Louis Alfred Nickolas Stalwart Institute

With regard to the Federal Reserve, the Position of the Louis Alfred Nickolas Stalwart Institute is as follows:

1. The U.S. Constitution does not expressly give Congress the Authority to Charter a Central Banque. However, it does expressly give Congress two key Authorities necessary to provide for the federal government’s monetary policy. Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the Authority “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers…” One of the foregoing Powers referenced in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution is, as provided for in Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the Authority of Congress “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

2. While Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 makes “elastic” the Powers granted to Congress, Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 makes clear that Congress – not a Corporation Chartered by Congress – has the Authority to regulate the fiscal and monetary affairs of the federal government. That Authority cannot be Transferred and/or Conveyed to any other person, as it is not necessary nor proper for the Regulatory Powers of Congress to be wielded by an Agency of the Executive Branch.

3. And to be sure, the federal government has no independent branch. For such a thing to exist would go against the concept of horizontal accountability established in and throughout the U.S. Constitution between the three Branches of Government. No Agency of the federal government is or can be, constitutionally speaking, independent or part of an independent branch of government.

4. The U.S. Constitution creates “spheres of sovereignty” between the federated states and the unionised states, and the fiscal and monetary policy of the country is no different. Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution is explicit in the Authorities withheld from unionised states – and thus, placed firmly in the federated state. Notably, Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits the unionised states from making “any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

5. While Juilliard v. Greenman (1884) correctly reaches the conclusion that, constitutionally speaking, the federal government is permitted to issue paper money and declare it legal tender for all debts, the aforementioned portion of Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 curbs this Authority in a way that effectively requires gold and silver to serve as the foundation of the federal government’s fiscal and monetary positions.

6. In a phrase, the Federal Reserve System is “constitutionally suspect.” It is a series of federally charted Corporations that Congress has handed its Authority to regulate the federal government’s fiscal and monetary policy to. It is therefore a Private Person wielding Civic Authority with nominal meaningful oversight. The System has never been audited by Congress to discern a proper accounting of the federal government’s fiscal and monetary position. While it remains true that Congress still wields immense authority over the Federal Reserve System through its ability to Amend the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Congress has never Amended the Act to extend the constitutional concept of horisontal accountability to that Institution.

7. The Federal Reserve System preserves, protects and defends Corporatism, not Capitalism. The Federal Reserve Banks are owned by the country’s most prestigious commercial banks. As shareholders, these commercial banks receive dividends from and appoint a third of the Directors of the Bank whose shares they hold. Many of the financial institutions that received fiscal bailouts during the Great Recession of 2008 are Federal Reserve shareholders.

8. While the Federal Reserve System’s Charter was Amended in 1977 to establish a Dual Mandate for the Institution – maximum employment and moderate long-term interest rates (in pursuit of price stability) – the de facto function of the Federal Reserve is to manage the status of the U.S. Dollar as the planet’s Global Reserve Currency.

9. This is an arrangement that commenced after the conclusion of World War II with the establishment of the Bretton-Woods System in 1944, through the unilateral suspension of the convertibility of U.S. Dollars to gold in 1971 by President Nixon, to the advent of the Petro-Dollar System and the off-shoring of U.S. Manufacturing to China in the 1970’s, right through to the present with the hyper-financialisation of the U.S. Economy as a means to extracting whatever actual value remains prior to the full and complete sunset of the current monetary arrangement and the advent of the successive one. No decision made by the Federal Reserve has even been in service to the protection, preservation or defence of the American Nation, the Constitution, or the Republican Form of Government. Instead, this Institution has managed the process as aforementioned – and in the case of the current phase, is currently managing.

10. For the reasons detailed here, it is this Institute’s position that not only should the Federal Reserve be Audited and sunset, poste haste, but that a Constitutional Amendment is absolutely required to make clear that the power to regulate the federal government’s fiscal and monetary position rests with Congress alone and cannot be Transferred and/or Conveyed. Said Constitutional Amendment must also make it explicit that the country’s money supply must either be of or backed by gold and/or silver.