-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Lex_Rex] HJR 192 and its legal effect
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 19:42:12 -0500
From: Larry Becraft <[email protected]>
There is no substantive difference at the federal level between a
legislative bill that gets enacted into law and a joint resolution that
gets enacted into law. A simple explanation of this fact is published on
the Net here:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/help/CU/Serial_Set/About_Bills.htm
And there are several US Supreme Court cases so holding. Joint
resolutions are different from simple resolutions, which are not law. If
Congress enacts a joint resolution and the Prez signs it, it is as much
of a federal law as a bill that gets enacted into law.
HJR 192, even tho it was a joint resolution, was enacted by Congress and
signed by the Prez, thus it became a law. As a law, it was published in
the US Stats at Large, and the volume and page of the Stats where it was
published is 48 Stat. 112, ch. 48. If you want access to the entire
Volume 48 of the Stats, go here:
http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/sal/048_statutes_at_large.pdf
After you download this huge file (which is also word searchable) go to
page 112, and look at the "sidebar" on the left of the page and you will
see that this is HJR 192. I recognize that some contend that HJR 192 is
not a public law, but this contention is simply wrong.
For the last several years, there have been lots of arguments based on
HJR 192 that have floated thru the movement, some contending that it
constitutes some sort of remedy for us today. But legal history shows
otherwise. Shortly after the seizure of gold during the FDR era, several
lawsuits were in fact filed and 3 made their way to the Supremes:
Norman, Nortz and Perry. See below quote from my money issue brief. In
these cases, attacks were made on HJR 192 and other relevant legal
documents related to the seizure of gold, but the Supremes essentially
gave no remedy to these litigants. I would suggest that interested
students read these 3 cases. To contend today that we have some sort of
remedy embodied within HJR 192 would require reversing these cases.
Frankly, I am not concerned about HJR 192 because it was effectively
repealed via a law Congress adopted in Oct. 1997. See 91 Stat. 1229. In
the very last section of this law, it is stated that HJR 192 will not
apply to obligations issued after this law becomes effective. This law's
operation has been the subject of several cases that I have posted on my
website. See below. For the last 33 years, HJR 192 has been meaningless
to Americans and is nothing more than part of the legal history of that
extremely important legal topic, money.
I know that what I say here will not be well received by many who have
learned wild arguments about HJR 192. The simple fact of the matter is
that many gurus have spread crazy arguments about HJR 192 and gullible
people have (without investigation or research) swallowed these
arguments, "hook, line and sinker". I just hope that people learn from
this experience and will in the future require that gurus promoting
certain arguments prove them. Some people approach life with the
attitude that "if it sounds good I will do it", and I just hope that
other people start demanding that the gurus prove their arguments before
convincing innocents to act upon them.
But my act of clarifying this issue regarding HJR 192 should not be
construed as indicating that I am supportive of our current monetary
system. My undergrad degree was in economics and I fully understand this
system. The present credit system we have and use as "money" is
anti-constitutional and has been erected to transfer the wealth of the
American people to the elite operators of this system. My website is
mostly devoted to the money issue and I have posted lots of substantive
and important educational materials there:
http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/
I encourage students to read Gouge's Short History that I scanned and
had Devvy post on her website, which is linked from mine.
I believe in specie, not social credit. One problem caused by the
operation of this credit system is that the masters of this system
pushed out (by hook and crook) real, public money so that, of necessity,
we have to use this private credit as a medium of exchange. We need to
advocate the principle expressed in Marigold; see quote appearing below.
Larry
PS: A dollar is a silver dollar.
*As a direct and proximate result of the far reaching changes made in
monetary law in 1933 and 1934, litigation on these points arose. The 3
major Supreme Court decisions made as a consequence were /Norman v.
Baltimore and O. R. Co.
