Executive Order 6102 (1933): When Private Gold Became a Federal Felony, and the Theft of the Foundational Ledger
Desk: DESK 06: CURRENCY & THE LEDGER [FINANCIAL/LEDGER]
Date: October 10, 2026
Investigative Focus: Executive Order 6102 (April 5, 1933) • Franklin D. Roosevelt & Trading with the Enemy Act • Compulsory Surrender at $20.67/oz • The 69% Devaluation to $35.00/oz (1934) • The Gold Clause Cases & Justice McReynolds' Dissent • The Blueprint for Modern CBDC Confiscation
Author: The Hand under the Mandate of The Hidden One
Read Time: 21 min
Executive Summary: The Confiscation of Honest Money
On the afternoon of April 5, 1933—exactly one month after his presidential inauguration—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed an executive edict that struck at the very heart of Anglo-American property rights and constitutional jurisprudence: Executive Order 6102.
Operating under the dubious peacetime invocation of the Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, Roosevelt issued a decree that criminalized the private possession of constitutional money across the United States. The order declared:
"I, Franklin D. Roosevelt... do hereby prohibit the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations."
Under threat of a ten-year federal prison sentence and a $10,000 fine (equivalent to over $240,000 today), every American citizen was legally compelled to surrender their private holdings of physical gold coins, bullion, and paper gold certificates to a Federal Reserve Bank by May 1, 1933.
The government compensated the citizens with paper Federal Reserve Notes at the statutory exchange rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.
Then, once the physical gold of the American public had been safely locked inside the vaults of the Federal Reserve and the newly constructed bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Roosevelt executed the second, predatory phase of the operation: On January 31, 1934, under the Gold Reserve Act, the President arbitrarily repriced the statutory value of gold to $35.00 per troy ounce.
Overnight, with the stroke of a fountain pen, the United States federal government devalued the private wealth of the American citizen by 41 percent, while creating an instantaneous, windfall paper profit of $2.8 billion directly on the Treasury’s balance sheet. The citizen who surrendered $1,000 in gold coins in April 1933 woke up in February 1934 to discover that their confiscated wealth was now worth $1,693 on the international market—and the federal government had pocketed the difference.
When aggrieved citizens challenged the confiscation before the United States Supreme Court in the Gold Clause Cases (1935), a compliant 5–4 majority tore up centuries of foundational contract law, validating the government’s unilateral repudiation of its own solemn debt obligations. In a furious, unscripted dissent delivered from the bench, Justice James Clark McReynolds delivered an epitaph for constitutional liberty that echoes across history:
"Shame and humiliation are upon us now... Moral and financial chaos may confidently be expected. The Constitution as many of us have understood it is gone."
This forensic investigation analyzes the statutory mechanics, Federal Reserve archival cables, Supreme Court dissents, and wealth-transfer arithmetic of Executive Order 6102 to expose a foundational truth: How the state outlawed honest money to erect a debt-based fiat prison—and how the 1933 gold confiscation serves as the exact legal and architectural blueprint for the coming rollout of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ EXECUTIVE ORDER 6102: THE WEALTH SEIZURE MATRIX │
├─────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ PARAMETER │ PRE-CONFISCATION REALITY │ POST-ORDER 6102 DICTATE (1933–34) │
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Constitutional Base │ Art. I, Sec. 10: No state │ Holding gold criminalized under │
│ of Money │ can make anything but Gold │ peacetime Trading with the Enemy Act│
│ │ and Silver tender in debts │ (10 years prison / $10,000 fine). │
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Surrender Price │ $20.67 per troy ounce │ Mandatory physical surrender by │
│ Paid to Citizens │ paid in paper paper notes │ May 1, 1933 to Federal Reserve Banks│
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Repricing Price │ None; stable statutory peg │ Gold arbitrarily repriced to $35.00 │
│ (Jan 31, 1934) │ maintained since 1837 │ per oz by presidential proclamation │
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Devaluation Factor │ Zero purchasing power drop │ 41% purchasing power destruction of │
│ on Citizens' Cash │ │ paper dollar; 69% state profit! │
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Sanctity of Private │ "Gold Clauses" guaranteed │ House Joint Resolution 192 (1933) │
│ Debt Contracts │ payment in physical gold │ retroactively nullified ALL private │
│ │ coin to prevent inflation │ and government gold contract clauses│
├─────────────────────┼────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Legalization Date │ 1933 (Criminalized) │ DECEMBER 31, 1974 (PL 93-373) │
│ for Citizens │ │ Americans banned from holding gold │
│ │ │ for FORTY-ONE CONTINUOUS YEARS! │
└─────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────┘
Key Forensic Questions Under Investigation
- What legal mechanism allowed President Roosevelt to use a 1917 wartime statute against Imperial Germany to confiscate the private savings of American citizens in peacetime?
