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             ARTICLE #1: What is Sovereign Citizenship?
                      by Scott Eric Rosenstiel

    What is Sovereign Citizenship?  Sovereign Citizenship is the
status held by our forefathers.  George Washington, Benjamin
Franklin, and everyone else who won their freedom from the British
Empire had this status.  It was the birthright of all Americans, and
we were generous in extending this most important right to
foreign-born persons through the naturalization laws.  With this
status, our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and property
couldn't be infringed.  During the Civil War a method was discovered
by the leading attorneys, financiers, and politicians of the day to
deprive us of this status.  Fortunately, we can get it back.

    This brings us to the question, "What are we getting back?"
What does it mean to be a Sovereign Citizen?

    The word "sovereign" is defined in the 6th edition of Black's
Law Dictionary, published in 1990, as being, "A person, body, or
state in which independent authority is vested; a chief ruler with
supreme power; a king or other ruler in a monarchy."  Prior to the
War for American Independence, the British king was the sovereign
and the American people were his subjects.  The war's outcome
changed all this:

          The sovereignty has been transferred from one man to the
          collective body of the people - and he who before was a
          "subject of the king" is now "a citizen of the State."
          State v. Manuel, North Carolina, Vol. 20, Page 121 (1838)

    Thus, the people became Citizens of their respective states.
But more importantly, for the first and only time in recorded
history, the people were recognized as being the true sovereigns:

         It will be sufficient to observe briefly, that the
     sovereignties in Europe, and particularly in England, exist on
     feudal principles.  That system considers the prince as the
     sovereign, and the people as his subjects; it regards his
     person as the object of allegiance...  No such ideas obtain
     here; at the revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the
     people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but
     they are sovereigns without subjects...  and have none to
     govern but themselves...
         Chisholm v. Georgia, Dallas' Supreme Court Reports, Vol.
     2, Pages 471, 472 (1793)

    Each individual, at least so far as respects his unalienable
rights is his own sovereign.  These rights weren't given to any
government.  In fact, they can't be.  Perhaps you can give up all of
your rights, if you so choose, but who has the power to give your
rights up for you?  In America, no one can, because we're all equal.

    In America this principle of popular sovereign is recognized by
all governments - state and federal.  When the states became
independent, the state governments were formed, all of them based on
the authority of the people, and not the will of one man or a small
body of men.

    The federal government as we know it today was created in 1789
when the federal constitution went into effect.

    The constitution mentioned something previously unknown in
American law: Citizenship of the United States:

         The term, citizens of the United States, must be understood
     to intend those who were citizens of a state, as such, after
     the Union had commenced, and the several states had assumed
     their sovereignties.  Before this period there was no citizen
     of the United States...
         Manchester v. Boston, Massachusetts Reports, Vol. 16, Page
     235 (1819)

    Thus a Citizen of a state is, by the federal constitution, made
a Citizen of the United States.  This means the following:

         A citizen of one state is to be considered as a citizen of
     every other state in the union.
         Butler v. Farnsworth, Federal Cases, Vol. 4, Page 902
         (1821)

    A Citizen of any one of the states is considered and treated as
being a Citizen of all of them.  The phrase "Citizen of the United
States" does not refer to a separate class of citizenship:

         A citizen of any one of the States of the Union, is held to
     be, and called a citizen of the United States, although
     technically and abstractly there is no such thing.  To conceive
     a citizen of the United States who is not a citizen of some one
     of the States, is totally foreign to the idea, and inconsistent
     with the proper construction and common understanding of the
     expression as used in the Constitution, which must be deduced
     from its various other provisions.
         Ex Parte  - Frank Knowles, California Reports, Vol. 5,
     Page 302 (1855)

    Because of the principles enunciated in the above cases and
others like them, it's correct to say that the American people are
Citizens of our respective states.  But we're more than this.  We're
in a very real sense Citizens of all the states.  We are, in the
greatest sense, and proudly so, Citizens of the several United
States.

    This brings us to what are considered as being the rights
inherent in Citizenship in America:

         When men entered into a State they yielded a part of their
     absolute rights, or natural liberty, for political or civil
     liberty, which is no other than natural liberty restrained by
     human laws, so far as is necessary and expedient for the
     general advantage of the public.  The rights of enjoying and
     defending life and liberty, of acquiring and protecting
     reputation and property, - and, in general, of attaining
     objects suitable to their condition, without injury to another,
     are the rights of a citizen; and all men by nature have them.
         Douglass, Adm'r., v. Stephens, Delaware Chancery, Vol. 1,
     Page 470 (1821)

    These are the rights inherent in Sovereign Citizenship.  So long
as we remained Citizens, they couldn't be taken away from us.  So
the key was to take our Citizenship away from us.

