What is a Dollar?

The word dollar appears two times in the Organic Constitution of the United States of America. The first is at Article I, Section 9, Clause 1:

“The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

The other is at Amendment VII:

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

The word dollar has a definite and fixed meaning. [Footnote 1] A dollar, as used in the Constitution, is a Spanish Milled dollar coin, or its equivalent, in coin form, containing 371.25 grains of fine silver.

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"Road Map to Sound Money: A Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1098 and Restoring the Dollar"

Video: What is the definition of a dollar? Ron Paul questions Ben Bernanke

Video: What is a dollar? Ron Paul questions Thomas Hoenig July 27th, 2011

What is a Dollar? HealthFreedom.info

The word "dollar" evolved from its phonetic precursor, "thaler", which was an abbreviation of "Joachimsthaler". Joachimsthal was a mining town in Bohemia, where Count Schlick first began striking these silver "thaler" coins in 1519.

In 1789 the word "dollars" appeared in the united States' Constitution in Article I, Section 9. At the same time Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution defined the substance of American "dollars": "No State...shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

Two years later the word "dollars" appeared in the Bill of Rights in Article 7:

"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."

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Please Define Dollar

Please Define 'Dollar'

Dr. Paul Hein

Monetary Realists, knowing not so much what they've been taught, but what they've learned with their eyes open and ears tuned, see things clearly, without peering through a haze of misinformation masquerading as knowledge. Like the boy in The Emperor's New Clothes, they make observations which seem to cause frustration and annoyance to those public figures to which they are directed. A case in point is the word "dollar," the definition of which has been sought by Monetary Realists for decades.

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What is a Dollar? Edwin Vieira Condensed Version

Mr. Vieira is an attorney specializing in constitutional law. He is the author of numerous publications on monetary law.

This is a condensed version of the monograph “What Is a Dollar?,” distributed by the National Alliance for Constitutional Money. All rights to this condensed version are reserved by the National Alliance for Constitutional Money, Inc.

The question “What is a ‘dollar’?” seems trivial. Very few people, however, can correctly define a “dollar,” even though a correct definition is vital to their economic and political well-being.

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What is a dollar? Stefan B.

by Stefan B.

“money is not wealth and that wealth is the organized technological capability to protect, nurture, educate, and accommodate the forward days of humans, whereas money is only a medium of exchange and a cash accounting system. Money has become completely monopolized by the supranational-corporation colossi, which inherently as legal abstractions ignore the problem of how to protect and nurture human lives.“
– R. Buckminster Fuller, Grunch of Giants

It is a simple enough question, but do you know the answer? What is a dollar? If I were to ask you what an automobile is, you could undoubtedly tell me everything that I had ever wanted to know about who makes automobiles, how to get one, the different types that are available, as well as the relative costs, and advantages of each variation of automobile. So suppose that somebody asked you what a dollar is… Aside from the obvious answer that a dollar is a “Federal Reserve Note”, how is it defined? When congressman Dr. Ron Paul recently put this very question of a dollar definition to Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke confidently replied, “My definition of the dollar, is what it can buy. Consumers don’t want to buy gold; They want to buy food, and gasoline, and clothes, and all the other things that are in the consumer basket.”

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A Constitutional Dollar

Mises Daily: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Michael Rozeff

Are you aware that a Federal Reserve dollar bill is not a constitutional dollar? Perhaps you are, but if so, do you know what a constitutional dollar literally is? Is it gold? Is it silver? Is it both? What is actually meant by a metal standard? Can the United States or any country be on two standards at the same time? Can two metals circulate as coin if there is but one standard? Or does one metal have to drive the other out of circulation? How and why does Gresham's law work when a country uses metal coin for money? In what ways are certain statements of Gresham's law misleading?

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What is a Dollar? Seth Lipsky

What Is a Dollar?

SETH LIPSKY

When the House committee on financial services met in March to hear testimony from the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, all eyes were on Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. After Republicans won control of the House last year, Paul acceded to the chairmanship of the subcommittee on monetary policy, which has direct oversight of the Fed. A physician by trade and a libertarian by conviction, Paul had emerged over a long career in Congress as the leading proponent of sound money; for more than 30 years, he had been waiting to play a central role in the nation's monetary debate. So eager was Paul to open up the topic that it took him some 670 words to get his question out.

The congressman noted the Fed's legal responsibility to strive for stable prices and full employment, and offered a review that illuminated the instability on both fronts since the early 1970s. He discoursed on the symbiotic relationship through which the Fed and the Congress have been facilitating government spending. He spoke about the importance of a "measurement of value," and asserted that the value of the stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average had plunged to eight ounces of gold from 44 in 2000. He reported that he was unable to find a definition of the dollar in the United States Code and wondered how the Fed could manage its task without a definition of the national unit of account. He therefore concluded his remarks with a simple question: "[W]hat is your definition of a dollar?"

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What is a Dollar? Edwin Vieira

What Is A "Dollar"?
An Historical Analysis Of The Fundamental Question In Monetary Policy
by
Edwin Vieira, Jr.

Foreword

Today, all thinking, informed Americans know their country is in trouble. Many haven't a clue as to what went wrong with their government, while others can recite a litany of reasons for their country's distress. Of course, no one reason is paramount; but surely a debased, corrupt, and inflationary monetary system must be placed near the top of the list of causes of America's woes.

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