“... the privilege of creating and issuing money... is the government's greatest creative opportunity... [saving] the taxpayers immense sums of money...”

Lincoln lied. The Constitution does not authorize anyone to create money. With his unconstitutional legal tender acts, he made every war since his time possible by making it possible for government to tak everything without paying for anything and his contemporary, Horace Greeley said that Lincoln's "iniquitous money system was no less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery."

I don't like these quotes today, I say to theme all; So what!

If Mr. Lincoln knew what has happend to "money and it's coinage" and America itself, he would probable exhume himself.

I'm not exactly sure of the depth of what Lincoln is saying here but, his government didn't Constitutionally have the option of becoming creative in that manner. Maybe he was addressing an issue, such as today, where the government's larceny, doesn't extract sufficient to pay even the interest on its borrowed sums; or, what ever government wanted to do, it could just create the desired money without taxing the people directly?

I think that Dave, St Louis, got it right. About the same time as the Federal Reserve Act we got Karl Marx' favorite, the 16th ammendment, the income tax. How about that for a double whammy. The country had little debt prior to these horrors and look at us now.

In order to wage war, a nation needs money it doesn't yet have. Historically, if you win the war, you receive the spoils of war which should pay everyone back with profit (like in Iraq). If you lose, well, you lose everything. Whenever a nation becomes prosperous, without debt and an overflowing treasury, gangsters make plans for getting at it -- war is the best method. When Lincoln wanted to fund the war against the successionists, he went to the Bank of England (Rothschilds) to negotiate a loan. He realized however that the bank merely was offering interest-bearing promissory notes -- why should he have to pay interest on promissory notes the US could issue itself? And thus the 'greenback' was born -- unfortunately it was not backed by anything but it could be treated as a gold certificate and be redeemed in gold, thus it stole from the holders of real gold certificates -- the war HAD to be won now or else the Northern states would indeed be bankrupt. As with all wars, the loser pays the bills -- and we have been paying ever since. After Lincoln's assassination, the bankers did indeed take control of the money system and the country was awash in bank notes with no backing whatsoever. That is what Greeley was talking about. Counterfeiting in any of its forms is a crime against humanity.

jim, the criminal's 1913 tri-fecta included Social Security, the greatest ponzi scheme ever unleashed on America (the few first in win, the last many in lose).

THERE WOULD BE NO WARS IF WARS REQUIRED TAXES!!!! The sole function of legal tender is to get labor and materiel without paying for anything, Taxation is an ILLUSION that regulates our use of the money that Keynes in 1920 called "worthless" See: www.morpix.biz/dc

Actually, it is in the power of Congress to coin money per the Constitution of the United States, Section 8 - Powers of Congress: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; As for the nefarious 16th Amendment it was never ratified by a 3/4 quarter majority. From what I have read, only 2 states ever ratified it. As to what Lincoln was referring to was the issuing of interest free money.

really, have ANY of you read the Constitution and what it says about money? Firstly, what is deemed "money? Silver and gold . Secondly, who is at liberty to print money? Congress.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html