Let’s get this out of the way first. No, the Constitution wasn’t officially suspended in 1933. But it was gagged, blindfolded, and tied to a chair while the federal government handed itself sweeping emergency powers and redefined “freedom” into a kind of bureaucratic improv comedy routine. They didn’t declare martial law on paper because that would have looked bad. Instead, they declared it in practice and gave it a haircut, a press pass, and a desk job. Most Americans never noticed. Most still don’t.
The story begins with a “banking emergency.” On March 6, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 2039, effectively closing the banks. This wasn’t a request—it was a national lockdown of the financial system. Within days, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, which amended the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 to allow the president to seize private property and control commerce even in peacetime. You read that right. The original act was intended for use against foreign enemies during wartime. Roosevelt’s administration simply redefined the term “enemy” to include American citizens. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s a matter of historical record. You can read it here and here. This wasn’t martial law with tanks in the streets. It was something more insidious: the silent transfer of authority from constitutional governance to executive fiat, wrapped in the language of patriotic crisis management.
Then came House Joint Resolution 192 in June of that same year. This little piece of legal sorcery declared that debts could no longer be paid in gold. Instead, all gold was to be surrendered to the Federal Reserve, and the American public would now transact in fiat currency—Federal Reserve Notes. In one move, Roosevelt erased the gold standard domestically, outlawed the most stable form of lawful money, and replaced it with an I.O.U. The people didn’t protest. They complied. It was all for the good of the nation, they were told. Never mind that their savings were now denominated in debt-backed paper. Never mind that the Constitution says only gold and silver shall be legal tender. Never mind that the American people’s wealth was effectively nationalized with the stroke of a pen.
By 1938, the Supreme Court put the nail in the coffin. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins may sound like a mundane case about trains and trespass, but the decision fundamentally altered the legal landscape of America. Prior to Erie, federal courts operated under general common law principles—those ancient foundations rooted in natural law and the rights of man. After Erie, federal courts were now confined to statutory law. In other words, judges would interpret the rules written by bureaucrats and legislatures, not derive justice from first principles. The Constitution didn’t vanish overnight. It just became irrelevant in practice. What mattered now was what the statute said. If Congress wrote a law giving an agency the right to inspect your property, seize your earnings, or regulate your behavior, the courts would uphold it, even if it made a mockery of the Bill of Rights.
So no, martial law was never formally declared. But we’ve been living under a continuous state of emergency ever since. Roosevelt’s national emergency was never truly repealed. Instead, it became the precedent for every president that followed. As of this writing, there are at least 41 ongoing national emergencies in effect, some of them decades old. You can find the full list here. The 9/11 emergency is still active. The COVID emergency was extended multiple times before it was quietly phased out. New emergencies are declared regularly over foreign sanctions, trade disruptions, and cyber threats. Each declaration unlocks a set of executive powers that bypass the normal constitutional process. Congress almost never intervenes to end them. The public barely registers their existence. The result is a legal environment in which emergency governance is the norm, not the exception.
amgreatness.com
The story begins with a “banking emergency.” On March 6, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 2039, effectively closing the banks. This wasn’t a request—it was a national lockdown of the financial system. Within days, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, which amended the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 to allow the president to seize private property and control commerce even in peacetime. You read that right. The original act was intended for use against foreign enemies during wartime. Roosevelt’s administration simply redefined the term “enemy” to include American citizens. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s a matter of historical record. You can read it here and here. This wasn’t martial law with tanks in the streets. It was something more insidious: the silent transfer of authority from constitutional governance to executive fiat, wrapped in the language of patriotic crisis management.
Then came House Joint Resolution 192 in June of that same year. This little piece of legal sorcery declared that debts could no longer be paid in gold. Instead, all gold was to be surrendered to the Federal Reserve, and the American public would now transact in fiat currency—Federal Reserve Notes. In one move, Roosevelt erased the gold standard domestically, outlawed the most stable form of lawful money, and replaced it with an I.O.U. The people didn’t protest. They complied. It was all for the good of the nation, they were told. Never mind that their savings were now denominated in debt-backed paper. Never mind that the Constitution says only gold and silver shall be legal tender. Never mind that the American people’s wealth was effectively nationalized with the stroke of a pen.
By 1938, the Supreme Court put the nail in the coffin. Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins may sound like a mundane case about trains and trespass, but the decision fundamentally altered the legal landscape of America. Prior to Erie, federal courts operated under general common law principles—those ancient foundations rooted in natural law and the rights of man. After Erie, federal courts were now confined to statutory law. In other words, judges would interpret the rules written by bureaucrats and legislatures, not derive justice from first principles. The Constitution didn’t vanish overnight. It just became irrelevant in practice. What mattered now was what the statute said. If Congress wrote a law giving an agency the right to inspect your property, seize your earnings, or regulate your behavior, the courts would uphold it, even if it made a mockery of the Bill of Rights.
So no, martial law was never formally declared. But we’ve been living under a continuous state of emergency ever since. Roosevelt’s national emergency was never truly repealed. Instead, it became the precedent for every president that followed. As of this writing, there are at least 41 ongoing national emergencies in effect, some of them decades old. You can find the full list here. The 9/11 emergency is still active. The COVID emergency was extended multiple times before it was quietly phased out. New emergencies are declared regularly over foreign sanctions, trade disruptions, and cyber threats. Each declaration unlocks a set of executive powers that bypass the normal constitutional process. Congress almost never intervenes to end them. The public barely registers their existence. The result is a legal environment in which emergency governance is the norm, not the exception.
Martial Law in Mascara: How FDR Hijacked the Constitution and No One Told You › American Greatness
Let’s get this out of the way first. No, the Constitution wasn’t officially suspended in 1933. But it was gagged, blindfolded, and tied to a chair while the federal government handed itself sweeping…
amgreatness.com