ARTICLE #2 - Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship

    If you look through the copy of the United States constitution
found in the 1990 edition of Black's Law Dictionary, you'll notice
something very interesting.  The word "Citizen" is always
capitalized until you get to the fourteenth amendment, which was
adopted in 1868.  After that, it's no longer capitalized.  This
isn't an isolated occurrence either.  In the definition of "Dred
Scott Case," a supreme court case decided before the fourteenth
amendment, they capitalize "Citizen," but everywhere else in the
dictionary, where it refers to the laws of today, the word isn't
capitalized.  As you shall see, this is just one small indicator of
many that the fourteenth amendment created a new class of citizen.

    This is certainly no secret to the legal community.  In fact,
under the definition of "Fourteenth Amendment" it says, "The
Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States...
creates...  a citizenship of the United States as distinct from that
of the states..."  This class of "citizen of the United States" was
new; it was unknown to the constitution prior to 1868.  This wasn't
the status of our forefathers.

    In the first sentence of the definition of "United States" found
in Black's, it says, "This term has several meanings."  Pursuing this
further, we find that one of the definitions is the "collective name
of the states which are united by and under the Constitution."  This
is what the framers of the constitution meant by "Citizen of the
United States" - that is, the Citizen of one state is to be
considered and treated as a Citizen of every other state in the
union.

    Used in another sense, though, the term is simply the name of
the federal government.  This is what is meant by "citizen of the
United States in the fourteenth amendment":

         Privileges and immunities clause of Fourteenth Amendment
     protects only those rights peculiar to being citizen of federal
     government; it does not protect those rights which relate to
     state citizenship.
         Jones v. Temmer, Federal Supplement, Vol. 829, Page 1227
         (1993)

    From the authorities above, we can see that the fourteenth
amendment created citizenship of the federal government.  This
status is a privilege granted by the government:

         Citizenship is a political status, and may be defined and
     privilege limited by Congress.
         Ex Parte (NG) Fung Sing, Federal Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol.
     6, Page 670 (1925)

    It goes without saying that the federal government can regulate
the privileges it creates.  By definition, "citizenship" is the
basis of a person's relationship with the government.  In the legal
sense, everything else is built upon it.  Therefore, since
fourteenth amendment citizenship is a privilege, every aspect of the
citizen's life could potentially be regulated.  Worst of all, this
new class of citizen does not have the right to invoke the
protections of the Bill of Rights, as explained in the following
supreme court case:

         We have cited these cases for the purpose of showing that
     the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States
     do not necessarily include all the rights protected by the
     first eight amendments to the Federal Constitution against the
     powers of the Federal government.  They were decided
     subsequently to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment...
         Maxwell v. Dow, 176 US 598 (1900)

    This isn't an idea peculiar to the turn of the century either.
Going back to the 'Jones' case, which was decided in 1993, we find
the courts of today saying, "The privileges and immunities clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment protects very few rights because it neither
incorporates any of the Bill of Rights nor protects all rights of
individual citizens."

    Although fourteenth amendment citizens have no guaranteed access
to the Bill of Rights, the amendment itself does state that they
have certain "privileges and immunities."  Here's what the supreme
court has decided they are:

         Privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States,
     on the other hand, are only such as arise out of the nature and
     essential character of the national government, or are
     specifically granted or secured to all citizens or persons by
     the Constitution of the United States.  Slaughter-House Cases,
     supra, p.79; Re Kemmler, 136 U.S. 436, 448, 34 L.ed. 519,
     524, 10 Sup. Ct.Rep. 930; Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U.S. 377,
     382, 38 L.ed. 485, 487, 14 Sup.Ct.Rep. 570.  Thus, among the
     rights and privileges of national citizenship recognized by
     this court are the right to pass freely from state to state
     (Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 18 L.ed. 75); the right to
     petition Congress for a redress of grievances (United States v.
     Cruikshank, supra); the right to vote for national officers (Ex
     Parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 28 L.ed. 274, 4 Sup.Ct.Rep.
     152; Wiley v. Sinkler, 179 U.S. 58, 45 L.ed. 84, 21 Sup.Ct.
     Rep.  17); the right to be protected against violence while in
     the lawful custody of a United States marshall (Logan v. United
     States, 144 U.S. 263, 36 L.ed. 429, 12 Sup.Ct. Rep. 617);
     and the right to inform the United States authorities of
     violation of its laws (Re Quark, 158 U.S. 532, 39 L.ed. 1080,
     15 Sup.Ct.Rep. 959).
        Twining v. New Jersey, 211 US 78 (1908)