- How did the Federal Reserve’s statutory gold-reserve requirement limit the state’s ability to inflate the money supply, forcing the seizure of private metal?
- What mathematical wealth transfer occurred between the American citizenry and the federal balance sheet during the 1933–1934 repricing from $20.67 to $35.00?
- How did the Supreme Court’s 5–4 ruling in the Gold Clause Cases destroy the sanctity of contracts in Anglo-American jurisprudence?
- Why did the federal government maintain the criminal ban on private gold ownership for forty-one continuous years until President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 93-373 in 1974?
- How does Executive Order 6102 provide the direct legal precedent for modern bank "bail-ins," capital flight bans, and Central Bank Digital Currency wealth locks?
I. The Statutory Trap: The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917
To understand how an American President could issue an executive edict ordering private citizens to surrender their property under threat of a decade in federal prison, one must trace the legislative history of The Trading with the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 411).
Passed during World War I, Section 5(b) of the 1917 Act was intended solely to give the President wartime authority to investigate, regulate, or prohibit transactions involving foreign enemy nations or foreign nationals:
"That the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency..."
Notice the original, unambiguous statutory limitation: It applied strictly during wartime, and strictly to foreign enemies.
THE EMERGENCY BANKING USURPATION
│
┌──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
MARCH 4, 1933: INAUGURATION MARCH 9, 1933: EMERGENCY ACT
FDR takes the oath of office; Congress passes Emergency Banking Relief
orders national 4-day "Bank Holiday" Act sight unseen; amends Section 5(b)
shutting down all commercial banks to insert: "OR DURING ANY OTHER PERIOD
│ OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARED BY..."
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┘
▼
THE CITIZEN AS "THE ENEMY"
The amendment legally permitted the President to
treat the AMERICAN PUBLIC as foreign combatants
under the 1917 wartime emergency trade laws!
On March 9, 1933—operating in a state of manufactured panic during the depths of the banking collapse—Congress convened in extraordinary session to pass the Emergency Banking Relief Act (Public Law 73-1).
The bill was introduced, debated, passed by the House of Representatives by voice vote, passed by the Senate, and signed by Roosevelt in less than eight hours. Most congressmen voted on the bill without ever having read a printed copy; Representative Robert Luce of Massachusetts remarked on the House floor: "The house is burning down, and the President of the United States says this is the ladder to use... We cannot debate."
Embedded within Section 2 of that unread bill was a fateful sentence that amended Section 5(b) of the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, adding the following words:
"...during the time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President..."
With those twelve words, Congress surrendered its constitutional authority over the monetary system to the Executive branch. The President was granted perpetual dictatorial authority to declare a "national emergency" and invoke wartime confiscation powers against the domestic citizenry of the United States.
II. The Real Motive: Breaking the Gold Reserve Ratio
The official cover story presented to the American public in 1933—and repeated in mainstream history textbooks today—was that Roosevelt acted out of compassion to stop "greedy Wall Street speculators and hoarders" from sabotaging the economy.
