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Restoring the Dollar
Transcript of Address By: Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.
Without restoring the dollar we cannot restore government accountability.
John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist who fathered our present economic system, alleged that Lenin was right. He wrote (confessing? or boasting?) in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920:
By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
"Although control of the monetary and banking systems has serious political significance, the apologists of the Federal Reserve System have been extremely successful in the last seventy years or so in removing monetary and banking issues from the agendas of the political parties, candidates, and anybody else who is on the political platform or in the political arena. -- Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.
Without an honest monetary system there is no way we can hold our public servants accountable, because, as Franklin Roosevelt said, financial interests own the government.
What in this world is more mysterious and difficult to understand -- and more vital that we do understand -- than the monetary system under which we live?
In this exceptionally clear exposition, attorney Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., foremost constitutional monetary authority, lifts the veil of mystery, reveals the meaning and import of words, and gives a step by step practical plan for restoring constitutional money.
"Restoring the Dollar" is the transcript of an address to the convention of the National Coalition for Monetary and Tax Reform in Denver, Colorado, August 1991.Restoring the Dollar
By: Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.
There is a fundamental and unexamined assumption in all this debate; but the fact is, the paper currency the Federal Reserve system generates, so-called Federal Reserve Notes, isn't as a matter of fact, or more importantly as a matter of law, a dollar at all.
The major problem of monetary reform can be summed up in one word: ignorance. There are a lot of other words you can add to it: apathy ..., fear...; but ignorance is the main one. Major Problem: Ignorance
At some stage in the course of registering at a hotel, the person behind the counter gives me that little form and says, "How do you intend to pay for this?" In fact, it happened at this hotel when I came here; and I said, "Well, do you take Federal Reserve Notes?" About 95 percent of the time the answer I get is, "No. We take American Express, Visa, MasterCard." The other five percent (or 4.999 percent of the time -- there is one wise guy every now and then who knows the right answer) they say, "Well, I'm not sure. Let me go check with the manager." When they come back they say, "No, we take only American Express, Visa or MasterCard." Then I take out a Federal Reserve note and show them where it is written at the top, "Federal Reserve Note;" and they smile a kind of embarrassed smile, and I smile, and it is all very funny; except it really isn't, is it? It's quite the opposite of being funny.
People don't even know the name of what they use as money, let alone what its source is, what its characteristics are, or what its problems are.
Invariably discussions of monetary reform come down to the question of whether the dollar should be somehow linked or backed by gold or silver or some other valuable commodity. There is a whole school of thought that brings that up in these discussions.
There is a fundamental and unexamined assumption in all this debate; but the fact is, the paper currency the Federal Reserve system generates, so-called Federal Reserve Notes, isn't as a matter of fact, or more importantly as a matter of law, a dollar at all.
Any student of American constitutional law history knows a Federal Reserve Note is not a dollar; it has never been declared by Congress to be a dollar, and it could never be an actual physical dollar, no matter what kind of statutes or regulations Congress or the Treasury Department might enact. It is easy enough to show, and impossible to refute, that a dollar is a specific silver coin containing 371.25 grains of fine silver. It has been so since the beginning of the American Republic.
The Constitution fixes the monetary unit of the United States as this dollar; and it empowers Congress to coin silver and gold coins, the values of which have to be regulated in relation to the dollar. And it very specifically prohibits the government from issuing what the Founding Fathers called "bills of credit," what we would call today paper currency that is redeemable in silver or gold. And the Constitution also outlaws any form of legal tender except silver and gold coins.
Thus, from the perspective of the Constitution and most American history, it is really senseless to talk about making the dollar redeemable or to talk about adopting a silver or a gold-backed dollar. And the very fact that so much debate on the Federal Reserve System focuses on this really senseless point demonstrates how totally ignorant most of the people are about the subject of American money.
Defining the dollar constitutionally is only the first step in explaining the real nature of the problem the Federal Reserve system poses. There are three other aspects to consider.Nature of the Federal Reserve
First, False Character of the Fiat
Historically, every major fiat money has self-destructed in what is commonly called hyperinflation, that is, extreme decreases in purchasing power that is caused either by unlimited increase in supply by the issuer or simply by loss of public confidence in the value of the money or in the economic or political fortunes of the issuer.
The evolution of the Federal Reserve system exemplifies a typical historical devolution or corruption of monetary systems throughout the world for the last two centuries. This is a devolution from commodity money to fiduciary money to fiat money.
