posted 01-16-2003 03:20 AM            

Apparently, others have tried with futility to restore constitutional law.

Unfortunately, the too were curbed.

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http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2917/wep.html

posted 01-16-2003 03:23 AM            

by William T. Holmes

(January 1996 San Mateo Libertarian newsletter)

…For those of you unaware of the history of Emergency Powers, I include here [a monograph on the subject]. In 1917 the Trading With the Enemy Act (50 USC Appendix) was passed. It allowed the president to "prohibit, restrict, license or regulate" any transactions by citizens or corporations of the enemy countries operating within the U.S. during WWI. It was conveniently not revoked even though the war and emergencies ended.

On 24 March 1918 the Act was amended and its scope greatly expanded by adding "hoarding, melting" to the description of foreign exchange and by deleting the word 'such' from two places in "...and he may require any such person engaged in any such transactions..."

In the early 1920's, the Federal Resesrve's loose money policy encouraged a lot of people, especially farmers, to over-extend themselves. When the Federal Reserve contracted the money supply during the late '20s, it initiated an economic collapse that was sustained and deepened by the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which raised rates as high as 49%, purportedly to act as a price support for America's farmers. Hoover's interventions [helped to] create a world-wide recession.

On 6 March 1933 FDR issued Proclamation 2039: under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act -- "[T]he President... may prohibit... by means of licenses, or otherwise... the export [or] hoarding of gold or silver coin" and ceased redeeming the legal tender (Bills of Credit) for gold coin (lawful money).

On 9 March 1933 FDR convened the 10th Federal Congress in special session.

Congress declared a state of emergency (H.R. 1491, No. 1) and rubber-stamped ex-post facto Proclamations, granting FDR the same powers he would have in times of war. The Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act without reading or debating it (some say a newspaper was put into the hopper to represent the bill, which was still being written), effectively suspending the Constitution and imposing martial law on Americans under the provisions of Article I, Section 9, Clause 2. Once an emergency is declared, the common law and Constitutional guarantees are abolished, and we fall under the absolute will of the government, e.g., public policy. (Before 1933 we had "Statutes at Large"; federal legislation is now called "Public Law".) The President becomes Commander in Chief: in effect Constitutional Dictator, acting under the Law of Necessity, the Law of War.

The 10th Congress passed without debate the Bank Conservation Act, amending section 5, subsection b of the Trading with the Enemy Act to accommodate Proclamation 2039.

The functional result of the changes: "During time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate... investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions... defined by the President... by any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof; and the President may require any person engaged in any transaction referred to in this subdivision to furnish under oath, complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed."

Immediately thereafter FDR issued Proclamation 2040: under the authority of the amended Trading with the Enemy Act, "[I]n view of such continuing national emergency... all terms and provisions of said Proclamation of March 6, 1933... are... in full force and effect until further proclamation by the President." 48 Stat. 1691. The New Deal was not to be temporary. People and their property became as chattels for unlimited obligations of the United States.

FDR's interventions created massive dependency on the federal government and converted a deep recession into a long-lasting world-wide depression, fertile ground for Hitler. The Democrat Party and ... the Republican Party continue this tradition. The Act (now 50 U.S.C. 1622) is STILL in full force and effect. It is referred to as the source of authority for much of the Public Law found in the United States Code. Every president since FDR has declared or re-declared a national emergency to retain their martial law powers. An amendment to the Emergency Powers Act was passed in 1977 and enacted in 1979.

It requires the declaration be done annually, but that didn't dissuade our Presidents. Like clockwork they declare or extend another bogus national emergency. The threats posed to the U.S. by Granada, Panama, and Haiti justified a few of the more recent of a long line of national emergency frauds.

Don't believe it? Well...what DOES that Gold Fringe around the American Flag represent?