May 15, 2004

FREE MEN ENSLAVED
By
TOM L. BALLINGER

None are more helplessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Mayer Rothschild, the father of European Central Banking, said, “If I can control the money of a nation, I do not care who is in power.” Historically, he started five central banks in Europe. The name of Mayer Rothschild was used in our narrative concerning the Central Bank of Lydia.

Thomas Jefferson bitterly opposed a central bank all of his political career and said, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

This is the central bankers’ diabolical means of obtaining private property; by creating inflation (increasing the money supply) and, then, creating deflation (constricting the money supply). This is what the Federal Reserve System has done, historically, since 1913; “Boom and then Bust.” A boom is created by the Central Bank by expanding credit; credit is a large part of the money supply. Expanding the money supply encourages borrowing.  The people go into debt to buy property or goods because of rising prices (created by inflating the money supply), then the Bank contracts or shrinks the money supply which results in a BUST.  Loans cannot be repaid.  The property (i.e. the collateral) is foreclosed upon.  The banks either keep the property or sell the foreclosed property at a few cents on the dollar.  Hence, people are deprived of their property through a sinister and corrupt scheme perpetrated by the banking monopoly.

Jefferson also said; "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.  Already they [ the 1st Central Bank of the U.S.] have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance with the people.  The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the government, to whom it properly belongs (according to the U.S. Constitution). "

The Federal Reserve System is Central Banking under another name. “Federal” makes it sound like it is a part of the federal government. It is not. It is a privately owned corporation; a monopoly, and it pays no taxes, and the government cannot and never has audited it.

Reginald McKenna, the past Chairman of the Midlands Bank of England, said; “I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to  be told that banks can and do create money ... And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” This English banker acknowledged the power that is placed in the hands of Central Bankers; he was part of the banking system.  These high priests of banking know perfectly well that they hold in their hands the destiny of a nation and its’ citizens.


The past President of the Bank of England, Sir Josiah Stamp, said; “If you want to remain slaves of the bankers, and pay for the cost of your slavery, let them continue to create money and control the nations credit.”

The American citizens, while they do not realize it, are slaves of the Federal Reserve Banking System. We continue to allow them to create money and credit on a scale that staggers the imagination.  It is beyond the comprehension of the average American.  We are slaves and don't know it!  The Pharisees said they were in bondage to no-one since they were the children of Abraham. The Lord Jesus said they were slaves of sin.  Just as they did not realize their enslavement to sin, neither do our citizens realize they are slaves of the bankers; just as Sir Josiah Stamps said.

The second President of the U.S. to be assassinated, James Garfield, said; "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."  This is why the Founders delegated to the Congress the constitutional duty to issue coins and set the standards   of weights and measures of them.  Congress represented the People.  The Federal Reserve represents the hideous and contorted money monopoly, who is the slave-master.

The government was established by the consent of the people to establish justice ... and to secure the blessings of liberty “for us and our posterity.”  Under the Federal Reserve Banking System, there is neither justice nor the blessings of liberty! The debt or deficit of our government is your debt, it is my debt, and we are the ones who have to pay for it. The government doesn't pay its’ debt; the citizens do!  If we are in debt, we are the borrowers, and the lender (the Federal Reserve Bank, which is the instrument of the Money Aristocracy), is the slave-master.  We, erroneously, thought that the Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery.  It emancipated the black slaves. But, in 1913, the Central Banking system was granted the right to legally enslave all Americans! Black or  white, red, yellow, or brown.

Through deceit and deception our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers allowed Congress, in December of 1913, to enact legislation authorizing the Federal Reserve System to create money and credit as well as regulate the nation's banking system.  The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a result of Positive Law being enacted. It transgressed Natural Law and breached Constitutional Law, as well as, violated the Law of Equity regarding: (1) Respect of persons; it benefited the monied aristocracy at the expense of the average citizen by creating a banking monopoly , (2) Invalidated  the right to liberty and property, and (3)  Sound Money; by authorizing the evil of dishonest money and debt.

Thomas Jefferson went on to say in 1814, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, that a Central Bank who issues paper money (not backed by gold or silver) one day, “will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.”

The Natural Law tells us that debtors are the slaves of the lenders.  To this, the Scripture agrees; "....the borrower is the servant (i.e. the slave) to the lender"(Prov.22:7).                           

