Base Tyranny

By Erickson, Matt, R.

Book Id: WPLBN0100000461
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 1.34 MB
Reproduction Date: 06/02/2013

Title:	Base Tyranny
Author:	Erickson, Matt, R.
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, History of America
Collections:	Authors Community, Literature
Historic Publication Date:	2013
Publisher:	Patriot Corps

Member Page:	Matt Erickson
Citation APA MLA Chicago R. Erickso, B. M. (2013). Base Tyranny. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
Base Tyranny is the second book in a fiction series (following Bald Justice), looking at our monetary history of gold and silver coin, transitioning into legal tender paper currencies.

Summary
Base Tyranny examines further America's monetary history, to understood how the U.S. went from 70 years on a silver and gold coin monetary standard to paper currency and how to restore fiscal sanity to the U.S.

Excerpt
Gordon Radcliff’s plan was ironically rooted in America’s extensive seacoast defense system. On March 17, 1861, two weeks after the necessary two-thirds of Congress had sent the proposed 13th Amendment to the States for ratification and a week after the Confederate States of America approved emitting bills of credit directly, Gordon Radcliff attended a family reunion and dinner. Originally Gordon had planned to skip the reunion, so he could continue to concentrate on his work, to come up with some plan to move things forward. It was only after the ever-persistent nagging by his mother that he dutifully decided at the last minute to attend the function. If his mother only knew the ultimate cost of that nagging, she would have never enticed her son to attend. If she knew then the devastation her son would help instigate and his ‘reward’ for bringing it to his mentor’s attention, she would have taken far more drastic action than simply avoid nagging her son. After dinner, Gordon patiently listened, along with several other family members, to his patriotic cousin ramble on continuously about his second year of engineering studies at West Point. The cousin spoke at great length, saying that he had never really liked blowing things up as a kid, but had always loved building structures. Gordon began strategizing, planning his exit. The only thing he liked more than blowing things up was making money, and he had much figuring yet to do to better ensure he could make that happen. The cousin admitted when his brothers were playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ when they were all young, he would be constructing safe-haven forts to help protect the women and children. Continuing those efforts into adulthood, the cousin figured that with the men out fighting battles, many women may soon find themselves widowed. He planned to marry one of those rich widows, like his hero, George Washington. As the cousin with no shortage of patriotic fervor began relaying the history of the First System of seacoast defense implemented in 1794, Gordon got up from his chair to make his exit. Gordon was almost out of earshot when his cousin told the others that the 1794 defense act explicitly made it lawful for the President to receive cessions of State lands for building federal forts. Gordon did not immediately understand why this new information sparked his interest, but he instinctively knew the information was important to his own plans. Gordon thus sat back down and soon began extensively questioning his enthusiastic West Point cousin. Sadly, this cousin whose personal hero was General George Washington didn’t pay enough attention to that man’s Farewell Address as President. The engineering student had no idea his cousin Gordon would soon be in primary contention for ‘The People’s Exhibit Number One’, for President Washington’s Farewell admonition to be on “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” It was that day that Gordon Radcliff realized the United States’ defensive forts were primarily aimed outward to fend off foreign attack. They were thus more vulnerable to a sustained attack from within. But far more importantly, the forts themselves offered the northern banksters a spectacular opportunity just by being federal forts. Fully intrigued with the topic, Gordon pressed his cousin further. The West Point cadet was quite happy to convey his thorough knowledge of civil defense to his interested relative who had never before paid him much attention. The cadet detailed that when Congress and President Washington approved the First System of defense for the eastern seaboard on March 20, 1794, when war with Great Britain again appeared increasingly imminent, that they approved 20 fortification sites from Maine to Georgia. A 21st site was added two months later. Two months later, Congress also approved the creation of a Corps of Artillerists and Engineers, which was separated in 1802 when a permanent Army Corps of Engineers was born and stationed at West Point. The military academy was then officially constituted to train future generations of American military engineers. In 1807, Congress and President Jefferson commenced the Second System of additional fortification work. After the capitol burned during the War of 1812 due to an over-whelmed defense, a more extensive Third System of fortification work was approved on April 29, 1816 as a monumental $838,000 was appropriated to begin the important work. Whereas the cousin’s life-long hero had been George Washington, Gordon’s own hero was first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Gordon’s favorite work was Hamilton’s 1791 opinion on the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. At his family reunion, Gordon Radcliff’s extensive studying of America’s banking feud between hard money proponents and banking advocates suddenly promised to pay off in spades. Gordon Radcliff was able to couple his West Point cousin’s knowledge of engineering with Hamilton’s monetary theories and come up with a fool-proof plan to make money, a whole lot of money. He and his colleagues would be able to create unfathomable wealth for themselves and set up their heirs with a virtual dynasty.