Ellen Brown reads an argument, refuses to understand its words, and declares victory. In a courtroom, this would not fool a jury. She expects it to fool her readers.
Throughout her book, she promotes the Greenbacker myth of Lincoln as a promoter of the Greenbacks. He was not. He hated them. Initially, he signed the three laws Congress sent to him, but he rebelled the third time. He sent a letter to Congress in January 1863 telling Congress not to pass any more Greenback bills. He told Congress he wanted a national bank act. A month later, Congress sent it to him. He signed it. There were no further issues of Greenbacks. I reported in all this here:
His resistance in 1863 means nothing to Ellen Brown.
16. Lincoln favored the Greenbacks over Union debt to banks.Your own entry makes my case. You quote a letter from Lincoln saying, "He accepted the third and final issue of these fiat bills, but he sent a letter to Congress, in January 1863, in which he expressed his "sincere regret that it has been found necessary to authorize an additional issue of United States notes."
Why did he find it necessary? Because otherwise they were going to be paying 24-36% interest on a crippling debt. I acknowledged that debt was also used to fund the war. I wrote:
Greenbacks were not the only source of funding for the Civil War. Bonds (government I.O.U.s) were also issued, and these too increased the money supply, since the banks that bought the bonds were also short of gold and had no other way of paying for the bonds than with their own newly-issued banknotes. The difference between the government issued Greenbacks and the bank-issued banknotes was that the Greenbacks were debt-free legal tender that did not have to be paid back. (P 86)
Lincoln finally said, "no more Greenbacks." My article did not make her case. It undermined her case. But she pretends that this is not the case.
Earlier in her list of responses, she backtracked. She admitted that she has decided to revise her book's presentation of Lincoln as a promoter of the Greenbacks. She called him a "reluctant Greenbacker."
He was not merely reluctant. He became openly opposed. He wanted a national bank system, which Brown and the Greenbackers oppose. The Greenbackers have long chosen to ignored this fact. They have preferred to invoke the name of Lincoln, as if he had been a promoter of their cause. He was not. The true story is in the definitive 1903 book on the Greenbacks by Wesley Mitchell. They still ignored the fact that Lincoln openly opposed any more Greenbacks in 1863, preferring to fund the war with huge issues of debt, which the banks bought.
There comes a time to abandon convenient myths. Ellen Brown should openly abandon the Greenbackers' myth of "Lincoln money." But she still clings to it. There is no trace in her book that it was never true. It is time for her to revise her book . . . on 31 historical errors and 21 economic errors.
But then it would be an Austrian School book, not a Greenbacker book.
© 2022 GaryNorth.com, Inc., 2005-2021 All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.