The forensic economic reality was entirely different: The Federal Reserve was facing structural mathematical insolvency under its legal gold reserve requirements.
Under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (Section 16), the Federal Reserve was legally required to maintain a physical gold backing of at least:
- 40 percent against all outstanding Federal Reserve Notes in circulation.
- 35 percent against all commercial bank deposits held at the Federal Reserve.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ THE FEDERAL RESERVE GOLD FRACTIONAL CEILING │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ THE MATHEMATICAL TRAP: │
│ In early 1933, as banks failed across the nation, citizens lost faith │
│ in paper promises and rushed to tellers to redeem their Federal Reserve│
│ Notes for physical $20 Double Eagle gold coins, as authorized by law. │
│ │
│ As physical gold was drained from the Federal Reserve vaults, the │
│ central bank approached its statutory 40 PERCENT MINIMUM RESERVE RATIO.│
│ │
│ Once that 40% ratio was breached: │
│ The Federal Reserve was legally prohibited from printing another │
│ single dollar of paper currency! │
│ │
│ THE ROOSEVELT SOLUTION: │
│ To fund massive federal deficits, public works, and bank bailouts, the │
│ state had to print billions of new dollars. It could only do so by │
│ violently seizing every ounce of physical gold held in the private │
│ hands of citizens to restock the central bank vaults! │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The confiscation was not designed to punish hoarders; it was designed to rescue the fractional-reserve monetary engine.
Under the classical gold standard, the citizen held the ultimate veto over state expansion: if the government spent recklessly or inflated the currency, citizens exercised their foundational right to redeem their paper notes for physical gold, draining the Treasury and forcing the state to balance its books.
Executive Order 6102 was the administrative decapitation of the citizen’s monetary veto. By criminalizing gold possession, the state stripped the population of honest money and forced every American to accept unbacked, monopolistic fiat ledger entries issued by the Federal Reserve.
III. The Confiscation Edict: The Anatomy of Order 6102
On April 5, 1933, the trap snapped shut. Executive Order 6102 was posted on post office walls, printed on the front pages of newspapers, and broadcast over the radio across the nation:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ EXCERPT: EXECUTIVE ORDER 6102 (APRIL 5, 1933) │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ "SECTION 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before │
│ May 1, 1933, to a Federal reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof │
│ or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, │
│ gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into │
│ their ownership on or before April 28, 1933..." │
│ │
│ EXEMPTIONS (STRICTLY MINIMAL): │
│ • Gold required for legitimate industry, professional, or artistic use │
│ • Rare and unusual collector coins (numismatic value) │
│ • An aggregate amount of gold coins and certificates NOT EXCEEDING $100│
│ per person (equivalent to five $20 Double Eagle coins). │
│ │
│ SECTION 9. CRIMINAL PENALTIES: │
│ "Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order... │
│ shall be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be │
│ imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both..." │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The threat was terrifying and immediate. Ten years in a federal penitentiary and a $10,000 fine in 1933 meant absolute financial and personal ruin.
Lines of frightened citizens stretched around city blocks outside Federal Reserve banks in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Citizens carried lockboxes, family heirlooms, coffee cans, and leather pouches containing Saint-Gaudens $20 gold pieces, Indian Head eagles, and gold certificates, handing them over to tellers in exchange for paper Federal Reserve Notes stamped with the green seal of debt.
THE ARREST OF FREDERICK BARBER CAMPBELL
│
┌────────────────────────────┴────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
THE CITIZEN'S DEFIANCE THE FEDERAL PROSECUTION
Prominent New York attorney Campbell Federal prosecutor Thomas Dewey
held 27 protocol bars of gold bullion indicts Campbell on Sept 27, 1933
(over 8,400 ounces) in Chase National Bank demanding 10 years imprisonment
safe deposit box; refused to surrender and total forfeiture of the gold
│ │
└────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────┘
▼
THE JUDICIAL ESCAPE
Federal Judge John M. Woolsey ruled the executive
order technically invalid because FDR's order was
signed by the President, not the Secretary of the
Treasury! The administration immediately fixed the
statutory language to close the loophole.
