When Our Money was Our Property

There was a time in our country when our money was our property. It was more than just a medium of exchange or an economic instrument; it was, in a very real sense, property. When a man labored he received compensation in value equal to his work, his produce or his creativity; the money he earned was his property, just as anything else he owned. He could be assured that his money was a store of real value, he could spend it as he pleased, he could store in a bank, stuff it in his mattress or bury it in a mason jar in his back yard and it was no ones business but his own. He could be confident in the value of his money, that he could dig that Mason jar from the ground years later and still have money that kept an equivalent value as when he buried it, it was real money, sound money and it was his private property. He could be assured that his government could not confiscate it, track it or regulate it once it was in his hands; it was real property, his property. He need not worry about whether he carried a suitcase full of it from city to city, state to state or country to country because it was, without any equivocation, his property to do with what he wanted.

In our Constitutional Republic, the Founders were well aware of the potential dangers involving the nation's currency and with that knowledge they gave us with some extremely strong admonitions concerning the value of money as property. They had experienced the results of unsound money and knew that monetary instability would not only threaten the nation's economic freedom, but all freedoms and liberties enjoyed by the people.