America's First Insider Trading Scheme

Though most Americans have heard of the Constitutional Convention few have heard of the Annapolis Convention the year before, without which there would never have been a Constitutional Convention. Almost no one knows the Philly convention was not called to create a constitution for a new government but merely under the pretext of amending a few of the articles of Confederation. Fewer still know a great patriot of Liberty like Patrick Henry vigorously resisted the new Constitution because of its obvious consolidating tendencies and said of the Articles of Confederation that they deserved our "highest encomium." For it had not encroached upon the Sovereignty of any of the new 13 nations, yet it had allowed the colonies in secession to work together to defeat the greatest military power on earth at the time.

Fewer know Hamilton was furious when he did not get many of his consolidating items and stormed out of the Convention, returning only in the final days to sign the documents. His intention then was the same as the intention of those who introduced the Federal Reserve Bill in 1913: Do what you have to do to get it to pass and then you can "fix it" later. Within 20 years the Fed. Reserve bill passed it had been amended almost 100 times, bringing it to the point it served the intentions of those who cooked up the scheme on Jekyll Island in 1908. Evil friggin' men the were––Hell is wide open for such men, but no place can be found low enough in its bowels fitting for such people.

We owe the framers a great deal, to be sure. But we cannot forget that many of these were the same people who signed on to the Constitutional Scheme, and did it to collect a vast fortune from that new government to compensate them for their Revolutionary War bonds. They did this because the Articles of Confederation did not provide any means of collecting their Revolutionary War Bonds.

Many of those "in the know" about the bonds went up and down the land buying up war bonds from average Americans at pennies on the dollar before the new Constitutional government was put in place in 1791. They did this knowing that as soon as the New General Government came to power the bonds could be redeemed and the value of those bonds would explode. You might say, this was America's first insider trading scheme. Bernie Madoff would have felt completely at home in the company of these men.

As a consequence of these events, many of these people made fortunes from the bonds they already possessed when combined with those they scammed from average folks like us.

To his eternal credit, one who stood to gain the most but refused to take any part in the scam was George Mason–– a man of great honor and character; a man who loved liberty more than money.

Outside of him and a hand full of men like Patrick Henry, the switch from George III to the new General Government turned out to be the mere difference from being ruled by the farmers or the pigs on Animal Farm.

No joy is taken on reflecting on these sad facts--but it is essential that they be reflected upon and there is no better day of the year than July 4th.