Executive Order 11110 was issued by U.S. President John F. Kennedy on June 4, 1963.
This executive order delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury the president's authority
to issue silver certificates under the Thomas Amendment of the Agricultural Adjustment Act,
as amended by the Gold Reserve Act.
The order allowed the Secretary to issue silver certificates, if any were needed, during the
transition period under President Kennedy's plan to eliminate silver certificates.
Background On November 28, 1961, President Kennedy halted
sales of silver by the Treasury Department.
Increasing demand for silver as an industrial metal had led to an increase in the market
price of silver above the United States government's fixed price.
This led to a decline in the government's excess silver reserves by over 80% during
1961.
Kennedy also called upon Congress to phase out silver certificates in favor of Federal
Reserve notes.
Kennedy repeated his calls for Congress to act on several occasions, including his 1963
Economic Report, where he wrote:
I again urge a revision in our silver policy to reflect the status of silver as a metal
for which there is an expanding industrial demand.
Except for its use in coins, silver serves no useful monetary function.
In 1961, at my direction, sales of silver were suspended by the Secretary of the Treasury.
As further steps, I recommend repeal of those Acts that oblige the Treasury to support the
price of silver; and repeal of the special 50-percent tax on transfers of interest in
silver and authorization for the Federal Reserve System to issue notes in denominations of
$1, so as to make possible the gradual withdrawal of silver certificates from circulation and
the use of the silver thus released for coinage purposes.
I urge the Congress to take prompt action on these recommended changes.
Public Law 88-36 The House of Representatives took up the president's
request early in 1963, and passed HR 5389 on April 10, 1963, by a vote of 251 to 122.
The Senate passed the bill on May 23, by a vote of 68 to 10.
Kennedy signed the bill into law on June 4, 1963, and also signed an executive order authorizing
the Treasury Secretary to continue printing silver certificates during the transition
period.
The act, which became Public Law 88-36, repealed the Silver Purchase Act of 1934 and related
laws, repealed a tax on silver transfers, and authorized the Federal Reserve to issue
one- and two-dollar bills, in addition to the notes they were already issuing.
The Silver Purchase Act had authorized and required the Secretary Treasury to buy silver
and issue silver certificates.
With its repeal, the President needed to delegate to the Treasury Secretary the President's
own authority under the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
Text of Executive Order President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110
modified the pre-existing Executive Order 10289 issued by U.S. President Harry S. Truman
in 1951, and stated the following:
The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following-described
functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President...
The order then lists tasks through which the Secretary may now do without instruction from
the President.
None of the powers assigned to the Treasury in E.O. 10289 relate to money or to monetary
policy.
Kennedy's E.O. 11110 then instructs that:
SECTION 1.
Executive Order No. 10289 of September 9, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended
By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph:
'(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph of section 43 of the Act of May
12, 1933, as amended), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard
silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of an outstanding silver certificates,
to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver
dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption,' and By revoking subparagraphs
and of paragraph 2 thereof.
SECTION 2.
The amendments made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing
or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior
to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said
amendments had not been made.
John F. Kennedy, THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 4, 1963.
Revocation E.O. 11110 was not reversed by President Lyndon
B. Johnson and the section added to E.O. 10289 remained on the books until President Ronald
Reagan issued Executive Order 12608 on September 9, 1987 as part of a general clean-up of executive
orders.
E.O. 12608 specifically revoked the section added by E.O. 11110 which effectively revoked
the entire Order.
By this time, however, the remaining legislative authority behind E.O. 11110 had been repealed
by Congress when Pub.L. 97–258 was passed in 1982.
In March 1964, Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon halted redemption of silver
certificates for silver dollars.
In the 1970s, large numbers of the remaining silver dollars in the mint vaults were sold
to the collecting public for collector value.
All redemption in silver ceased on June 24, 1968.
Conspiracy theory
Jim Marrs, in his book Crossfire, presented the theory that Kennedy was trying to rein
in the power of the Federal Reserve, and that forces opposed to such action might have played
at least some part in the assassination.
According to Marrs, the issuance of Executive Order 11110 was an effort by Kennedy to transfer
power from the Federal Reserve to the United States Department of the Treasury by replacing
Federal Reserve Notes with silver certificates.
Actor and author Richard Belzer named the responsible parties in this theory as American
"billionaires, power brokers, and bankers ... working in tandem with the CIA and other
sympathetic agents of the government."
A 2010 article in Research magazine discussing various controversies surrounding the Federal
Reserve stated that "the wildest accusation against the Fed is that it was involved in
Kennedy's assassination."
Critics of the theory note that Kennedy called for and signed legislation phasing out Silver
Certificates in favor of Federal Reserve Notes, thereby enhancing the power of the Federal
Reserve; and that Executive Order 11110 was a technicality that only delegated existing
presidential powers to the Secretary of the Treasury for administrative convenience during
a period of transition.
See also Bimetallism
Executive Order 6102 History of the United States dollar
Silver standard United States Note
References
External links John F. Kennedy: Executive Order 11110
Executive Orders Disposition Tables, John F. Kennedy - 1963
Codification of EO 10289 at the National Archives