{"id":630234,"date":"2026-07-05T01:10:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=630234"},"modified":"2026-07-05T01:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:10:59","slug":"patriotism-shouldnt-apply-to-the-debauched-dollar-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=630234","title":{"rendered":"Patriotism Shouldn\u2019t Apply To The Debauched Dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Please Follow us on <\/em><\/a>Truth Social<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>X<\/em><\/a>\u00a0, <\/em>Youtube<\/em><\/a>\u00a0, <\/em>Minds<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Telegram<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Rumble<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>GETTR<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Gab<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Instagram<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission\u2022Mises Wire<\/a>\u2022<\/em>Stuart Englert<\/a><\/p>\n

As the United States prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary, Americans will celebrate the nation\u2019s founding with pageantry, parades, pomp and patriotism.<\/p>\n

Loving one\u2019s country of birth and taking pride in its independence-inspired origins, praiseworthy accomplishments, and laudable legacy is a natural inclination and respectable trait.<\/p>\n

Similar celebration and reverence shouldn\u2019t apply to the dollar, the nation\u2019s debased and debauched fiat currency. Even though Federal Reserve Notes feature portraits of prominent American patriots and U.S. presidents, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the founding fathers weren\u2019t fond of unkept paper promises and currency not redeemable for silver or gold.<\/p>\n

A decade after the\u00a0Declaration of Independence<\/a>\u00a0was signed on July 4, 1776, Washington expressed his concerns about paper currency to Jefferson. In a\u00a0letter penned Aug. 1, 1786<\/a>, the president-to-be noted some of the original 13 states were \u201cfalling into very foolish and wicked plans of emitting paper money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six months later, Washington expounded on the economic degradation and moral degeneracy that arise from corrupt, defective and dishonest fiat currency.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice,\u201d Washington wrote in a Jan. 9, 1787\u00a0letter to Jabez Bowen<\/a>, then chancellor of Brown University in Providence, R.I.<\/p>\n

Jefferson, chief author of the Declaration of Independence, condemned paper currency as well. He considered silver and gold superior forms of money. He believed precious metals have intrinsic value because of their scarcity and trusted them as a reliable store of wealth. Unlike paper notes, the monetary metals couldn\u2019t be printed in unlimited quantities by banks and governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaper is poverty, that is only the ghost of money, and not money itself,\u201d Jefferson wrote in a\u00a01788 letter to Edward Carrington<\/a>, a fellow Virginia lawyer, planter, patriot and politician.<\/p>\n

After his retirement as the nation\u2019s third president, Jefferson reiterated his support of gold and silver over unbacked paper bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission,\u00a0weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals . . .,\u201d he wrote in a\u00a0letter to his son-in-law John Wayles Eppes<\/a>\u00a0on June, 24, 1813. \u201c[Paper currency] is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Based on the historic record of unredeemable, government-decreed paper currencies, Jefferson\u2019s words were accurate and profound.<\/p>\n

Fiat Lessons Learned<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As military and political leaders, Washington and Jefferson witnessed, experienced and endured the perils and pitfalls of the nation\u2019s original paper money.<\/p>\n

Authorized by the Continental Congress in 1775, the\u00a0Continental currency<\/a>, which ironically helped the fledgling nation secure independence from Great Britain, was printed to finance the Revolutionary War and specified redemption in silver or gold at a prescribed rate.<\/p>\n

Called \u201cbills of credit,\u201d the paper notes were used to outfit and pay the Continental Army, to purchase military equipment and supplies, and to fund operations of the provisional American government.<\/p>\n

Problems arose when copious quantities of the paper currency were printed and counterfeited. Because newly-formed government didn\u2019t have taxing authority or sufficient silver and gold to back the bills, they rapidly lost value, which later inspired the phrase \u201cnot worth a Continental.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA wagonload of currency will hardly purchase a wagonload of provisions,\u201d\u00a0Washington reportedly remarked<\/a>\u00a0about the hyperinflated promissory notes while he commanded the Continental Army.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Faced with massive domestic and\u00a0foreign war debts<\/a>, irate citizens and\u00a0resentful soldiers<\/a>, and prospects of an economic collapse, the nation\u2019s early leaders learned painful and valuable lessons about fiat currencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In particular, they discovered precious metals were desired as money and unbacked paper currency was despised, both during the war and for decades after the nascent nation won its independence. The upshot explained why gold and silver are the only money mentioned in the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

Support for Metallic Money<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Lessons learned by the founding fathers led to a constitutional provision and foundational currency law that established a monetary standard for the entire country, and authorized silver and gold as the nation\u2019s statutory money.<\/p>\n

