Collusion

Collusion between government and the money that drives it may seem to many to be a recent problem, but it is nothing new.

In an ATS search I found the Buttonwood Agreement mentioned a few times and some posters seem to be informed about the consequences of it, however I've not seen the founding plan, or the planners broken down for beginners. If this thread is in the wrong forum, mods, please move it.

As many already know, the Buttonwood Agreement, signed on May 17th, 1792, was the origination of the New York Stock & Exchange Board. This agreement was signed, in secret, by 24 New York merchants who had previously met to do their trading at the Tontine Café and under the Buttonwood tree. Their agreement was only one sentence long:

"We the subscribers, brokers for the purchase and sale of public stock do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each other, that we will not buy or sell from this day on for any persons whatsoever any kind of public stock at a less rate than one-quarter percent commission on the specie value of, and that we will give preference to each other in our negotiations."

The 24 signers of this compact were: Leonard Bleecker, Hugh Smith, Armstrong & Barnewall, Samuel March, Bernard Hart, Alexander Zuntz, Andrew D. Barclay, Sutton & Hardy, Benjamin Seixas, John Henry, John A. Hardenbrook, Samuel Beebe, Benjamin Winthrop, John Ferrers, Ephraim Hart, Isaac M. Gomez, Gulian McEvers, Augustine H. Lawrence, G. N. Bleecker, John Bush, Peter Anspach, Charles McEvers, Jr., David Reedy, Robinson & Hartshorne."

Hmm, more founding fathers of our corporate system of government whose names you never heard in your government approved civics classes. Men of means who solemnly vowed to “give preference to each other”, all with government collusion and approval.

The first publicly traded securities in the US were the $80 million in U.S. Government bonds issued by Alexander Hamilton as first treasury secretary in1790 to refinance Revolutionary War debt. Hamilton’s Bank of the United States in New York was the first corporate stock traded under the Buttonwood tree in 1792 and George Washington took his oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, which was also the site of the passage of the Bill of Rights.

“In the first clear articulation of the broad or loose interpretation of the Constitution, Hamilton argued that the Bank, though not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was clearly constitutional because "every power vested in a Government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term, a right to employ all means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power."

“Where Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph argued that the federal government had no power to incorporate a bank because it was not explicitly allowed to do so in the Constitution, Hamilton retorted that the government enjoyed all powers necessary to its functioning that were not explicitly forbidden. Hamilton's logic was unanswerable. From that day forth the doctrine of "implied powers" increasingly dominated legal interpretation of the Constitution.”

For history buffs: www.press.uchicago.edu...

Every power necessary. Chilling words. So every law passed since 1790 is constitutional under those terms. They could order each and every one of us to jump off a real fiscal (physical) cliff, by law, and make it stick. And in judging the constitutionality of that law, the Supreme Court would be forced to say "jump, you suckers".

Very interesting bit of history, Frazzle.

Any time a really good and noble idea gets into the hands of greedy men, it's all downhill from there.

Why should the USA be any different? What we are seeing currently is the culmination of the collusion between big money and government. Lucky us, we get to see the end result of several hundred years of pure avarice.

Originally posted by FissionSurplus
Very interesting bit of history, Frazzle.

Any time a really good and noble idea gets into the hands of greedy men, it's all downhill from there.

Why should the USA be any different? What we are seeing currently is the culmination of the collusion between big money and government. Lucky us, we get to see the end result of several hundred years of pure avarice.

Yeah, we're lucky. Absolutely. Half the people are now reduced to betting their luck on the lottery since working doesn't seem to be getting the job done.

I've started trying to track down some background on the 24 signers at Buttonwood and although I've not gotten very far down the list yet, so far they're more like chameleons than founders of something as substantial as the nation's first and biggest gambling hall.

But on the upside, we're almost to the bottom of the hill now and we're starting to figure out that it isn't just natural geography, its a really really deep hole they dug for us a long time ago. Getting out of it will be the trick.

Originally posted by frazzle

“In the first clear articulation of the broad or loose interpretation of the Constitution, Hamilton argued that the Bank, though not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was clearly constitutional because "every power vested in a Government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term, a right to employ all means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power."

“Where Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph argued that the federal government had no power to incorporate a bank because it was not explicitly allowed to do so in the Constitution, Hamilton retorted that the government enjoyed all powers necessary to its functioning that were not explicitly forbidden. Hamilton's logic was unanswerable. From that day forth the doctrine of "implied powers" increasingly dominated legal interpretation of the Constitution.”

For history buffs: www.press.uchicago.edu...

Every power necessary. Chilling words. So every law passed since 1790 is constitutional under those terms. They could order each and every one of us to jump off a real fiscal (physical) cliff, by law, and make it stick. And in judging the constitutionality of that law, the Supreme Court would be forced to say "jump, you suckers".

And yet the very Bill of Right's portion of the Constitution declares unequivocally in the text of the 10th Amendment...

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So either it was a state-by-state determination... or it was the totality of citizens to whom that "right" was assigned.

"...employ all means requisite and fairly applicable..." would be in keeping with the law of the land...

thus:

...Where Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph argued that the federal government had no power to incorporate a bank because it was not explicitly allowed to do so in the Constitution, Hamilton retorted that the government enjoyed all powers necessary to its functioning that were not explicitly forbidden.