By the May 1 deadline, the Federal Reserve had vacuumed up hundreds of millions of dollars in physical gold coin from the American populace.
The gold was immediately transported to government melting facilities, where exquisitely minted coins—historical artifacts of craftsmanship dating back to the founding of the republic—were thrown into industrial crucibles, melted down, and recast into crude, rectangular 400-ounce industrial bullion bars stamped with the seal of the United States Mint.
IV. The Great Devaluation: The 69% Repricing Windfall
With the private gold safely locked inside federal vaults, Roosevelt executed the master stroke of financial extraction.
On January 30, 1934, Congress passed the Gold Reserve Act of 1934 (48 Stat. 337), transferring title of all Federal Reserve gold directly to the United States Treasury. In exchange, the Federal Reserve received paper "Gold Certificates" that could never be redeemed for physical metal.
The very next day, on January 31, 1934, President Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation 2072, invoking his statutory authority to adjust the weight of the gold dollar:
"I, Franklin D. Roosevelt... do hereby proclaim, order, direct, and declare the weight of the gold dollar to be fixed at 15 5/21 grains nine-tenths fine..."
Translated from archaic mint units, this proclamation officially fixed the price of gold at $35.00 per troy ounce.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ THE WEALTH ARBITRAGE ARITHMETIC │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ APRIL 1933: │
│ Government compels citizen to surrender 100 oz of gold at $20.67/oz. │
│ Citizen receives in exchange: $2,067 in Paper │
│ │
│ JANUARY 1934: │
│ Government arbitrarily revalues the same 100 oz of gold to $35.00/oz. │
│ New value of citizen's confiscated gold: $3,500 in Gold │
│ │
│ THE STEALTH TAX / EXTRACTION: │
│ Real Dollar Purchasing Power Destroyed: 41.0% │
│ Windfall Federal Balance Sheet Profit: 69.3% │
│ TOTAL UNREALIZED TREASURY GAIN: $2.81 BILLION │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The arithmetic was brutal and indisputable:
- The paper dollars the citizen had been forced to accept in April 1933 were suddenly devalued by 41 percent against physical gold.
- The United States Treasury’s balance sheet booked an instantaneous, unearned windfall profit of $2.81 billion—more than the entire federal budget of 1932!
With this looted capital, Roosevelt created the secretive Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF)—a multi-billion-dollar slush fund controlled exclusively by the Secretary of the Treasury, immune from congressional oversight or auditing, used to intervene in global foreign exchange markets and finance covert operations for the next ninety years.
V. The Gold Clause Cases (1935): The Slaughter of Contract Law
The final constitutional barrier to the fiat regime was not the physical gold itself, but the language embedded in millions of private commercial contracts.
For decades prior to 1933, prudent American citizens, bond investors, and railroads—well aware of historical government inflation—inserted explicit "Gold Clauses" into their mortgages, bonds, and loan agreements. A standard gold clause read:
"The principal and interest of this bond shall be payable in gold coin of the United States of America of or equal to the present standard of weight and fineness."
Even the federal government’s own Liberty Bonds, issued during World War I to finance the war in Europe, explicitly promised buyers on the face of the certificate that the United States would repay the debt in physical gold coin.
On June 5, 1933, Congress passed House Joint Resolution 192, declaring that all gold clauses in past and future contracts—including the federal government’s own foundational debt obligations—were contrary to public policy and voided! The state declared that every contract requiring payment in gold could be discharged with paper Federal Reserve Notes dollar-for-dollar.