But first here are some definitions:
Commodity money is a medium of exchange, the units of which are fixed amounts of an actual commodity that has value other than as money alone. Historically, silver and gold coins of known standard weights and designs emerged as the preferred monies of the civilized world. Certainly that was the result at the end of the last century.
With commodity money, the actual commodity, the silver or the gold, is both the medium of exchange and the standard of value. The supply of commodity money is self-limited because of the costs of minting, refining, and coining the silver and gold. New supplies of commodity money will be coined only to the extent that coinage is economically profitable. The market will simply not produce more gold and silver coin than is necessary compared to all the other uses of that capital.
Fiduciary money is composed of some intrinsically valueless substance, typically paper, which the issuer promises to redeem on demand in commodity money. Private bank notes and government treasury notes served for fiduciary monies in general circulation prior to the 1930's in this country.
With fiduciary money, the promise to pay is the medium of day-to-day exchange. That is what people carry around in their pockets. But the actual money and the ultimate standard of value remains the promised medium of payment, the silver or gold coin.
The supply of fiduciary medium is also self-limited by the requirement of redemption. In a free market system, in which contracts are enforced, the supply of fiduciary money is issued only to the extent that the issuer is confident it can satisfy the demands for redemption. (The self-limiting aspect of fiduciary money has always failed whenever the government or a powerful private interest has been able to step in and license the issuers of the fiduciary money to suspend or to repudiate that promise to redeem.)Finally, fiat money is composed of some intrinsically valueless substance which the issuer does not promise to redeem in a commodity or in a fiduciary money. Because fiat money has no legal connection to a commodity money, and, therefore, has no real economic cost in terms of production, the supply of fiat money is never self-limiting and is always largely a matter of public confidence in the economic or political stability of the issuer.
Historically, every major fiat money has self-destructed in what is commonly called hyperinflation, that is, extreme decreases in purchasing power that is caused either by unlimited increase in supply by the issuer or simply by loss of public confidence in the value of the money or in the economic or political fortunes of the issuer.
That is everything there is to know about the false character of money.
Second, Threat of Fraud A piece of commodity money in silver or gold coin is itself payment because it contains a fixed weight of precious metal. But a unit of fiduciary money, say, of a bank note or a treasury note, is only an uncertain payment, because it depends on the ability and the willingness of the issuer to redeem it. There is always a temptation for the issuers to renege on the promise. Thus, fiduciary money always threatens to become fraudulent. The history of fiduciary money is the history of monetary fraud, both economic and political.
Third, Inherently Fraudulent Fractional reserve banking is inherently fraudulent because it is impossible for the bank simultaneously to fulfill all its promises to redeem on demand. The bank's managers know that complete redemption on demand is impossible and that, therefore, the promises are false; and the bank's customers, by and large, are simply ignorant of how the fractional reserve banking system works.
In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt ran on the Democrat Party platform to preserve the value of the currency at all hazards. The first thing he did when he came to office in 1933 was to close the banks and cancel out receipts of gold. But he got away with that. Then he went on radio with the fireside chats. In the first fireside chat -- some of you may be old enough to have heard this one -- he explained to the American people why the banks had to be closed. He explained to them the fractional reserve banking system. He said, "The money isn't there. The banks cannot pay."I submit to you that when the President of the United States has to come on nationwide radio and explain to the American people how the banking system in the country really works, the people have not been given full disclosure by their local bankers.
Politics and Money
There is no public political discussion about these issues anymore, yet it is of vital political importance. ....A group that could completely excise all of these matters from political discourse in the United States without complaint by any significant part of the public must be very, very powerful. How the apologists for the Federal Reserve were successful in stifling political debate, the history books really do not explain very well.
There's no such thing as politically neutral or politically independent money. (That "neutrality" or "independence" is what has always been called "bird seed." It's put out for us pigeons to eat, but it's not true.)
Money as a medium for both storing and exchanging wealth, is a form of property, and mechanism for implementing contracts that transfer property from one person to another.
Even in a free-market economy, money has a necessarily political character since the degree to which the government protects the money system from private fraud and from public looting reflects the degree to which the government respects and protects private property and the right of contract.
So, the debate over whether the Federal Reserve System ought to be politically independent of Congress is completely misdirected.
The Constitution, being the ultimate political charter of the country, actually settled on one very specific political formula for money: a money of intrinsic value, the supply of which the political powers were unable to manipulate. It made our money independent of all electoral politics by fixing the monetary unit as the dollar, by outlawing bills of credit, and by allowing only silver and gold coin to operate as legal tender.
The creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 did not make Federal Reserve Notes politically independent or neutral, but changed the political character of the money system by empowering a small unelected clique of self-styled experts and private bankers to control the supply of Federal Reserve Notes, interest rates, and all the other monetary and banking phenomena -- to exercise the very influence over this country's money and banking systems that the Constitution had originally disallowed.
Although control of the monetary and banking systems has serious political significance, the apologists of the Federal Reserve System have been extremely successful in the last seventy years or so in removing monetary and banking issues from the agendas of the political parties, candidates, and anybody else who is on the political platform or in the political arena.
There is no public political discussion about these issues anymore, yet it is of vital political importance. No top political movement now has a case for the immediate restoration of our constitutional money system.[This address was made in 1991. The First National Convention of what is now the Constitution Party was in 1992. Ed.]
It is of vital political importance that no top political movement commands that all paper currency of private banks be true fiduciary monies -- that is, redeemable in silver or gold.
It is of vital political importance that no top political movement attacks fraudulent fractional reserve banking.
It is of vital political importance that no top political movement denounces the incestuous relationship between the government and the banking industry through the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, or whatever other outside agencies will be coming along as this system explodes on them.
It is of vital political importance that no top political movement challenges the government's use of the monetary and banking system to regulate the economy and to impose pervasive police-state surveillance on individuals.
And it is of vital political significance that the general public is simply unable to devise any kind of strategy for dealing with the Federal Reserve System as a supposed agency of the government.
Even Congress is no big deal for the Federal Reserve. When the Federal Reserve testifies before Congress, it tells Congress what the policy is going to be -- not the other way around. Nobody has a handle on this agency.
A group that could completely excise all of these matters from political discourse in the United States without complaint by any significant part of the public must be very, very powerful. How the apologists for the Federal Reserve were successful in stifling political debate, the history books really do not explain very well.
Constitutional Control Removed
...any system of fractional reserve banking suffers from inherent instability that increases over time; because at the base, fractional reserve banking is a kind of Ponzi or pyramid scheme. For that reason, fractional reserve banking is a confidence game in both senses of the term.
Clearly, the Federal Reserve was established to remove the Constitution as the controlling agency in national monetary policy, and to guarantee that certain special interest groups be monopolistically represented in determination of that policy for the special benefit of those groups and at everybody else's expense. There are two levels of analysis on which to consider this fact.
First Level: Banking The Federal Reserve System is a tool for stabilizing the inherently fraudulent fractional reserve system. The purpose of the Federal Reserve System is not to do what the bankers want; but to do what the bankers need.
Let us look at the way a monetary system corrupts from a regime of commodity money to that of fiat. In a regime of commodity money, the bankers employ the inherently fraudulent fractional reserve system; they expand the supply of fiduciary money beyond the supply of commodity money available. This has two effects.
One, it enables bankers to loan more money than they otherwise would, and that increases their profits.
Two, it makes the holders of the fiduciary money unknowing, and, I assume, unwilling partners with the bankers in those excessive loans and spreads the risk of the loans throughout society, indirectly insuring the bankers at the expense of the public.
Because the expansion of the supply of this inherently fraudulent fiduciary money is limited by the possibility of bankruptcy -- lots of people asking for redemption, followed, logically by the bankruptcy of the banks -- the bankers support legislation that is designed to insulate the fractional reserve banking system.
First Con: Propaganda
They use propaganda and all sorts of disinformation to con the public into believing that the banks are sound. One such mechanism is so-called deposit insurance. "If we fail, the government will pay. Don't ask us who will pay thegovernment." But it is you who will actually pay. So the first con is disinformation.
Second Con: Suspension of Specie
With their influence, as we saw in the 1930's and many instances before that, the bankers asked the government to authorize what was called "suspension of specie payments" or simple refusal to fulfill their promises to redeem the fiduciary money with commodity, allowing bankrupt bankers to stay in business -- not allowed for any other segment of the economy.
Suspension of specie payments is a key indicator of the breakdown of the free-market economy because that is a governmentally allowed repudiation of contracts. In effect, they are governmentally licensed thefts.
Third Con: Fiduciary Turns Fiat
To prevent bank runs altogether, the bankers get government permission to repudiate fiduciary money totally; converting the fiduciary money into fiat money. No more bank runs: there's nothing to redeem.
