THE RETURN OF THE GOLD STANDARD (1866 - 1881)
"Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution."-W.Cleon Skousen.
Even after his death, the idea that America might print its own debt free money set off warning bells throughout the entire European banking community. On April 12th in 1866, the American congress passed the Contraction Act, allowing the treasury to call in and retire some of Lincoln's greenbacks, With only the banks standing to gain from this, it's not hard to work out the source of this action. To give the American public the false impression that they would be better off under the gold standard, the money changers used the control they had to cause economic instability and panic the people. This was fairly easy to do by calling in existing loans and refusing to issue new ones, a tried and proven method of causing depression. They would then spread the word through the media they largely controlled that the lack of a single gold standard was the cause of the hardship which ensued, while all this time using the Contraction Act to lower the amount of money in circulation. It went from
$1.8 billion in circulation in 1866 allowing $50.46 per person,
to $1.3 billion in 1867 allowing $44.00 per person,
to $0.6 billion in 1876 making only $14.60 per person and down
to $0.4 billion only ten years later leaving only $6.67 per person
and a continually growing population. Most people believe the economists when they tell us that recessions and depressions are part of the natural flow, but in truth the money supply is controlled by a small minority who have always done so and will continue to do so if we let them. By 1872 the American public was beginning to feel the squeeze, so the Bank of England, scheming in the back rooms, sent Ernest Seyd, with lots of money to bribe congress into demonetising silver. Ernest drafted the legislation himself, which came into law with the passing of the Coinage Act, effectively stopping the minting of silver that year.
The Euopean bankers WOULD NOT stand for an America that could print its own money. And the rest is history...