    As discussed in the last article, Sovereign Citizens created
government to guarantee them their rights.  In contrast, it would
seem from the above that the federal government created fourteenth
amendment citizenship to guarantee its power.

    As a side note, this amendment has always been controversial.
Many people over the years have questioned the amount of power it
vests in the federal government.  Some have even questioned its
validity.  On one occasion Judge Ellett of the Utah supreme court
remarked:

         I cannot believe that any court, in full possession of its
     faculties, could honestly hold that the amendment was properly
     approved and adopted.
         State v. Phillips, Pacific Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol. 540,
     Page 941, 942 (1975)

    However, the most important fact about this amendment is that,
although it created a new class of citizen, it did not have any
effect on Sovereign Citizens.  Both classes still exist:

         When the Constitution was adopted the people of the United
     States were the citizens of the several States for whom and for
     whose posterity the government was established.  Each of them
     was a citizen of the United States at the adoption of the
     Constitution, and all free persons thereafter born within one
     of the several States became by birth - citizens of the State and
     of the United States.  (Mr. Calhoun in his published work upon
     the Constitution denied that there was any citizenship of the
     United States in any other sense than as being connected with
     the government through the States.)

         The first attempt by Congress to define citizenship was in
     1866 in the passage of the Civil Rights Act (Revised Statutes
     section 1992, 8 United States Code Annotated section 1).  The
     act provided that:

         "All persons born in the United States and not subject to
     any foreign power are declared to be citizens of the United
     States."

         And this in turn was followed in 1868 by the adoption of
     the Fourteenth Amendment, United States Code Annotated
     Amendment 14, declaring:

         "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
     subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
     States and of the State wherein they reside."
         Perkins v. Elg, Federal Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol. 99,
     Page 410 (1938), affirmed by supreme court at 307 US 325 (1939)

    Both classes of citizen still exist.  It's your right to be a
Sovereign Citizen, while it's a privilege to be a fourteenth
amendment citizen, and most importantly, it's up to you to determine
which one you are, and which one you want to be.

ARTICLE 3: IRS Taxes

    In this article we'll examine what are commonly called IRS
taxes.

    Most people in America today feel that the federal system of
taxation isn't working very well, from the collection techniques to
how tax dollars are spent, and even the president and many members
of congress admit that many items in the budget are there just to
please various special-interest groups.  It's also universally
admitted that, despite the high levels of taxation, both the deficit
and the national debt and growing at an ever-increasing rate.

    To reduce this problem, President Ronald Reagan created a
commission to study government waste entitled: The President's
Private-Sector Survey On Cost Control, popularly known as the "Grace
Commission," named after its chairman, J. Peter Grace.

    In his opening letter to the president in volume one of the
report, Chairman Grace revealed that "...all individual income tax
revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which
taxpayers expect from their Government."

    This comes as a great shock to many, but the truth of the matter
is that IRS taxes as we known them today were never intended to pay
for any government services.

    The concept of the withholding tax was invented during the World
War II-era by Beardsley Ruml, who at the time was the chairman of
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    To explain the new tax, and its purposes, Chairman Ruml wrote an
article which appeared in the January 1946 issue of "American
Affairs."  Appropriately enough, the article was entitled, "Taxes For
Revenue Are Obsolete."

    In summarizing the points of his article, the editors of
"American Affairs" wrote, "...a sovereign national government is
finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the
purpose of providing itself with revenue."  Chairman Ruml himself
does admit though that "...a century and a half ago, the national
government required revenues in order to pay its bills."

    So taxes aren't needed for running the federal government
anymore.  This leaves many asking, "Why does the government take so
much of what I earn?"

