The American Founders

The Founders knew that their citizens and their government colleagues were imperfect. The Founders themselves were imperfect. In an imperfect world of imperfect people it could not be otherwise. Indeed, they could be petty. With the hindsight of the historian, their decisions may appear questionable. The Founders could be pessimistic about democracy. “Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be,” wrote John Adams to Thomas Jefferson only weeks before they died. "Our American Chivalry is the worst in the world. It has no Laws, no bounds, no definitions; it seems to be all a Caprice."

However, the American Founders were as able a political leadership as any in recorded history. Whatever their faults and fears, they acted, in peace and war, as if America’s future were bright.

Before leaving for his inauguration in 1789, President-elect Washington wrote: “My endeavours shall be unremittingly exerted (even at the hazard of former fame or present popularity) to extricate my country from the embarrassments in which it is entangled, through want of credit; and to establish, a general system of policy, which, if pursued will insure permanent felicity to the Commonwealth. I think I see a path, as clear and as direct as a ray of light, which leads to the attainment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality are necessary to make us a great and happy people.”

Money, Gold, and History

In Money, Gold, and History, Lewis E. Lehrman raises three questions:

1) Will the perennial global monetary crisis and the century-old age of inflation still be underway a generation from now?

2) Will the global economy have succumbed to national rivalries, mercantilism, financial disorder, and entropy?

3) Or, will monetary order have been restored by the leading nations of the world in their own self-interest?

The solution is authorized by the United States Constitution in Article I, Sections 8 and 10 whereby the control of the quantity of dollars in circulation is entrusted to the hands of the people because the definition of the dollar was entrusted to Congress. In 1792, Congress defined by statute the dollar as a specific weight unit of precious metal.

- James Grant, Author and Editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer -

Lincoln "by littles"

“Abraham Lincoln seldom got the chance to go to school. He went to school “by littles,” he said, and received fewer than 12 months of schooling.”

“In the untrammeled interior of the mind s eye, young Lincoln followed his unrestrained desire to explore new intellectual worlds, even the world of American history, of politics, of law. There, in the frictionless world of thought and fantasy, young Abraham Lincoln found the freedom, the vocation, the solace he yearned for, unshackled from the irremediable, unrequited, hard labor of farmer and village artisan.”

“Mr. Lincoln made American politics not only a struggle for personal power and prestige, but instead, a campaign of just ideas, a battle of first principles, a vindication of right-minded policy.”

“The self-tutored lawyer from Illinois could not understand those ‘don’t care’ politicians, such as Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who pretended indifference to involuntary servitude.”

The True Gold Standard A Monetary Reform Plan without Official Reserve Currencies How We Get From Here to There

The United States once again can establish a stable dollar worth its weight in gold.After almost a century of manipulated paper- and credit-based currencies, how do nations–which need the benefits of free trade in order to prosper–terminate the anarchy of volatile, depreciating, floating exchange rates?

Lewis E. Lehrman endeavors to answer this and more with The True Gold Standard.

“If you have ever wondered how the world can get from here to there – from the chaos of depreciating paper to a convertible currency worthy of our children and our grandchildren – wonder no more. The answer, brilliantly expounded, is between these covers.”

Money and the Coming Word Order Second Edition

Almost four decades ago, during America’s worst economic period since the Great Depression–David P. Calleo, Harold Van B. Cleveland, Charles P. Kindleberger and Lewis E. Lehrman wrote the first edition of this book in 1976. Now, in 2012, one is tempted to quote the inimitable Yogi Berra: “this is déjà vu all over again.” The four essays by each contributor with a new foreword and afterword by Lewis E. Lehrman details how American and world prosperity depend on monetary reform, Federal Reserve reform, and restoration of international monetary order.

Lincoln at Peoria The Turning Point

Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point explains how Lincoln’s speech at Peoria on October 16, 1854 was the turning point in the development of his antislavery campaign and his political career and thought. Here, Lincoln detailed his opposition to slavery’s extension and his determination to defend America’s Founding document from those who denied that the Declaration of Independence applied to black Americans.

The True Gold Standard – Paperback

This Monetary Reform Plan proposes to establish the framework for an enduring, stable value for the United States dollar; that is, to define the dollar by statute as a certain weight unit of gold to be coined into lawful money. No perfect monetary system can be fashioned in this imperfect world, peopled by imperfect human beings. But the natural monetary properties of the true gold standard developed by supple and subtle institutional mechanisms through centuries of observation and experience provide the world trading system with the least imperfect domestic and international monetary system. Such a system best enables that fragile reed known as civilization to endure.

Gold Standard 3-Pack

Learn all about the history of monetary policy and the prescription for solving the impending money crisis with this 3-pack of titles. Included are The True Gold Standard, Paperback Edition, Money and the Coming World Order, and the brand new Money, Gold, and History.

The True Gold Standard
No perfect monetary system can be fashioned in this imperfect world, peopled by imperfect human beings. But the natural monetary properties of the true gold standard developed by supple and subtle institutional mechanisms through centuries of observation and experience provide the world trading system with the least imperfect domestic and international monetary system. Such a system best enables that fragile reed known as civilization to endure.

Money and the Coming World Order
Almost four decades ago, during America’s worst economic period since the Great Depression–David P. Calleo, Harold Van B. Cleveland, Charles P. Kindleberger and Lewis E. Lehrman wrote the first edition of this book in 1976. Now, in 2012, one is tempted to quote the inimitable Yogi Berra: “this is déjà vu all over again.” The four essays by each contributor with a new foreword and afterword by Lewis E. Lehrman details how American and world prosperity depend on monetary reform, Federal Reserve reform, and restoration of international monetary order.

Money, Gold, and History
In Money, Gold, and History, Lewis E. Lehrman raises three questions:

1) Will the perennial global monetary crisis and the century-old age of inflation still be underway a generation from now?
2) Will the global economy have succumbed to national rivalries, mercantilism, financial disorder, and entropy?
3) Or, will monetary order have been restored by the leading nations of the world in their own self-interest?