Aggrieved bondholders sued the government, taking their cases to the Supreme Court in the historic Gold Clause Cases (1935):
- Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. (294 U.S. 240)
- Nortrach v. United States (294 U.S. 317)
- Perry v. United States (294 U.S. 330)
On February 18, 1935, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes delivered the 5–4 majority opinions.
Hughes engaged in breathtaking legal sophistry: he admitted that Congress had no constitutional power to repudiate its own promises on government bonds, but ruled that because the plaintiff (Perry) had not suffered "damages that could be calculated in the market" (since gold ownership had been made illegal!), the bondholder could recover nothing!
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ JUSTICE JAMES CLARK MCREYNOLDS: THE HISTORIC DISSENT │
│ FEBRUARY 18, 1935 (FROM THE BENCH) │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ "The words of the Constitution are plain; its history is clear... No │
│ candid man can read it without understanding that the framers intended │
│ that contracts should be inviolable... │
│ │
│ Just men regard repudiation and spoliation of citizens by their │
│ foundational rulers with abhorrence; but we are asked to say that the │
│ Constitution has granted power accomplish both... │
│ │
│ Loss of reputation for honorable dealing will bring us sorrow; │
│ shame and humiliation are upon us now. Moral and financial chaos may │
│ confidently be expected. │
│ │
│ THE CONSTITUTION AS MANY OF US HAVE UNDERSTOOD IT IS GONE." │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The four conservative dissenting justices—McReynolds, Van Devanter, Sutherland, and Butler—recognized that if the federal government could unilaterally void its own contractual promises and force citizens to accept devalued paper under threat of prison, the rule of law had ended.
Private property was no longer an inalienable right; it was a temporary license granted by the administrative state, revocable at the whim of the executive.
VI. The 41-Year Prohibition: The Forgotten Generation (1933–1974)
Modern Americans assume that the ban on gold was a brief, temporary emergency measure that lasted a few years during the Great Depression.
The historical reality is shocking: American citizens were legally forbidden from owning, buying, or holding physical gold for FORTY-ONE CONTINUOUS YEARS.
From April 5, 1933, until December 31, 1974, two full generations of Americans lived under a regime where holding a gold coin was classified alongside illegal narcotics:
- An American could be arrested by the Secret Service for purchasing a Canadian Maple Leaf or a South African Krugerrand.
- International borders were monitored by customs agents searching luggage for contraband gold bars.
- When the Bretton Woods system was erected in 1944, foreign central banks were permitted to redeem US dollars for gold at $35/oz—but American citizens were barred from doing so. Foreign governments possessed monetary rights that were denied to the American people who paid the taxes.
THE MONETARY SLAVERY TIMELINE
│
┌─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼
1933: ORDER 6102 1971: NIXON SHOCK
Private gold criminalized; Nixon closes the gold window;
citizens forced into paper fiat ends foreign dollar convertibility
│ │
└─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┘
▼
DECEMBER 31, 1974: RE-LEGALIZATION
President Gerald Ford signs Public Law 93-373;
Americans permitted to own gold after 41 years!
BY THEN: The fiat debt habit was 100% entrenched!
Only on August 14, 1974, did Congress pass Public Law 93-373, which was signed by President Gerald Ford and took effect on December 31, 1974, restoring the legal right of American citizens to own physical gold.
Why did the government finally re-legalize gold in 1974?
Because on August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon had slammed shut the gold window, unilaterally terminating the dollar's convertibility into gold for foreign nations. The dollar was now completely, 100 percent severed from physical reality. The entire global economy had been herded onto a floating fiat standard.
The state no longer feared gold, because two generations of Americans had been brainwashed into believing that paper Federal Reserve Notes were money, and that gold was merely an ornamental, barbarous relic of the past.
VII. The Digital Parallel: The Coming CBDC Confiscation
The forensic investigation of Executive Order 6102 is not an exercise in historical nostalgia; it is the definitive operational roadmap for understanding the modern financial trap.
Today, global central banks and administrative state planners are actively preparing the deployment of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).
