reserves
18. Forex reserves are not physical gold; see https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/countries-repatriating-gold-wake-sanctions-against-russia-study-2023-07-10/
19. Gwin v. Breedlove, 43 U.S. 29 (1844); https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/43/29/
20. Calling in the Constitution, Kim Greenhouse, 16 November 2022, https://itsrainmakingtime.ch/calling-in-the-us-constitution-2/
21. on Hoffman v City of Quincy, 71 US 535 [1866]