The New American by
“Under executive order of the President, all persons are required to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by them to a Federal Reserve bank, branch, or agency or to any member of the Federal Reserve system.”
How would you respond if this order were issued by the president? Would you surrender your gold?
What might surprise you is that this is not hypothetical. On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 mandating that all U.S. citizens deliver on or before May 1, 1933, all but a small amount of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve. In return, they would receive $20.67 per troy ounce. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of the order was punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 (about $231,000 in today’s dollars) or up to ten years in prison, or both.
Now, historians offer many explanations for why FDR unconstitutionally order the confiscation of all privately owned gold, but the most likely reason will sound very familiar to Americans in 2023: a bank bailout.