    Chairman Ruml, under the heading "What Taxes Are Really For,"
gave the following answers:

         Federal taxes can be made to service four principle
     purposes of a social and economic character.  These purposes
     are:

         1.  As an instrument of fiscal policy to help stabilize the
     purchasing power of the dollar;
         2.  To express public policy in the distribution of wealth
     and of income, as in the case of the progressive income and
     estate taxes;
         3.  To express public policy in subsidizing or in
     penalizing various industries and economic groups;
         4.  To isolate and assess directly the costs of certain
     national benefits, such as highways and social security.

         In the recent past, we have used our federal tax program
     consciously for each of these purposes.  In serving these
     purposes, the tax program is a means to an end.

    To summarize, here is what IRS taxes are and are not used for:

1.  They are used to help implement economic policies designed by
the federal government,

2.  They are used for social purposes (who should, and should not,
in the opinion of congress, have such-and-such amount of money), and

3.  They are used to subsidize various groups and interests, such as
private banks, but

4.  They are not used to pay for any government services.

    This means that if all IRS tax laws were repealed tomorrow,
there would be no effect on government services.  The only thing
that would change is that the federal government wouldn't be able to
exert the social and economic control that it currently does.

    There are more and more people saying that we'd be better off
without the regulated economy we currently have.  Certainly having
the federal government involved in every aspect of the economy was
something never contemplated by the framers of the federal
constitution.

    Among those who have said that our federal tax system doesn't work
is T. Coleman Andrews, who actually served as the commissioner of
Internal Revenue back in the 1950's.

    After he left office, he began to speak out against what he
perceived as being "rapacious tax enactments." In an article he
wrote for the April 22, 1956 issue of "The American Weekly," he
shared these reflections:

         As Commissioner of Internal Revenue I often thought how far
     we had gone toward coming ourselves "through excessive and
     unjust taxation."

         We have failed to realize, it seems to me, that through our
     tax system we have been playing right into the hands of the
     Marxists, who gleefully hail the income tax as the one sure
     instrument that will bring capitalism to its knees.

    On this point, it's interesting to note that a graduated income
tax is one of the planks of "The Communist Manifesto." He also
explained how special-interest groups have exempted themselves from
taxation, and that the true targets of IRS tax laws are the middle
class:

         Whether you believe it or not, everybody is being overtaxed
     and the middle class is being taxed out of existence, and the
     nation, thereby, is being robbed of its surest guarantee of
     continued sound economic development and growth and its
     staunchest bulwark against the ascendancy of socialism.

    Almost every American, whether he's interested in current
affairs or not, believes that taxes are simply too high.  Some
justify this to themselves by saying that IRS taxes are absolutely
necessary to pay for needed government services, and that everyone
is paying just as much as they are.

    These arguments would undoubtedly disappear if more people knew
that IRS taxes are specifically targeted on the middle-class and
don't pay for any government services.

    This is where Sovereign Citizenship comes in.  As a Citizen,
most IRS tax laws simply won't apply to you.  You won't have to hope
that congress "gives you a break."  You won't have to change the tide
of public opinion to keep what you earn.  You'll simply use the law,
as it's written, to your advantage, instead of allowing it to be
used advantageously against you.

    It's perfectly alright to do this.  Even the federal courts
approve:

         Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be
     as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern
     which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic
     duty to increase one's taxes.
         Helvering v. Gregory, Federal Reporter, 2nd series, Vol.
     69, Page 810 (1934)

    There's no patriotic duty to pay a lot in taxes.  But isn't
there a duty to yourself and your loved ones to reduce your costs,
while justly supporting your community with your increased
purchasing power?

ARTICLE #4 - The Federal Reserve System

    One of the most common concerns among people who engage in any
effort to reduce their taxes is, "Will keeping my money hurt the
government's ability to pay it's bills?"  As explained in the first
article in this series, the modern withholding tax does not, and
wasn't designed to, pay for government services.  What it does do,
is pay for the privately-owned Federal Reserve System.

    Black's Law Dictionary defines the "Federal Reserve System" as,
"Network of twelve central banks to which most national banks belong
and to which state chartered banks may belong.  Membership rules
require investment of stock and minimum reserves."

    Privately-owned banks own the stock of the Fed.  This was
explained in more detail in the case of Lewis v. United States,
Federal Reporter, 2nd Series, Vol. 680, Pages 1239, 1241 (1982),
where the court said:

         Each Federal Reserve Bank is a separate corporation owned
     by commercial banks in its region.  The stock-holding
     commercial banks elect two thirds of each Bank's nine member
     board of directors.

