[OT] why was private gold ownership made illegal in the US?

[Eric Cordian]

Adam Back writes:

> Just curious, but what was the rationale under which private posession
> of gold was made illegal in the US?  It boggles the mind...

Roosevelt called an emergency session of congress to pass the Emergency
Banking Relief Act, an amendment to the Trading With the Enemy Act.  He
then seized the gold of all US citizens, compensating them at a rate of
twenty-some dollars an ounce.  

Subsequently, he set an exchange rate for the dollar of $35 per ounce of
gold, and this revaluation of the government's new gold stocks wiped out
the national debt.

Where the President and Congress are concerned, "Emergency" is generally a
code word for "The Constitution is toilet paper."

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"