(EDITOR'S NOTE: "Trashing the Constitution: How misconstruction of the monetary powers and disabilities subverted the Founding Fathers’ intent" was presented by constitutional attorney Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Esq., FAME Foundation Scholar to The Rotary Club of New York,March 25th, 2003 at the Princeton Club, New York.For more information on his new book, click here Pieces of Eight)

My topic is the monetary powers and disabilities of our Constitution; what the government may do, and what it may not do with respect to coinage, currency, credit, and banking.

Now these, to put it bluntly, are not common knowledge. They’re not common knowledge among lay people, and they’re not common knowledge among lawyers. Indeed, in my experience, very few people can talk intelligently about this subject.

You may ask, “So what? Isn’t this a matter that’s really best left to Congress, and the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve, and the Supreme Court, and so forth; the legal and political elite?”

Well, I could give you a number of very important reasons why that is not the case, why this is a vitally important subject to you.