         Similarly, the Federal Reserve Banks, though heavily
     regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks.

    Taking another look at Black's Law Dictionary, we find that
these privately owned banks actually issue money:

    Federal Reserve Act.  Law which created Federal Reserve banks
    which act as agents in maintaining money reserves, issuing money
    in the form of bank notes, lending money to banks, and
    supervising banks.  Administered by Federal Reserve Board
    (q.v.).

    The FED banks, which are privately owned, actually issue, that
is, create, the money we use.  In 1964 the House Committee on
Banking and Currency, Subcommittee on Domestic Finance, at the
second session of the 88th Congress, put out a study entitled "Money
Facts" which contains a good description of what the FED is:

         The Federal Reserve is a total money-making machine.  It
     can issue money or checks.  And it never has a problem of
     making its checks good because it can obtain the $5 and $10
     bills necessary to cover its check simply by asking the
     Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving to print them.

    As we all know, anyone who has a lot of money has a lot of
power.  Now imagine a group of people who have the power to create
money.  Imagine the power these people would have.  This is what the
Fed is.

    No man did more to expose the power of the Fed than Louis T.
McFadden, who was the chairman of the House Banking Committee back
in the '30's.  Constantly pointing out that monetary issues
shouldn't be partisan, he criticized both the Herbert Hoover and
Franklin Roosevelt administrations.  In describing the Fed, he
remarked in the Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296 on
June 10, 1932, that:

         Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most
     corrupt institutions the world has ever known.  I refer to the
     Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks.  The
     Federal Reserve Board, a Government Board, has cheated the
     Government of the United States and the people of the United
     States out of enough money to pay the national debt.  The
     depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board
     and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this
     country enough money to pay the national debt several times
     over.  This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the
     people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has
     practically bankrupted our Government.  It has done this
     through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal
     Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed
     vultures who control it.

         Some people think the Federal reserve banks are United
     States Government institutions.  They are not Government
     institutions.  They are private credit monopolies which prey
     upon the people of the United States for the benefit of
     themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic
     speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money
     lenders.  In that dark crew of financial pirates there are
     those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his
     pocket; there are those who send money into States to buy votes
     to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain an
     international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of
     wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will
     permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in
     motion their gigantic train of crime.

         Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully and
     disloyally foisted upon this country by bankers who came here
     from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by
     undermining our American institutions.

    The Fed basically works like this: The government granted its
power to create money to the Fed banks.  They create money, then
loan it back to the government charging interest.  The government
levies income taxes to pay the interest on the debt.  On this point,
it's interesting to note that the Federal Reserve act and the
sixteenth amendment, which gave congress the power to collect income
taxes, were both passed in 1913.

    The incredible power of the Fed over the economy is universally
admitted.  Some people, especially in the banking and academic
communities, even support it.  On the other hand, there are those,
both in the past and in the present, that speak out against it.  One
of these men was President John F. Kennedy.  His efforts were
detailed in Jim Marrs' 1990 book: Crossfire:

         Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy's attempt to reform
     American society involves money.

         Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the
     constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and
     regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by
     not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve
     System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at
     interest.

         He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing Executive
     Order 11,110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in
     United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the
     traditional Federal Reserve System.  That same day, Kennedy
     signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills
     from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S.
     currency.

         Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had
     been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some
     time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for
     banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system.  Saxon
     also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state
     and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the
     dominant Federal Reserve banks.

         A number of "Kennedy bills" were indeed issued - the author
     has a five dollar bill in his possession with the heading
     "United States Note" - but were quickly withdrawn and destroyed
     by Lyndon Johnson after Kennedy's death.

         According to information from the Library of the
     Comptroller of the Currency, Executive Order 11,110 remains in
     effect today, although successive administrations beginning
     with that of President Lyndon Johnson apparently have simply
     ignored it and instead returned to the practice of paying
     interest on Federal Reserve notes.

         Today we continue to use Federal Reserve Notes, and the
     deficit is at an all time high.

    The point we're trying to make with this is that the IRS taxes
you pay aren't used for government services.  It won't hurt you or
the nation to legally reduce your tax liability.  In fact, it will
help both.  And remember.  It's your money.  You earned it.  For
more information, call The Sovereignty Workshop BBS [phone].
Replies to [e-mail] only.