The government then forces circulation of the fiat currency by some mechanism such as making that to be money for payment of taxes for public expenditures. Or the government could declare that money legal tender for all debts; or the government could outlaw contracts that are payable in any other form of money, especially commodity money. That is precisely what the government did in the banking crisis in the 1930's --1933, '34 and '35. They, in essence, with respect to gold coin, at least, turned Federal Reserve Notes into a fiat legal tender currency. This substituted the government, or the taxpayers, for the banks and the banks' shareholders as the ultimate guarantors of fiat money, in return for which the banks agreed to do two things:
Bankers' Concessions First, they agreed to monetize the public debt; that is, to buy government securities for duly created fiat money, in effect, enabling the government to use the fiat money system as an instrument of taxation.
Second, the banks agreed to cooperate in some kind of cartel or self-regulatory scheme to control the expansion of the supply of fiat money within limits that maintained public confidence; that is, the government and the banks agreed to divide the amount that can be looted from the general public by manipulation of the money supply and to moderate that looting so that the system doesn't collapse and the public doesn't catch on.
The fractional reserve banking system is nothing but a conspiracy between the public officials and the bankers to loot the American people. The Federal Reserve is simply a very elaborate and complicated device that has been set up to accomplish these simple ends in a higher more deceptive way.
The Federal Reserve system was created in response to failures in the reserve banking system at the local or regional levels. It is a national system regulating all; and it was an attempt, essentially domestically, in 1913, and then internationally under the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944, to expand that kind of fractional reserve system, first throughout the United States and then throughout the world.
Real fiat money came into existence in this country only in 1968. The promise to pay in gold was repudiated in 1933; and the promise to redeem all currency, or any currency, in silver was refuted in '67 and into '68. It was in June of 1968 that we finally had, for the first time in this country, a true fiat currency in the Federal Reserve. So this is a fairly recent problem, as historical political problems go.
In only about twenty years of fiat currency we have seen a geometric breakdown in the monetary system, under which we suffer today.In this system, the Federal Reserve plays a simple but very vital role. The public confidence in the monetary banking system weakens because of the effect of overexpansion of the supply of fiat money. That is always the direction in which fiat money goes: expansion, expansion, expansion. The Federal Reserve jumps in to "restore confidence," by what they call "fighting inflation;" that is, producing increases, and then decreases in the purchasing power of the medium of exchange. The Federal Reserve may use what the public considers drastic means in this alleged fight. Nixon imposed wage and price controls with a four percent inflation. But the Federal Reserve will never use means so drastic that they precipitate a genuine economic collapse or seriously endanger the long-term interests of the banking cartel, its satellite industries or its political cronies.
However, any system of fractional reserve banking suffers from inherent instability that increases over time; because at the base, fractional reserve banking is a kind of Ponzi or pyramid scheme. For that reason, fractional reserve banking is a confidence game in both senses of the term. The Federal Reserve, the banking cartel, and the politicians of the American one-party system operate under the theory that you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, and that's good enough. But they forget that, as Lincoln remarked, "You can't fool all the people all the time." Over time, some people encourage others to learn what's going on. And people who have learned tend to act.
So we can expect that the remaining lifetime of the Federal Reserve confidence game will be relatively short.
Second Level: Economic Now let me shift to a somewhat higher level of analysis.
The Federal Reserve system is not simply a control mechanism for the national banking cartel. It is one of the most important mechanisms in a pervasive system of Fascist economic regulations that has been set up in this country, slowly but surely, since the turn of the century. This explains the political independence of the Federal Reserve system in a way that is much more logical than the idea that money and banking are not politically important, divisive or even interesting.
If a Fascist administrative state is to regulate the economy with relative autonomy from the electoral public and most special interest groups -- which is the definition of an administrative state -- it runs the economy without having to be subject to the whims of the voters. In that kind of state, the monetary agency has to claim political independence. In fact, all of the major regulatory agencies have to claim political independence -- which, they really all do claim, to some degree. The Federal Reserve claims it to the greatest degree. So political independence is precisely what one would expect the Federal Reserve to claim, being a part of an anti-Democratic mechanism of economic and political control.
And that no constitutional branch of the national government -- not the Congress, not the President, and not the Judiciary -- ever disputes the Federal Reserve system's supposed independence, proves that those branches, too, have been couped with agencies of this Fascist state.
