Chapter 8: The Civil War – A Freemason Feud by Design
The War on Gold and Devaluation of Silver
People have debated for generations over what caused the Civil War, however, most agree it was the issue of slavery. The north wanted to free the slaves, and the South wanted to hold onto them as “property.” But, have you ever stopped to wonder, or think that maybe, there is a lot more to it than that? Who were the forces in the North and who were the forces in the South? And how do we know they weren’t working together to form a “more perfect Union?”
Actually, this is exactly what I propose in this chapter. That there were forces in both the North and the South, and they worked in collaboration to bring about a dramatic change after the Civil War in 1868. How do I know this? By looking at the circumstances surrounding the Civil War, the events which led up to the war and the events that happened immediately after it ended, and from this, we can see what the purpose ultimately was.
Another aspect that needs consideration is the dramatic changes in the volume of precious metals in circulation and the attempts to restrict production and use of them. First, we will examine the monetary aspects of the beginning of the Civil War, then we will look at the forces in the North and South being driven by the issues of slavery.
At the time the Civil War began in 1861 the money in circulation consisted of gold, silver and state bank currency. The government resorted to the sale of bonds to raise money to suppress the rebellion of the Confederacy. Both France and Spain were run by the royal branches of the main ruling families and had invested heavily in the Bank of England as well as foreign investments into the United States central bank. This was the main cause for their involvement in financing and aiding the South. It was an attempt to support insurrection which would create a change in the national government. This was accomplished by a collective of actors from the Rothschilds to the Masons in the Northern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite as well as the Southern Jurisdiction.
To meet the demand for money in circulation by the Federal Government, on July 17 and August 5, 1861, the Secretary of the Treasury was authorized to print fifty million worth of “demand notes,” which were fully backed by gold and silver, and were a favorite among the American people. Today we call these Gold and Silver Certificates. The government had issued these twenty times previously from the Treasury up until 1861 and this had never been a problem for the country. Another one hundred and fifty million was going to be approved when a “delegation of bankers and coin vendors” organized themselves and requested a meeting with the Committee on Ways and Means of the House, and the meeting was held on February 11, 1862. An issuance of two kinds of notes together not to exceed $150,000,000 was agreed upon. (1)
The proposed amendment was criticized by Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania and Mr. Spaulding of New York. Mr. Stevens made the following statement:
“A doleful sound came up from the caverns of the bullion brokers and the saloons of the associated banks. Their cashiers and agents were soon on the ground, and persuaded the Senate with but little deliberation to mangle and destroy what it had cost the House months to digest, consider and pass.”
“Instead of being a beneficent and invigorating measure, it is now positively mischievous. It has all the bad qualities which its enemies charged on the original bill and none of its benefits. It now creates money and by its very terms declares it a depreciated currency. It makes two classes of money – one for banks and brokers and another for the people. It discriminates between the rights of different classes of creditors; allowing the rich capitalists to demand gold and compelling the ordinary lender of money on individual security to receive notes which the Government had purposely discredited.”
(1) Coming Battle p. 30-31
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The bill became law on July 11, 1862 and the Greenback began to depreciate. Immediately following the historic meeting of the bankers with Congress, a circular went out by the London bankers which read as follows:
“Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This I and my European friends are in favor of; for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborer, while the European plan, led on by England, is capital control of labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. To accomplish this the bonds must be used as a banking basis. We are now waiting for the Secretary of the Treasury to make his recommendation to Congress. It will not do to allow the greenback (as it is called) to circulate as money any length of time, for we cannot control it.” (2)
The next major step towards the banker monopoly over America was the National Banking Act of 1863 which provided for the incorporation of banking companies, organized by no less than five people, and under certain restrictions, by the act of depositing bonds with the Secretary of the Treasury and thus securing the issue of national bank notes as currency. It also gave the national banking associations the legal right to institute suits at law in the United States courts as courts of original jurisdiction. This further gave protection to the national banks and disempowered the individual by placing the national banks outside the jurisdiction of state courts.
