by the sales tax percentage, added penalties and interest, andrnsent me a bill for about $30,000.rnThus began my pilgrimage through the courts. I had landedrnsmack in the middle of Legal Never-Nevedand: monetary law.rnOf course Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution says, “NornState shall make any Thing but Gold and Silver Coin a tenderrnin payment of debt.” Of course the definition of “money” atrnthe head of the Arkansas tax title says, “The term ‘money’ orrn’monies’ shall be had to mean and include gold and silver coin.”rnOf course the U.S. Code (Title 12, Section 152) says that “lawfulrnmoney” means gold and silver coin of the United States.rnState and federal constitutions, state and federal statutes,rnstate and federal court decisions, Supreme Court decisions, allrnspeak with one voice: gold and silver coin are money, bank notesrnare not. But whether I raised the issue in a Revenue Departmentrnadministrative court, chancery court, or federal districtrncourt, I ran into the same terrified reaction. “The monetaryrnemperor is naked! Federal Reserve notes aren’t really money!rnQuick, rule against this clown and drag him out of here!”rnI appealed the agent’s assessment, and lost at the administrativernlevel, and in administrative court, too. I appealed tornchancery court, had a trial, but once again lost. By then it wasrnDecember 1983, and I received a letter from the Arkansas RevenuernDepartment demanding I fork over $120,000! A few daysrnlater two deputies came to collect their “judgment.” Throughrnseveral well-nigh miraculous providences, they got nothing.rnThat night, I decamped from Arkansas and wrote a friend arnlong letter about my ordeal. Remember that letter.rnI moved my business to Tennessee, doing exactly the samernthing, exchanging gold and silver money for Federal Reservernnotes. By this time I realized that although every American hadrna constitutional and legal right to gold and silver money, Americansrncould not use them in everyday business. We had thernright to sound money, but no means. We needed an interfacernbetween the paper system and gold and silver.rnSo in May 19841 opened a gold and silver bank. It attractedrndepositors like wildfire, and on June 18,1985, it even caught thernattention of two IRS Criminal Investigation Division (CID)rnagents, who popped in to announce that I was under criminalrninvestigation.rnIn the next three years, the IRS treated me to the full-courtrnpress. They got my bank records, and on the U.S. Attorney’srnstationery wrote all my customers, demanding that they sendrnrecords from their dealings with me to the CID agent andrnthreatening the recalcitrant with subpoenas. These lettersrnchilled my customers’ enthusiasm. It got harder and harder tornmake a living.rnOn September 18, 1986, five agents from the TennesseernRevenue Department appeared at my office with a search warrant,rnpawed my files and records for two hours, and hauled offrnboxes of personal papers. That was the first—and last—I heardrnof them for a long time. They immediately turned over my papersrnto the IRS.rnIn the spring of 1988, the IRS and the U.S. Attorney’s officernleap-frogged their investigation from me to my church. Therernwas nothing unusual about the church. It was not a “taxrnprotest” church, just a member congregation of the conservativernPresbyterian Church in America. The Assistant U.S. Attorneyrnsubpoenaed church members before the grand jury andrngrilled them about the church’s teachings. Did the pastorrnteach people not to file income tax returns? Did the churchrnhave militia practice in the woods? Survival training? Did thernchurch hand back contributions under the table? About thernonly thing they did not accuse us of was trafficking in nuclearrnwarheads.rnWe landed in the catch-22 maelstrom of official suspicion.rnThe more the pastor and the elders proved to the U.S. Attorney’srnoffice that these accusations were lies, the more convincedrnof deceptiveness they became. The Assistant U.S. Attorneyrnissued a subpoena to the church for all her records:rncounseling, sessional, financial, everything. The session of thernchurch offered to consider any request for specific documents,rnbut refused to open the Bride of Christ up to a fishing expedition.rnAt dawn on January 9, 1990, the IRS struck. Although thernagent investigating me knew very well that I was not violent,rnIRS agents and Tennessee Revenue Department agents roaredrninto my driveway while the SWAT team in their black ninjarnsuits poured out of the woods on either side of my house. Theyrnattacked with reckless disregard for the safety of my wife andrnseven children. All they needed to do was pick up the telephonernand tell me I had been indicted, and I would have gonerndowntown. No, these IRS thugs wanted headlines from a sensationalrn”pre-dawn raid” to scare the sheep for tax season, andrnto make me and my wife look violent and dangerous.rnAfter they arrested me and Susan, the IRS refused to leavernmy home. Three IRS agents stayed until the end of the day andrnrefused to let my children leave the house. The agents werern\’aiting for a search warrant so that they could steal my recordsrnand computer.rnOn the ride downtown I had no idea what was going on.rnWhy would they arrest Susan? She had never done anythingrnother than minor secretarial work in my business, and spent allrnher waking hours homeschooling and raising children. When Irnstepped into the jail cell, I began to understand. They had indictedrnher to blackmail me. My friends, customers of the goldrnand silver bank, and numerous church members were alreadyrnthere, including my pastor and assistant pastor. The indictmentrnwas an inch thick. In 72 pages, it charged 26 defendantsrnwith conspiracy to defraud the government, willful failure tornfile, and other malefactions.rnThe government claimed that the gold and silver bank was arntax evasion scheme to hide income. Not even two years in thernArmy had prepared me for stupidity of this magnitude. Howrncould we hide income when almost everything we took in wasrnin checks, and we deposited the checks into our bank account?rnOh, yes, we did pass some of the checks along to other dealersrnto pay for gold or silver we bought for them, a common practicernin the industry and perfectly legal. This, the governmentrntaught us, was “laundering checks,” a sinister activity. But everyrnbank deposit I had made was a count on the indictment!rnAnd Susan—poor homemaking, homeschooling Susan—wasrnthe Number Two conspirator, right after me!rnMy bond was set at $ 150,000, fully secured. For comparison,rnthat same day they arrested a child molester and set his bond atrn$10,000, not secured. I stayed in jail from Tuesday until Friday,rnv.’hen my parents put up their house to get me out of jail.rnWhen the federal marshals released me at 5:00 P.M., sheriff’srndeputies were waiting to arrest me, and me alone, on staterncharges.rnI believe but cannot yet prove that an ex-IRS agent had beenrnsent to work for the Tennessee Revenue Department to get thernsearch warrant the IRS could not get, and to figure out somern20/CHRONICLESrnrnrn