Consequences
... by functioning as a mechanism for redistributing wealth, modern political money systematically corrupts the electoral process because it enables politicians to buy votes with promises of new government spending programs made possible only by the banking system's ability to monetize the debt.
Contemporary political money, and the banking system that generates it, have five major consequences.
First, political money is the prime means by which the government operates a system of hidden taxation through increases in the supply of money, the inflation mechanism.
Second, by operating a system of hidden taxation, modern political money enables the ruling elite of the country to redistribute the nation's wealth from one group to another. Greg Barrington, of The American Institute for Economic Research, puts out a little paper every year reporting how much money has been redistributed by inflation since World War II, which ended in '45. The last one I saw showed over six trillion dollars had been redistributed through inflation -- six trillion!
Inflation redistributes wealth in a way that the market would not have distributed the wealth, and therefore produces, as a result, less valuable product than the market would have produced. The United States has suffered a fantastic loss of wealth -- minimum six trillion dollars since World War II -- because of the Federal Reserve system.
Third, by functioning as a mechanism for redistributing wealth, modern political money systematically corrupts the electoral process because it enables politicians to buy votes with promises of new government spending programs made possible only by the banking system's ability to monetize the debt.
In the old days the voters would say to the politician, "Here's some money. Vote for these programs." Today the politicians can generate the money themselves; so they say, "We have the money. Vote for us."
Pork barrel legislation on a vast scale is possible because they can generate fiat currency without limit -- at least over time.
Fourth, by tying the banks to the public debt, modern political money licenses the banks to loot the public treasury -- initially by guaranteeing Federal Reserve Notes as obligations of the United States and privileging those notes as legal tender -- and ultimately by providing bailouts to the bankers through the FSLIC, the RTC, the FDIC, and whatever, when the scheme of inherently fraudulent fractional reserve banking collapses. We can see that happening right now: billions, hundreds of billions, five hundred billion dollars for the savings and loan bailout. No matter what they tell you. It will cost five hundred billion, at least. How much will the commercial bank bailout cost? How much will the bailout of the insurance companies cost? What will the bailout of the pension funds cost? Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. What will the bailout of those cost? Add that to the six trillion lost since World War II.
Fifth, modern political money and banking functions as a key mechanism in the scheme of Fascist economic planning that misdirects and wastes resources and thereby lowers the standard of living of most Americans for the benefit of the privileged few.
Steps to Restoration
... Such part and parcel reforms have been put into effect in several other countries. It can be done! The only question is whether the American people (a) want it to be done, and (b) have the gumption to make the politicians do it.
Restoration must be done constitutionally. The current system is entirely the product of statutes and regulations, ninety-five per cent of which is unconstitutional. Change will have to be made by the enactment of new and different and constitutional statutes.
I can give you an outline of the steps to bring the US monetary and banking system back into conformance with constitutional law -- all of which can be documented historically -- based upon early instances of American constitutional and statutory law:
First, recognize that the basic unconstitutional steps that were taken by the government to establish ultimately this fiat currency system must be declared unconstitutional:
- 1. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
- 2. The seizure of gold coin in 1933
- 3. The outlawing in 1934 of private contracts calling for payment in either gold or silver
Second, disestablish the Federal Reserve system and privatize its few politically legitimate and economically useful functions, such as a national clearing house, etc., to the extent that those functions would be legitimate and useful for private banks if they could be continued, but certainly not under the auspices of anything that looks like the Federal Reserve system.Third, terminate the status of Federal Reserve Notes as obligations of the United States, as legal tender for all debts. There is absolutely no constitutional justification for the American taxpayer to be the ultimate guarantor for the wild investment schemes of banks, savings and loans, and the other members of the the Federal Reserve system.
Fourth, dedicate to the restoration of the constitutional money system the gold that was unconstitutionally seized from the American people in 1933 that is now held by the United States Treasury. Most of the gold is not actually held in Fort Knox -- it is held at West Point. It is called "coin melt" gold. It is the ninety per cent pure gold that was melted down into ingots, primarily from coins that were seized during the 1933 seizure because the government did not have that much gold.
Who owns that gold? The people from whom it was stolen own it, because it was illegally taken. The government is engaged in receiving stolen goods. All of that money must be returned to those from whom it was taken -- if they can be ascertained -- or held in what is called a constructive trust to be used for a purpose related to the restoration of the monetary system, and that would mean coining all of that gold and getting it out into circulation as quickly as possible if we cannot find the actual owners.