Quoting Walbert in The Coming Battle: “This law placed it in the hands of the money power to contract or expand the volume of money at its pleasure, and, therefore, enhance or depreciate the value of stocks, bonds, and all other forms of property in the United States.
“The far-reaching influence of this act of Congress, chartering national banks, becomes apparent, when the true principles and functions of Government are considered in all their relations to the people.
“Pre-eminent among the various powers conferred upon, or assumed by a sovereign state, are those of taxation, of raising armies, and of coining, issuing, and controlling the volume of money.”
“Still, the state banks were in operation and needed to be driven out of competition before the national banks could control all the currency issues. Congress then enacted a law which read as follows;
“That every national banking association, state bank, or state banking association, shall pay a tax of ten percentum on the amount of notes of any person, or of any state bank or state banking association used for circulation and paid by them.”
“This had the effect of forcing the state banks to become themselves, national banks, which further consolidated the power of the bankers. Just shortly after this new bill had passed into law, during the early part of 1964, James Buell secretary of the New York banker’s committee, issued a circular to the bankers of the country at large which greatly enraged the whole country when it was discovered. It is reproduced in full;
“Dear Sir: It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such daily and prominent weekly newspapers, especially the agricultural and religious press, as will oppose the issuing of greenback money, and that you withhold patronage and favor from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the Government issue of money. Let the Government issue the coin and the banks issue the paper money of the country, for we can better protect each other. To repeal the law creating national banks or to restore to circulation the Government issue of money will be to provide the people with money, and will therefore seriously affect your profit as banker or lender. See your member of Congress at once and engage him to support our interest that we may control legislation.” (3)
Another death blow occurred on April 12, 1866, when an act of Congress, signed by the President provided for the withdrawal and cancellation of United States notes and Treasury notes.
The next event occurred on March 18, 1869 when a bill titled “An Act to Strengthen the Public Credit” was signed by President Grant. This bill required that every dollar of the bonded debt be payable in gold and silver coin.
(2) Coming Battle p. 35
(3) Coming Battle p. 44
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On February 12, 1873, the Coinage Act was passed which demonetized silver, by removing the silver dollar as a unit of account. This was the next stage in the banker’s war on America, the removal of silver and eventually gold as well, from the United States money supply. Since the coinage laws in the Constitution explicitly gave Congress alone the power to coin money, this was the last block the bankers needed to remove by legislation. Congress had reduced the amount of gold and silver in the coins so that American metals would not be exported to foreign countries, because they would not meet international weights and measures. The act of March 3, 1853 created the gold and silver certificates which were fully redeemable in either gold or silver at any time. These were Treasury issues, not the borrowed credit of bankers.
Quoting from The Coming Battle, Walbert writes:
“Prior to 1861, the annual production of silver in the United States never exceeded the value of $100,000, on the other hand, the amount of gold produced in the mines of California, from 1848 to the outbreak of the war, amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. The greatest amount of gold produced from American mines in any one year was in 1853, when it reached the enormous sum of $65,000,000. The total product of gold from the mines of the United States, from 1848 to 1861, inclusive, reached the grand total of $700,000,000.
In the year 1859, that great deposit of silver, was discovered in Nevada, and from this period the United States is reckoned among the greatest producers of silver in the world.
In 1860 the production of silver had risen to $150,000, which, up to this period, was the greatest amount ever produced in the United States in any one year. In the same year the production of gold in California alone was $45,000,000 in value.
In 1863, the value of the product of silver had risen to $8,500,000.
In 1867, silver to the amount of $13,500,000 was produced from the mines of the west – chiefly in Nevada.
The production of gold that same year was $51,725,000.
At this period the national debt had reached the enormous sum of $2,700,000,000, the interest of which was payable in coin. The whole annual product of gold mines in the United States would scarcely suffice to pay one half of the annual interest charge upon the national debt held by the national banking money power.” (4)
Silver was more like the common man’s gold. It was easier to use in most, smaller transactions and therefore the rising supply of silver in circulation was a direct threat to the banking cartel. This led to a huge conspiracy to manipulate and eventually remove silver as a standard for the dollar.
