South Carolina to Ban Federal Currency?

Written by: Josh Eboch

Imagine my shock upon opening the Drudge Report this morning and seeing this article from CBSNews.com:

South Carolina Rep. Mike Pitts has introduced legislation that would mandate that gold and silver coins replace federal currency as legal tender in his state.

In an interview, Pitts told Hotsheet that he believes that “if the federal government continues to spend money at the rate it’s spending money, and if it continues to print money at the rate it’s printing money, our economic system is going to collapse.”

“The Germans felt their system wouldn’t collapse, but it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread in the 1930s,” he said. “The Soviet Union didn’t think their system would collapse, but it did. Ours is capable of collapsing also.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious. Can Virginia get in on this?

… As one expert told the Scoop, however, his bill would likely be ruled unconstitutional because it “violates a perfectly legal and Constitutional federal law, enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, that federal reserve notes are legal tender for all debts public and private.”

Now, I know there are folks out there who understand this much better than me, but I don’t think that “expert” is correct. And besides, I am always particularly wary when “experts” start citing the Commerce Clause. That’s usually statist code for “It’s not actually in the Constitution, but we’re going to do it anyway.”

If my memory serves, the Constitution only gives Congress the power to coin money, not print it. That’s a crucial difference, considering that precious metals are, by definition, precious, and will continue to be valuable long after you’ve burned those green pieces of paper in your wallet for heat.

Josh is a proud "tenther", freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area. He is a blogger for TAC's Tenther Grapevine and the State Chapter Coordinator for the Virginia Tenth Amendment Center.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The views expressed in the above post are those of the individual author only. The article is presented here to foster discussion, and does not necessarily represent the views or positions of the national Tenth Amendment Center.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 2:01 pm. It is filed under Commentary, federal reserve, federalism, Nullification and tagged with 10th amendment, constitution, federalism, Nullification, state sovereignty, states' rights, Virginia Sovereignty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.