Historical Response #3: Ellen Brown Now Calls Lincoln a "Reluctant Greenbacker." She Has Backed Off Almost Entirely from Her Book.
The main historical myth of the Greenbacker movement is the myth of Abraham Lincoln as a Greenbacker. The Greenbacks are called "Lincoln Money." There is a 1935 Greenbacker book, Lincoln Money Martyred.
I showed in my response to Brown that this is a myth. He hated the Greenbacks. When he signed the 1863 issue of Greenbacks, he wrote to Congress, telling Congress to stop passing these laws. Instead, he called for a new national banking act. That was in January 1863. In February, Congress sent him the National Bank Act, and he signed it.
Ellen Brown writes in her response to my critique:
3. Lincoln promoted debt-free paper money.Here is what I wrote, which I believe is true; I agree he was a reluctant Greenbacker:
The Greenback system was not actually Lincoln's idea, but when pressure grew in Congress for the plan, he was quick to endorse it. . . . He took the revolutionary approach because he had no other real choice. The government could either print its own money or succumb to debt slavery to the bankers.
So, she "agrees" with me that he was a "reluctant" Greenbacker. This of course completely misrepresents my position. I did not say that he was a reluctant Greenbacker. I said he opposed the idea and finally demanded that Congress not send any Greenback legislation to him. He handed the country's finances over to Jim Cooke's bank in 1861, and in 1863, he finalized this with the National Bank Act.
She cites her book's statement that the Greenbacks were not his idea. This is disingenuous on her part. She deliberately misleads the reader. The Greenbacks were not only not Lincoln's idea, he opposed them. There was not a hint in her book of Lincoln's refusal to sign any more Greenbacker legislation. Lincoln was in the hip pocket of the bankers, contrary to Brown and the Greenbackers. I provided the evidence of this in my critique of her book. As usual, she has refused to respond to my evidence. See for yourself what I wrote.
Here is what she wrote in her book:
Popularly called "Greenbacks," these federal dollars were first issued by President Lincoln when he was faced with usurious interest rates in the 1860s. Lincoln had foiled the bankers by funding the government with U.S. Notes that did not accrue interest and did not have to be paid back to the banks. [Web of Debt, p. 15]
That is not all that she wrote.
America had narrowly escaped the fate of the Irish, Indians and China only because President Lincoln had stood up to the bankers, rejecting their usurious loans in favor of government-issued Greenbacks. [Web of Debt, p. 224]
She never mentioned his support of the National Bank Act of 1863. She self-consciously ignores this in her response to my critique. She cannot respond to my critique -- Lincoln as an opponent of the Greenbacks -- without undermining her book. So, she simply ignores my evidence.
This is not scholarship. This is also not intellectually honest. Ellen Brown is an unreliable author.