An act of March 3, 1853 had provided that the Secretary of the Treasury issue gold and silver certificates. In 1867 a great international exposition was held to which the nations of the world were invited by the Emperor of France. The goal was to establish a common system of weights and measures related to metal currency. It was believed a common gold standard would regulate silver coinage. Essentially, the bankers were attempting to set the value of gold in relation to silver, since gold was a far more easily controllable commodity. There were efforts underway at this time to remove silver dollars from the currency supply of the United States. Today, many anti-Federal Reserve and people who are against the central banking would have us believe a gold standard is the answer. Apparently, the bankers are the ones who originally pushed for a gold standard, so this would probably not be a good idea, after all.
On February 12, 1873 the Coinage Act was passed through Congress. On July 13, 1876, just three years following this act, two Senators made important speeches before Congress, referencing this act. Mr. Holman stated:
“I have before me the record of the proceedings of this House on the passage of that measure, a record which no man can read without being convinced that the measure and the method of passage through this House was a ‘colossal swindle.’ I assert that the measure never had the sanction of this House, and it does not possess the moral force of law.” (Cong. Record, Vol. IV, Part 6, Appendix P. 193, 1st Session 44th Congress)
(4) Coming Battle p. 75
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Another Congressman, Mr. Birchard, a member from Illinois, stated the following:
“The coinage act of 1873, unaccompanied by any written report upon the subject from any committee, and unknown to the members of Congress, who without opposition allowed it to pass under the belief, if not assurance, that it made no alteration in the value of the current coins, changed the unit of value from silver to gold.” (Page 4,560)
And yet another Congressman, Mr. Cannon, from the same state, had the following words to say:
“This legislation was had in the Forty-second Congress, February 12, 1873, by a bill to regulate the mints of the United States, and practically abolish silver as money by failing to provide for the coinage of the silver dollar. It was not discussed, as shown by the Record, and neither members of Congress nor the people understood the scope of the legislation.” (Page 197)
Mr. Bright, from Tennessee had this to say:
“It passed by fraud in the House, never having been printed in advance, being a substitute for the printed bill; never having been read at the Clerk’s desk, the reading having been dispensed with by an impression that the bill made no material alteration in the coinage laws; it was passed without discussion, debate being cut off by operation of the previous question. It was passed to my certain information, under such circumstances that the fraud escaped the attention of some of the most watchful as well as the ablest statesmen in Congress at the time. … Aye, sir, it was a fraud that smells to heaven, it was a fraud that will stink in the nose of posterity, and for which some persons must give account in the days of retribution.” – (Cong. Record, Vol VII, Part 1, Page 584, 2nd Session, 45th Congress.)
And finally, Senator Thurman, on February 15, 1878, in debate, states the following:
“I cannot say what took place in the House, but know when the bill was pending in the Senate we thought it was simply a bill to reform the mint, regulate coinage, and fix up one thing and another, and there is not a single man in the Senate, I think, unless a member from the committee from which the bill came, who had the slightest idea that it was even a squint towards demonetization.” – (Cong. Record Vol. VII, Part 2, Page 1064, 2nd Session, 45th Congress.)
During the period of 1873 through 1879 the country went through the Long Depression, triggered by the Panic of 1873.
It was during a speech delivered before the Chamber of Commerce, of New York City on March 6, 1876, that Senator Sherman admitted the Congress had done work for Great Britain:
“Our coinage act came into operation on the 1st of April 1873, and constituted the gold one dollar piece the sole unit of value, while it restricted the legal tender of the new trade dollar and the half dollar and subdivisions to an amount not exceeding five dollars in one payment.
“Thus, the double standard previously existing was finally abolished, and the United States as usual was influenced by Great Britain in making gold coin the only standard. This suits England, but does not suit us. I think with our large silver producing capacity, we should return to the double standard, at least in part, and this will constitute one of the means by which we will enable to resume specie payments.” – (Cong. Globe, Vol. IV, Part 2, Page 1,481, 1st Session, 44th Congress) (5)
This should immediately be recognized as Treason committed by the Senators and House members.
The Specie Resumption Act of 1875 set this country onto the gold standard, officially.