Seems incomparably weak. And any acceptance of this posture was probably politically expedient or financially pragmatic... after all the European banks struggled long and hard to establish the central bank in America... and essentially, Hamilton failed.

But they persisted... and in 1913... the collusion was made real. Thanks Senator Aldrich.

Hamilton was a "favored" public figure of the banks.... obviously....

Originally posted by Maxmars

Originally posted by frazzle

“In the first clear articulation of the broad or loose interpretation of the Constitution, Hamilton argued that the Bank, though not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was clearly constitutional because "every power vested in a Government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term, a right to employ all means requisite and fairly applicable to the attainment of the ends of such power."

“Where Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph argued that the federal government had no power to incorporate a bank because it was not explicitly allowed to do so in the Constitution, Hamilton retorted that the government enjoyed all powers necessary to its functioning that were not explicitly forbidden. Hamilton's logic was unanswerable. From that day forth the doctrine of "implied powers" increasingly dominated legal interpretation of the Constitution.”

For history buffs: www.press.uchicago.edu...

Every power necessary. Chilling words. So every law passed since 1790 is constitutional under those terms. They could order each and every one of us to jump off a real fiscal (physical) cliff, by law, and make it stick. And in judging the constitutionality of that law, the Supreme Court would be forced to say "jump, you suckers".

And yet the very Bill of Right's portion of the Constitution declares unequivocally in the text of the 10th Amendment...

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So either it was a state-by-state determination... or it was the totality of citizens to whom that "right" was assigned.

"...employ all means requisite and fairly applicable..." would be in keeping with the law of the land...

thus:

...Where Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph argued that the federal government had no power to incorporate a bank because it was not explicitly allowed to do so in the Constitution, Hamilton retorted that the government enjoyed all powers necessary to its functioning that were not explicitly forbidden.

Seems incomparably weak. And any acceptance of this posture was probably politically expedient or financially pragmatic... after all the European banks struggled long and hard to establish the central bank in America... and essentially, Hamilton failed.

But they persisted... and in 1913... the collusion was made real. Thanks Senator Aldrich.

Hamilton was a "favored" public figure of the banks.... obviously....

The tenth amendment was essentially overruled by the supremacy clause of the Constitution before such protections were even promulgated by the antifederalists.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.”

If Hamilton's federalists had gotten their way there wouldn't have been a Bill of Rights, they only succumbed to demands that it be added in order to get the number of signatures required to ratify. Obviously the first ten amendments have not been observed in two and a half centuries of lawmaking.

Alexander Hamilton was a familiar of the European Bankers and the first American bank was then and still is (the fed) still joined at the hip to the Bank of England as well as other foreign banks. The Treaty of Paris was written as a guarantee of repayment of loans granted by European banks to the continental congress prior to the Constitution. To be paid, of course, by the citizens of America.

Less than a hundred years after the constitution was signed, President Abraham Lincoln declared martial law and ordered the suspension of the constitutionally protected right to writs of habeas corpus in 1861. Guaranteed protections? State's rights?

Ultimately, the Federal Reserve Act was just one more link in the chain of custody. The power of government and industry has been carefully developed in small increments over a length of time. The next link in the chain will be the dissolution of the various national central banks (happening now) to be be replaced with a world currency based on the UN Peace Treaty, which is, after all, the supreme law of the land, "anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding".

So far the only Buttonwood signers I've found information on are:

William Armstrong was a New York City merchant who partnered with George Barnewall. As Armstrong & Barnewall, they were among the twenty-four brokers that signed the Buttonwood Agreement at 68 Wall Street (under a buttonwood tree) that developed the New York Stock Exchange.

George Barnewall was a New York City importer at 21 Wall Street. He was a prominent Catholic in the early days of New York City and a member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. He served as vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York and was a second lieutenant of the Third Troop of Horse in the City of New York.

Bernard Hart was honorary secretary of the New York Stock Exchange from 1831 to 1853, succeeding Jacob Isaacs. www.jewishencyclopedia.com...

Alexander Zuntz (1741-1819), a Hessian officer who sided with the British, served as president of the Jewish congregation in New York at the time of the American Revolution. In 1792, he was one of the 24 brokers who signed the Buttonwood Agreement at 68 Wall Street (under a buttonwood tree) that led to the formation of the New York Stock Exchange. www.nysoclib.org...

Benjamin Mendes Seixas engaged in privateering with Isaac Moses, and was a mason and treasurer at the Sublime Lodge of Perfection. He also served as a trustee for the Philadelphia congregation Mikveh Israel. In 1784, Benjamin Mendes Seixas returned to New York and opened a dry goods store. He was active in Congregation Shearith Israel, serving among his roles, as chairman of the board, trustee, and president. He was one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange and became an auctioneer later in his life. findingaids.cjh.org...

Benjamin Winthrop ~ all I could find was: Judith Stuyvesant, bom December 25, 1765; died March 7, 1S44; married January 19, 1785, Benjamin Winthrop, great-grandson of Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts. archive.org...

Nothing specific found about Samuel March or Hugh Smith or ___ Hardy or John Henry or John Hardenbrook or Samuel Beebe or John Ferrers.

Still hunting ...