Fifth, declare voidable all contracts between member banks and the Federal Reserve system and any other parties where the consideration for contracts on the part of the banks was the unconstitutional monetization of debt. Now what that means is that you collapse the debt pyramid to the detriment of the banks; the banks keep the debts. Thus, it's not the taxpayers who eat them, the banks eat them. The Rockefellers eat them -- the foreign shareholders of those banks eat them. If they don't like that they can go to jail on RICO charges.
Sixth, revalue in terms of constitutional dollars all outstanding contracts now payable in Federal Reserve Notes. Honest people were forced by circumstances to conduct their financial affairs on the basis of Federal Reserve Notes, and those contracts cannot be voided. The contracts must have some real value attached to them. The real value attached to them would be their value in constitutional dollars.
This problem was solved by the Confederate States after the Civil War. Contracts in the Confederate States that were not declared to be illegal contracts were revalued in then-current constitutional gold and silver coin, and the system worked fine. The Supreme Court figured out how to do that at the end of the Civil War, and it can do the same today.
Immediately begin the free coinage of gold and silver coin; not the limited coinage they do now -- the American Eagle coins -- but coining as much gold and silver as people want to bring into the mints.
Seventh, adopt all the foreign silver and gold coins as money of the United States -- what Congress did in the late seventeen hundreds when there wasn't even a mint in this country. Where did the original money come from? They just made a list of all the gold and silver coins that were any good and said, "These have so much gold, and these have so much silver," and they were made the money of the United States. They monetized all the gold and silver of the world instantly. Instantly it could be done.
Those who say there is not enough gold or silver do not know what they are talking about. It is not in circulation because it is not treated as money. Once it is said to be money it will start coming out from the coffers and out from under the beds.
Regulate the value of all those coins and then prohibit the practice of the fraudulent fractional reserve banking schemes and other such typical commercial fraudulent practices.
This is not a visionary program. It is very difficult politically to put it into effect; but it is not, as a matter of economics, visionary.
These steps were taken twice before. At the end of the War of Independence we had the same kind of rotting vegetable currency -- the Continental currency -- the same Bills of Credit. There were no gold and silver coins in circulation. The economy was absolutely prostrate. All of these steps were taken, and economic recovery followed.
In the South following the Civil War, the Confederate currency was, of course, destroyed. The country was prostrate, and was under military occupation when these same steps were taken. In fact, they were taken in the entire country with the resumption of the Specie Act in 1875 going from the fiat "greenbacks" back to redeemable or fiduciary paper currency.
Such part and parcel reforms have been put into effect in several other countries. It can be done! The only question is whether the American people (a) want it to be done, and (b) have the gumption to make the politicians do it. About Dr. Vieira
Dr. Edwin J. Vieira, Jr., Attorney at Law, received his A.B. (cum laude) in Chemistry, A.M. andPh.D. in organic chemistry from Harvard University, and a J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law School.
He is in private practice specializing in constitutional law, labor law and egal-economic analysis. He is currently Executive Director of the George Edward Durell Foundation and President of the National Alliance for Constitutional Money.
Dr. Vieira has also been a consultant and attorney for the National Right to Work Committee and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation; a member of the Board of Fellows, Public Service Research Foundation; a consultant to the U.S. Department of Labor; and a member of the Advisory Board, Citizens for a Sound Economy.
He has been an Assistant Professor of Law at Wake Forest University School of Law and Research Director of the Wake Forest Institute of Labor Policy Analysis.
He is a member of the Bars of Maryland, the District of Columbia, the State of Virginia, the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eight, Eleventh, the District of Columbia and Federal Circuits; and the United States District Court for the Districts of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
He has had articles published in the "Wake Forest Law Review," "Detroit College of Law Review," "DePaul Law Review," "South Carolina Law Review," "Georgia Law Review," the "Cato Journal," "Law & Liberty," "The Moneychanger," "Government Union Review," "American Economic Foundation Bulletin," "The Free Market," "The Sound Money Investor," and other publications. He is the author of Pieces of Eight -- the Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution: A Study in Constitutional Law.
He has also submitted numerous briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States, including briefs on behalf of appellees and appellants as well as amicus curiae briefs.
Dr. Vieira is also the author of Separation of Bank and State, availabe from the National Alliance for Constitutional Money, Inc., P O Box 3634, Manassas, Virginia 20108-0976. Send them a contribution of at least $5, to save time and money for inquiries.
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