In 1878, when the bloody aftermath and carnage of the coinage laws was visible, John G. Carlisle, Speaker of the House and later Secretary of the Treasury, made the following statement:
“According to my views of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and in Europe, to destroy by legislation and otherwise, from three-sevenths to one-half, of the metallic money of the world, is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age.”
The United States, by 1878 and the close of the Civil War, had been decimated financially on one hand, due to the influence of the bankers, and left in a state of trauma from the War. Other factions of the same power structure took hold of political manipulations through the war between the North and the South. Once again, the entire event was engineered in part by the Freemasons and their allies.
(5) Coming Battle P. 107-08
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In the following case, from 1884, the sovereign powers of the United States and the ability to coin money are contemplated once again. This is Juilliard v. Greenman, Supreme Court (1884):
“It would be difficult to believe, even in the absence of the historical evidence we have on the subject, that the framers of the Constitution, profoundly impressed by the evils resulting from this kind of legislation, ever intended that the new government, ordained to establish justice, should possess the power of making its bills a legal tender, which they were unwilling should remain with the States, and which in the past had proved so dangerous to the peace of the community, so disturbing to the business of the people, and so destructive of their morality.
The great historian of our country has recently given to the world a history of the Convention, the result of years of labor in the examination of all public documents relating to its formation and of the recorded opinions of its framers; and thus he writes:
“With the full recollection of the need or seeming need of paper money in the Revolution, with the menace of danger in future time of war from its prohibition, authority to issue bills of credit that should be legal tender was refused to the general government by the vote of nine States against New Jersey and Maryland. It was Madison who decided the vote of Virginia, and he has left his testimony that `the pretext for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender, either for public or private debts, was cut off.’ This is the interpretation of the clause made at the time of its adoption, alike by its authors and by its opponents, accepted by all the statesmen of that age, not open to dispute because too clear for argument, and never disputed so long as any one man who took part in framing the Constitution remained alive. History cannot name a man who has gained enduring honor by causing the issue of paper money. Wherever such paper has been employed it has in every case thrown upon its authors the burden of exculpation under the plea of pressing necessity.” – Bancroft’s History of the Formation of the Constitution, 2 vol., 134
“And when the Convention came to the prohibition upon the States, the historian says that the clause, “No State shall make anything but gold and silver a tender in payment of debts,” was accepted without a dissentient State: “So the adoption of the Constitution,” he adds, “is to be the end forever of paper money, whether issued by the several States or by the United States, if the Constitution shall be rightly interpreted and honestly obeyed.” Id. 137.
“For nearly three-quarters of a century after the adoption of the Constitution, and until the legislation during the recent civil war, no jurist and no statesman of any position in the country ever pretended that a power to impart the quality of legal tender to its notes was vested in the general government. There is no recorded word of even one in favor of its possessing the power. All conceded, as an axiom of constitutional law, that the power did not exist.
“Mr. Webster, from his first entrance into public life in 1812, gave great consideration to the subject of the currency, and in an elaborate speech on that subject, made in the Senate in 1836, then sitting in this room, he said:
“Currency, in a large and perhaps just sense, includes not only gold and silver and bank bills, but bills of exchange also. It may include all that adjusts exchanges and settles balances in the operations of trade and business; but if we understand by currency the legal money of the country, and that which constitutes a legal tender for debts, and is the standard measure of value, then undoubtedly nothing is included but gold and silver. Most unquestionably there is no legal tender, and there can be no legal tender in this country, under the authority of this government or any other, but gold and silver, either the coinage of our own mints or foreign coins at rates regulated by Congress. This is a constitutional principle, perfectly plain and of the highest importance. The States are expressly prohibited from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts, and although no such express prohibition is applied to Congress, yet, as Congress has no power granted to it in this respect but to coin money and to regulate the value of foreign coins, it clearly has no power to substitute paper or anything else for coin as a tender in payment of debts and in discharge of contracts. Congress has exercised this power fully in both its branches; it has coined money, and still coins it; it has regulated the value of foreign coins, and still regulates their value. The legal tender, therefore, the constitutional standard of value, is established and cannot be overthrown. To overthrow it would shake the whole system.” —
– 4 Webster’s Works, 271
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“When the idea of imparting the legal tender quality to the notes of the United States issued under the first act of 1862 was first broached, the advocates of the measure rested their support of it on the ground that it was a war measure, to which the country was compelled to resort by the exigencies of its condition, being then sorely pressed by the Confederate forces, and requiring the daily expenditure of enormous sums to maintain its army and navy and to carry on the government. The representative who introduced the bill in the House, declared that it was a measure of that nature, ‘one of necessity and not of choice;’ that the times were extraordinary and that extraordinary measures must be resorted to in order to save our government and preserve our nationality. (Speech of Spaulding, of New York, Cong. Globe, 1861-62, Part 1, 523.) Other members of the House frankly confessed their doubt as to its constitutionality, but yielded their support of it under the pressure of this supposed necessity.
