Is the Federal Reserve Legal?

It seems people are waking up as to the legality and constitutionality of the institution known as the Federal Reserve. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives congress the power to "[...] coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, [...]" not an independent non-transparent private institution. Congress is representative of the people. The Federal Reserve is not part of the government and does not represent the people. It is a private institution that operates behind closed doors. They were given the power to coin money in 1913, and this was a direct violation of Article 1, Section 8. One can reasonably conclude that those ultimately behind the Federal Reserve, in order to coerce the U.S. government to perform such an illegal and unconstitutional act, must have been quite powerful indeed, with an enormous amount of resources already at their disposal.

Also, Article 1, Section 10 states that "No State shall [...] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [...]" The abandoning of the gold standard by the U.S. in 1933 was a direct violation of Article 1, Section 10. The combination of these two violations of the constitution set the stage for unbridled debt-based spending. Prior to 1933, expensive public undertakings such as war could only be financed by taxes which was only a partial limitation on government, as high taxes to fund public projects would become unpopular rather quickly. Incidentally, prior to 1913, there were no federal income taxes. The apportionment of federal income taxes was passed as law in 1913 as the 16th amendment to the constitution, coincident with the establishment of the Federal Reserve.

The propaganda on the Federal Reserve website, (incidentally it has a .gov address which is just another deception to lend it the aura of being a government institution) indicates that the seven members of the Board of Governors are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. However, in reality this is a mere formality. The prospective members of the board are short-listed by the controlling interests of the Federal Reserve, which are then "selected" by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It's very much like our own so-called democratic process. As a citizen, if you are to select one of seven possible candidates for a government post, all of whom have been pre-selected by the powers that be, do you have any real choice?

For more information on this interesting topic read, "The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve" by Edward Griffin, "A Short History of Money and Banking" by William Gouge, "The Organization of Debt into Currency" by Charles Holt, and essentially anything by Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek. Also informative is the documentary entitled, "The Money Masters" by Bill Still. Slightly tangential but also related, the documentary, "America from Freedom to Fascism" by Aaron Russo.