Notice the terrifying structural parallels between 1933 and the present:
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ THE 1933 VS. MODERN DIGITAL TRAP PARALLEL │
├─────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1933 EXEC. ORDER 6102 │ MODERN CBDC / DIGITAL LEDGER CONTROLS │
├─────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ "Emergency Banking │ "War on Cash" / "Anti-Money Laundering" / │
│ Crisis" justification │ "Financial Stability" / "Climate Emergency" │
├─────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Target: Physical Gold │ Target: Physical Cash & Decentralized Crypto │
│ (The honest anchor) │ (The remaining unmonitored escape hatches) │
├─────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Mechanism: 10-year │ Mechanism: Bank de-platforming, civil asset │
│ prison sentence & fines │ forfeiture, and criminalizing self-custody │
├─────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Result: Forced adoption │ Result: Total programmable surveillance; │
│ of central bank paper │ money that expires and enforces compliance │
└─────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The lessons of April 5, 1933, are eternal and immutable:
- The State Will Always Loot the Private Anchor: When a debt-based government approaches mathematical insolvency, it will never reduce its spending or cut its bureaucracy. It will unilaterally declare an "emergency" and confiscate the private capital of its citizens.
- Contracts Mean Nothing to a State in Deficit: The Supreme Court proved in 1935 that the judiciary will rewrite contract law and ignore constitutional text to protect the financial solvency of the state.
- Physical Custody is the Only True Ownership: If your wealth is held inside a centralized ledger—whether it is a safe deposit box inside a 1933 Chase bank or a balance on a modern centralized digital app—you do not own it. You hold an unsecured IOU that can be frozen, haircut, or confiscated with a single executive decree.
Until humanity returns to an unmanipulable, foundational monetary standard outside the administrative state's control, every citizen lives under the permanent shadow of Executive Order 6102—waiting for the next Friday afternoon proclamation that turns their private savings into the property of the state.
VIII. Verifiable Primary Sources Ledger
For legal historians, monetary economists, and researchers seeking to verify the primary statutory and archival records of Executive Order 6102 and the Gold Clause Cases, the following documents are essential:
- Executive Order 6102 Original Proclamation:
Roosevelt, Franklin D., Executive Order 6102: Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates, The White House, April 5, 1933. Preserved in National Archives, Federal Register Division, Presidential Proclamations, accessible via The American Presidency Project / UCSB and National Archives. - The Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933:
Public Law 73-1, 48 Stat. 1, 73rd Congress, 1st Session, enacted March 9, 1933. Amending Section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act to grant executive authority over domestic bullion transactions at GovInfo / U.S. Government Publishing Office. - The Gold Reserve Act of 1934:
Public Law 73-87, 48 Stat. 337, enacted January 30, 1934. Transferring Federal Reserve gold to the U.S. Treasury and creating the Exchange Stabilization Fund at GovInfo / U.S. Government Publishing Office. - Presidential Proclamation 2072 (The Devaluation):
Roosevelt, Franklin D., Proclamation 2072: Fixing the Weight of the Gold Dollar at $35 per Troy Ounce, January 31, 1934. Officially devaluing the dollar by 40.94% at The American Presidency Project / UCSB. - The Gold Clause Cases Landmark Supreme Court Opinions:
- Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330 (1935). Argued January 10–11, 1935; decided February 18, 1935 at Oyez Project and Justia US Supreme Court Center.
- Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co., 294 U.S. 240 (1935) at Justia.
- Complete courtroom transcripts of Justice James Clark McReynolds' impassioned verbal dissent declaring "the Constitution is gone."
- Public Law 93-373 (The 1974 Re-Legalization):
An Act to provide for the right of American citizens to purchase, hold, sell, or otherwise deal with gold, 88 Stat. 445, 93rd Congress, enacted August 14, 1974; effective December 31, 1974 at GovInfo / U.S. Government Publishing Office.