“The wants of the government could never be the measure of its powers. But in the excitement and apprehensions of the war these considerations were unheeded; the measure was passed as one of overruling necessity in a perilous crisis of the country. Now, it is no longer advocated as one of necessity, but as one that may be adopted at any time. Never before was it contended by any jurist or commentator on the Constitution that the government, in full receipt of ample income, with a treasury overflowing, with more money on hand than it knows what to do with, could issue paper money as a legal tender. What was in 1862 called the “medicine of the Constitution” has now become its daily bread. So it always happens that whenever a wrong principle of conduct, political or personal, is adopted on a plea of necessity, it will be afterwards followed on a plea of convenience.
“The framers of the Constitution, as I have said, were profoundly impressed with the evils which had resulted from the vicious legislation of the States making notes a legal tender, and they determined that such a power should not exist any longer. They therefore prohibited the States from exercising it, and they refused to grant it to the new government which they created. Of what purpose is it then to refer to the exercise of the power by the absolute or the limited governments of Europe, or by the States previous to our Constitution? Congress can exercise no power by virtue of any supposed inherent sovereignty in the general government. Indeed, it may be doubted whether the power can be correctly said to appertain to sovereignty in any proper sense as an attribute of an independent political community. The power to commit violence, perpetrate injustice, take private property by force without compensation to the owner, and compel the receipt of promises to pay in place of money, may be exercised, as it often has been, by irresponsible authority, but it cannot be considered as belonging to a government founded upon law. But be that as it may, there is no such thing as a power of inherent sovereignty in the government of the United States. It is a government of delegated powers, supreme within its prescribed sphere, but powerless outside of it. In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they have not, by their Constitution, entrusted to it; all else is withheld. – Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421 Supreme Court (1884) (6)
(6)https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/91050/juilliard-v-greenman/
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The Civil War of the Northern and Southern Jurisdiction of Freemasonry
Slavery had been abolished in England with the Slave Abolition Act of 1833 following the Slave Trade Act in 1807. Why would the English abolish slavery when they practically invented it, taking African slaves since the 1500’s?
Professor Samuel Morse was an artist, an inventor, and an American counter-intelligence specialist. In a booklet published in 1862 by Samuel and Sidney Morse titled The present attempt to dissolve the American union : a British aristocratic plot, the following is written:
Under the header ‘For the Journal of Commerce’:
“The Dissolution of the Union – The Object of British Intrigues – In my communication published in your journal of January 13, I gave your readers evidence which I consider conclusive, that the dissolution of the Union was the consummation of a well devised plot by Great Britain, through the agitation of the slavery question. I well know that such an announcement startled many minds, and some incredulity has been manifested, notwithstanding the strength of the evidence of its truth. If further evidence is needed, let me now adduce it from the antecedents of British policy. There are official documents deposited in the department of State, deposited there fifty years ago, which every citizen would do well to review. The subject of British intrigues was made the occasion of a special message by President Madison on the 9th of March, 1812, three months before the declaration of war. Your readers desirous of seeing these documents in full will find them in Benton’s “Abridgement of the Debates of Congress,” Vol. IV, from page 506 onward.
