The Federal Government under FDR confiscated the gold holdings of U.S. citizens during the Great Depression, and got away with it clean.
To be clear, the gold coins were traded for paper dollars of the same value. Those dollars (and those of everyone who did not have gold to trade in) were then devalued.
Everyone calls it confiscation, but I think “forced buy-up” is more precise.
48 posted on 08/30/2011 2:08:28 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
(Are you better off now than you were four trillion dollars ago?)