There is an untold story in American monetary history. Some are reluctant even to discuss it.
I’m referring to the U.S. Secret Service’s very own role in the destruction of sound money in America.
As constitutional, sound money in the form of physical gold and silver coins – whether minted privately or not – became an annoying impediment to expanding the size and power of the federal government, central planners began circulating unbacked paper proxies and formed a Gestapo-like police agency to enforce the scheme.
Founded in 1865, toward the tail end of the American Civil War, the Secret Service originated as a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department.
The primary job of this federal police force was to prevent others from counterfeiting the U.S. currency, which had just been nationalized through acts of Congress via the National Currency Act of 1863 and the Coinage Act of 1864.
Together, these acts formed what are commonly known as the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864.