“It seems that in the year 1809, an emissary of the British Government, John Henry, a gentleman of education and address, was sent to Boston under the sanction of the Governor-General of Canada, Sir James Craig, sustained by the Home Government, by Lord Liverpool, Robert Peel, Sir George Prevost, and others, for the purpose of taking advantage of the high party excitement between Federalists and Democrats at that time, for the purpose (in the language of President Madison) “of fomenting disaffection,” and “destroying the Union,” and “forming the eastern part thereof into a political connection with Great Britain.” Although his mansion was unsuccessful, because, as he himself stated, “he found it an unpopular topic,” his letters demonstrate with a clearness which cannot be questioned, the settled intent of the British Government, at that early day, to divide the Union, as a measure deemed of the greatest importance and advantage to British interests. His correspondence shows that he faithfully carried out his instructions, but as success did not attend his efforts, the promised reward (a lucrative office) was withheld from him. Piqued at receiving the cold shoulder from the British officials whom he had served, he sought his revenge by revealing the plot to our Government, putting into the hands of the Secretary of State, his correspondence with the British Government. With the character of the whole transaction – with its morality or immorality; with Henry’s motives for betraying the confidence reposed in him; with its success or ill success, or with its implications upon any persons or parties of that date, we have now nothing to do, they are all matters which may be left out of consideration, as they do not affect the reality of the one great fact which these documents establish. This great fact stands out clear and prominent, that Great Britain did at that day employ an emissary to foment disaffection in the country, and this for the purpose of dividing the Union. A few extracts from Henry’s letters will demonstrate this fact beyond dispute. On his way to Boston, writing from Burlington, VT., Feb. 14, 1809, Henry says:
“In what mode this resistance (to the administration) will first show itself is probably not yet determined upon; and may, in some measure, depend upon the reliance that the leading men may place upon assurances of support from his Majesty’s representatives in Canada; and as I shall be on the spot to tender this, whenever the moment arrives that it can be done with effect, there is no doubt that all their measures may be made subordinate to the intentions of his Majesty’s Government. Great pains are taken by the men of talent and intelligence to confirm the fears of the common people, as to the concurrence of the Southern Democrats in the projects of France; and every thing tends to encourage the belief that the CONFEDERACY will be accelerated by the spirit which now actuates both political parties.”
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Con’t: “In a letter dated Boston, March 7, 1809, Henry says: “What permanent connection between Great Britain and this section of the republic would grow out of a civil commotion, such as might be expected, no person is prepared to describe; but it seems that a strict alliance must result of necessity. At present the opposition party confine their calculations merely to resistance, and I can assure you that, at this moment, they do not freely entertain the project of withdrawing the Eastern States from the Union, finding it a very unpopular topic; although a course of events, such as I have already mentioned, would inevitably produce an incurable alienation of the New England from the Southern States.”
“This letter from this publication and the letters in the archives prove absolutely, that the Civil War was engineered by the British Government in order to destroy the United States. There can be no doubt about this whatsoever. There is a little bit more of this I would like to share with my readers.
“Again, in a letter dated Boston, March 9, 1809, “The Government of the United States would probably complain, and Bonepart become peremptory, but even that would only tend to render the opposition in the Northern States more resolute, and accelerate the dissolution of the Confederacy.”
“In a Letter dated Boston, March 13, 1809, he says, “Bonapart, whose passions are too hot for delay, will probably compel this Government to decide which of the two belligerents is to be its enemy. To bring about a separation of the States, under distinct and separate Governments, is an affair of more uncertainty, and however desirable, cannot be affected BUT BY A SERIES OF ACTS AND A LONG-CONTINUED POLICY TENDING TO IRRITATE THE SOUTHERN AND CONCILIATE THE NORTHERN PEOPLE.” (7)
There is more to this letter, but space does not permit its inclusion in this book.
In response to this letter, Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, said: “This communication,” from the President, “demonstrated as a matter of fact, what had heretofore only remained speculation and conjecture, that the British Government has long meditated THE SEPARATION OF THESE STATES; and what is more, that they have actually attempted the execution of this wicked design, and have endeavored to convert our own citizens into traitors.”
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