The Politics of Extraterrestrials - Patrick Sullivan-pages

Page 117 of 144

Page 117 of 144
The Politics of Extraterrestrials - Patrick Sullivan-pages

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I.--The Mixt Moneys case decided that Money was a Public Measure, a measure of value, and that, like other measures, it was necessary in the public welfare that its dimensions of volume should be limited, defined and regulated by the State. The whole body of learning left us by the ancient and renascent world was invoked in this celebrated dictum: Aristotle, Paulus, Bodin and Budelius were summoned to its support; the Roman law, the common law and the statutes all upheld it; "the State alone had the right to issue money and to decide of what substances its symbols should be made, whether of gold, silver, brass, or paper. Whatever the State declared to be money, was money." That was the gist of it. (For a full account of this famous case, see the author's "Science of Money," ch. IV.) This decision greatly alarmed the merchants of London, and for more than half a century after it was enunciated they were occupied with efforts to defeat its operation. In 1639 they succeeded in getting the matter before the Star Chamber; but their plans were rejected. The Revolution of 1648 postponed their projects. The Restoration of 1660 revived them. Their final success dates from 1666. Meanwhile other things had happened. Del Mar continues on explaining the root causes of the War of separation of America from England were based in who would control the power to issue money. “Says Jefferson: "Before the 19th of April, 1775," the day succeeding the Battle of Lexington, "I never had heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain. The Colonies had not yet cut asunder the ties of their allegiance to the Crown. The Continental Congress had sent a petition to the King denying any intention of separation from England." But, although the Colonies were as yet uncertain of their course with respect to separation, there was no uncertainty with regard to their monetary system. This they had determined should be independent of the Crown and this determination they had expressed in overt acts that had long marked them as disaffected rebels and were now to mark them as outlaws. Lexington and Concord were trivial 117 acts of resistance which chiefly concerned those who took part in them and