Thomas Jefferson: On Central Banking
Liberty
Think | December 24 2004
"I am convinced that those societies (such as the
Native American peoples) which live without government enjoy in their general
mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the
European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of
law, & restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere. Among
the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into
two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has
drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever
accumulating."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy
of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government
to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous
to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed
aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of
money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom
it properly belongs."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The system of banking we have both equally and
ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions,
which, if not covered, will end in their destruction. I sincerely believe,
with you...that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under
the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
- Thomas Jefferson
"To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus
specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless
field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation
of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill [chartering the first Bank
of the United States] have not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United
States by the Constitution. They are not among the powers specially enumerated."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment
to our Constitution - taking from the Federal government their power of borrowing
(from privately-owned corporate banks)."
- Thomas Jefferson
"We are undone, my dear sir, if legislation is still
permitted which makes our money, much or little, real or imaginary, as the
moneyed interests shall choose to make it."
- Thomas Jefferson