As the principal architect of the\u00a0Constitution<\/a>, James Madison criticized state-issued paper currency and unbacked bills of credit because their value inevitably eroded, usually through official legislative actions that created excessive paper promises that couldn\u2019t be fulfilled.<\/p>\n

The Virginia delegate and lawmaker considered depreciating paper notes unjust to creditors when mandated as legal tender and unfair to debtors if they weren\u2019t legal tender. As such, he believed fiat currency was a threat to personal property and public prosperity.<\/p>\n

Madison, who went on to become the nation\u2019s fourth president, also understood\u00a0Gresham\u2019s law<\/a>: \u201cBad money drives out good.\u201d He noted the difficulty of getting specie, or silver and gold coinage, when excessive fiat currency is in circulation. People tend to hold onto their \u201chard money,\u201d which retains value, while spending their \u201csoft\u201d or paper currency, whose value fluctuates and declines over time.<\/p>\n

While drafting the highest law of the land in 1787, Madison advocated a bimetallic money standard and championed precious metals as the basis of the nation\u2019s currency system. His efforts succeeded, resulting in\u00a0Article I, Section 10, Clause 1<\/a>, which prohibits the states from making anything but gold and silver tender for payment of debts.<\/p>\n

After ratification and implementation of the Constitution in 1788 and 1789, respectfully, the nation\u2019s founders undertook the task of defining the U.S. dollar as a specific purity and weight of silver and gold. That was accomplished with passage of the\u00a0Coinage Act of 1792<\/a>, which authorized creation of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, and the issuance of gold, silver and copper coins.<\/p>\n

As Secretary of State, Jefferson proposed the decimal-based dollar system in the law while Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton formulated the legal and fixed silver-to-gold exchange rate of 15 to 1. Washington, the nation\u2019s first president, signed the measure into law during his first term.<\/p>\n

Fiat Currency Comes Full Circle<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Much has changed\u2014and stayed the same\u2014with the nation\u2019s money during the last two and a half centuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contrary to the cautionary advice and concerns expressed by the founding fathers, their warnings and wisdom about the dangers and drawbacks of fiat currency eventually were forgotten and unheeded.<\/p>\n

Through a long, complicated series of new laws, legislative revisions and executive actions, Congress and the U.S. government gradually abandoned the nation\u2019s bimetallic standard and returned to fiat currency by making unbacked Federal Reserve Notes legal tender.<\/p>\n

Over the last 250 years, the nation has come full circle. Born by emitting excessive and virtually worthless Continentals, the United States today relies on an increasingly virtual and worthless supply of unbacked currency conjured into existence by the Federal Reserve, the nation\u2019s central bank, and its affiliates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blind Faith in Unsound Money\u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

While Federal Reserve Notes are used in millions of transactions daily and the fiat currency has been government-mandated legal tender since passage of the\u00a0Emergency Banking Act of 1933<\/a>, American patriotism doesn\u2019t\u2014and shouldn\u2019t\u2014require absolute devotion to the ever-depreciating dollar. Blind faith in unsound money is misguided and financially foolish.<\/p>\n

Though U.S. greenbacks and coinage bear the likenesses of some of the nation\u2019s foremost forefathers, the physical monetary units and their progressively more common and prevalent electronic equivalent lose purchasing power with each passing year. The same item bought for $1 in 1933 would cost $25 today, a cumulative inflation rate of nearly 2,500 percent, according to the\u00a0US Inflation Calculator<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Driven by excessive currency creation, persistent inflation acts like a perpetual tax, undermining personal savings and liberty.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something to bear in mind as we\u2014freedom-loving Americans and flag-waving patriots\u2014commemorate the nation\u2019s founding, celebrate 250 years of independence, and watch barrages of glittering golden fireworks and shimmering silver salutes explode in the night sky on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>\u2018NO AD\u2019 subscription for CDM!\u00a0\u00a0Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/h2>\n

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Please Follow us on Truth Social, X\u00a0, Youtube\u00a0, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GETTR, Gab, Instagram Reprinted with permission\u2022Mises Wire\u2022Stuart Englert As the United States prepares to commemorate its 250th anniversary, Americans will celebrate the nation\u2019s founding with pageantry, parades, pomp and patriotism. Loving one\u2019s country of birth and taking pride in its independence-inspired origins, praiseworthy accomplishments,… Continue reading Patriotism Shouldn\u2019t Apply To The Debauched Dollar<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":630224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,10,21,12,11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancel-culture","category-censorship","category-civil-liberties","category-election-integrity","category-equal-justice","category-free-speech","category-religious-freedom","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=630234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/630224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=630234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=630234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=630234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}