Napoleon Bonaparte declared, “When a government is dependent for money upon bankers, they, and not the leaders of that government, control the situation, since ‘the hand that gives is above the hand that receives,’ … Money has no motherhood; financiers are without patriotism and decency: their sole object is gain."


Central bankers have become agents of a higher power. How is it that Central bankers such as Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, and other past Chairmen of the Federal Reserve Bank, who enjoyed wealth, security, and prestige, conspired to plunder their fellow citizens?  It must be remembered that they, in reality, are the puppets whose strings are pulled by the invisible, international financiers. Their minds are not concerned with patriotism, nationalism or even internationalism.  Their loyalties are to men.

Carol Quigley, author of Hope and Tragedy, wrote, “It must not be felt that these heads of the world's chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance.  They were not.  Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The investment bankers (i.e. international bankers or merchant bankers) who remained largely behind-the-scenes in their own unincorporated private banks.  These formed a system of international dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.”

In 1816, Congress granted a twenty- year charter to the financial aristocracy to form the Second Bank of the United States.  Once again, the monetary and political scientists had carved out their profitable niches, and the gullible taxpayer, his head filled with sweet visions of “banking reform,”was left to pick up the tab.  Beware when politicians speak of REFORM!

In 1836, when the charter of the Central Bank was before Congress for renewal, President Andrew Jackson, who had rigorously campaigned against the Bank, vetoed the legislation.  This veto was not sustained.   However, corruption in the Second Bank came to light, and public pressure caused the Central Bank to be defeated.  Jackson’s veto message fell into three parts; (1) the injustice that is inherent in granting a government-sponsored monopoly to the Bank, (2) the unconstitutionality of the Bank even if it were not unjust, and (3) the danger to the country having the Bank heavily dominated by foreign investors.

Regarding the injustice of a government-sponsored monopoly, he pointed out that the stock of the bank was owned only by the richest citizens of the country and that, since the sale of the stock was limited to a chosen few with political influence, the common man not only was unfairly excluded from the opportunity to participate, but was forced to pay for his banking services far more than they were worth.  Unearned profits are bad enough when they are taken from one class of citizens and given to another, but it is even worse when the people receiving those benefits are not even citizens, at all, but are, in fact, foreigners.  Old Hickory said;

“It is not our own citizens only who are to receive the bounty of our Government.  More than 8 millions of stock of this bank are held by foreigners.  By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars … It appears that more than a fourth part of the stock held is by foreigners and the residue is held by a few hundred of our own citizens, chiefly of the richest class.  For their benefit, does this act exclude the whole American people from competition in the purchase of this monopoly and dispose of it for many millions less than it is worth.”

Andrew Jackson continued by saying: “Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind our country? . .. Is there not cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence …   our country in war?...Of course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed  by those whose interests, if not by affections, would run in the same direction there can be no doubt ... Controlling our currency, receiving our public monies and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than a naval and military power of the enemy.”

Jackson saved the last part of his argument to be directed to the voters, not to Congress; “It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes.  Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government.  Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions.  In the full enjoyments of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law: but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society - the farmers, mechanics and laborers - who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustices of their Government.  There are no necessary evils in government.  Its’ evils exist only  in its abuses.  If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rain, shower its’ favor alike on the high and low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified  blessing.  In the act before me (renewal of bank charter) there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles"(The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G.E. Griffin pages 349-350 ).

After heated battles raged on for the chartering of the Third United States Bank, Jackson finally prevailed, and the purposed Third Bank faded into oblivion.

The author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the united States of America, Thomas Jefferson, warned the American people about creating a perpetual debt. He wrote: “To preserve our independence, we must not let our leaders load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. It is incumbent on every generation to pay its’ own debts as it goes—a principle, which, if acted on, would save one half of the wars of the world.”

Fiat-money [Federal Reserve Notes] encourages war! If there was a “gold” or “silver” standard, it would automatically restrict the ease with which America can go to war. This country has become a warfare state, which would be impossible without the diabolical creation of “out of thin air” money.  Guess who profits from America’s wars?

 

Copyright © Thomas L. Ballinger 2004
Reissued in May of 2017