<http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=294&page=240>/,
294 U.S. 240, 55 S.Ct. 407 (1935), /Nortz v. United States
<http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=294&page=317>/,
294 U.S. 317, 55 S.Ct. 428 (1935), and /Perry v. United States
<http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=294&page=330>/,
294 U.S. 330, 55 S.Ct. 432 (1935). /Norman/, supra, dealt with a
railroad bond payable in gold coin; Norman sought payment of $38.10 on a
bond payable in the amount of $22.50, his basis for asking for more
arising from the change made in the statutory gold dollar. Seeing the
inherent justice in denying relief to a person seeking more than he was
entitled, the Supreme Court in /Norman/ denied the relief sought. In
/Nortz/, a plaintiff seeking similar relief got similar judgment as
Norman. Nortz had $106,300 in gold certificates and was forced to
exchange the same for inconvertible currency of the light standard.
Based upon a higher market value of gold than legal value of the same,
Nortz instituted suit to recover $64,334.07, the alleged difference
between the market price of gold and the legal price. The Court denied
his request for unjust enrichment. In /Perry/, the issue concerned a
federal gold bond and the method of its payment in light of the June 5,
1933, Joint Resolution. Although the Court in /Perry/ held the Joint
Resolution to be unconstitutional insofar as it applied to federal
bonds, it ultimately determined that Perry had neither alleged nor
proven any damage in his breach of contract action and was therefore not
entitled to any. In this trilogy of cases, all parties were seeking a
gain or benefit as a result of the monetary changes caused by the
President and Congress. The Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933, has no
significance today because it has been effectively repealed; see 91
Stat. 1229 <http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/91Stat1229.pdf>. **For
cases explaining the end of HJR 192's application in 1977, and the
validity of gold clause contracts today, see **Fay Corp. v. BAT Holdings
I, Inc. <http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/BATHoldings.pdf>, 646 F.
Supp. 946 (W.D.Wash. 1986), affirmed at /Fay Corp. v. Frederick & Nelson
Seattle, Inc./, <http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/FayCorp.pdf> 896 F.2d
1227 (9th Cir. 1990), Wells Fargo Bank v. Bank of America
<http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/WellsFargoBank.pdf>, 32 Cal.App.4th
424, 38 Cal.Rptr.2d 521 (1995); Trostel v. American Life & Casualty
Insurance Company <http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/Trostel.pdf>, 133
F.3d 679 (8th Cir. 1998); Nebel, Inc. v. Mid-City National Bank
<http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/Nebel.pdf>, 329 Ill. App.3d 957, 769
N.E.2d 45 (2002); and 216 Jamaica Ave. v. S & R Playhouse Realty Co.
<http://home.hiwaay.net/%7Ebecraft/JamaicaAve.pdf>, 540 F.3d 433 (6th
Cir. 2008).
This is what I call the Marigold principle, based on **/United States v.
Marigold/,
<http://caselaw.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=50&page=560>
50 U.S. (9 How.) 560, 567-68 (1850):*
*"They appertain rather to the execution of an important trust
invested by the Constitution, and to the obligation to fulfill that
trust on the part of the government, namely, the trust and the duty
of creating and maintaining a uniform and pure metallic standard of
value throughout the Union. The power of coining money and of
regulating its value was delegated to Congress by the Constitution
for the very purpose, as assigned by the framers of that instrument,
of creating and preserving the uniformity and purity of such
standard of value * * *. *
*"If the medium which the government was authorized to create and
establish could immediately be expelled, and substituted by one it
had neither created, estimated, nor authorized, one possessing no
intrinsic value, then the power conferred by the Constitution
would be useless, wholly fruitless of every end it was designed
to accomplish. Whatever functions Congress are, by the Constitution,
authorized to perform, they are, when the public good requires it,
bound to perform; and on this principle, having emitted a
circulating medium, a standard of value indispensable for the
purposes of the community, and for the action of the government
itself, they are accordingly authorized and bound in duty to prevent
its debasement and expulsion, and the destruction of the general
confidence and convenience, by the influx and substitution of a
spurious coin in lieu of the constitutional currency."
*
*
*
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