Relevant quotes from historical advocates of freedom
Thomas Jefferson: “I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
— Letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816
Thomas Jefferson: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
— Commonly attributed to Jefferson, though exact sourcing is debated; widely cited in historical discussions
Thomas Jefferson: “Paper is poverty… it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself.”
— Letter to Edward Carrington, 1788
Thomas Jefferson: “The Bank of the United States is one of the most deadly hostilities existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution.”
— Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1803
Thomas Jefferson: “The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
— Attributed to Jefferson in historical writings, though exact source is unclear; often cited in anti-central bank literature.
Andrew Jackson: “Is there no danger to our liberty and independence in a bank that in its nature has so little to bind it to our country?”
— Veto message for the Second Bank of the United States, July 10, 1832
Andrew Jackson: “The bold effort the present bank had made to control the government… are but premonitions of the fate that awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.”
— Veto message for the Second Bank of the United States, July 10, 1832.
Andrew Jackson: “If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”
— Message to the Senate, 1834.
James Madison: “The extension of the prohibition to bills of credit must give pleasure to every citizen, in proportion to his love of justice and his knowledge of the true springs of public prosperity.”
— Federalist No. 44, discussing the Constitution’s restriction on states issuing paper money, 1788.
James Madison: “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”
— Attributed to Madison, though exact sourcing is debated; frequently cited in anti-banking contexts.
John Adams: “All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
— Letter to Thomas Jefferson, August 25, 1787.
Benjamin Franklin: “The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the Revolution.”
— Attributed to Franklin, though exact source is unclear; often cited in discussions of colonial currency.
Alexander Hamilton: “To emit an unfunded paper as the sign of value ought not to continue.”
— Report on Manufactures, 1791, reflecting Hamilton’s preference for a stable currency, despite his support for a national bank.
Thomas Paine: “The punishment of a runaway slave is often lighter than that of a man who counterfeits the money of a nation.”
— Dissertation on Government, 1786, highlighting the severity of undermining public trust in currency.
George Washington: “Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”
— Letter to Jabez Bowen, January 9, 1787.
Thomas Jefferson: “The monopoly of a single bank is a thing to be detested, and I hope we shall crush it in its birth.”
— Letter to John Adams, November 7, 1819.
Thomas Jefferson: “We are undone, my dear sir, if legislation is still permitted which makes our money, much or little, a prey to the caprice of interest.”
— Letter to John Wayles Eppes, November 6, 1813.
Andrew Jackson: “Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States… You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out!”
— Speech to a delegation of bankers, 1832, as recorded in historical accounts; exact phrasing varies slightly in some sources.
James Madison: “The banks, by their own mismanagement, have produced the very evil they were intended to prevent.”
— Letter to Thomas Jefferson, January 15, 1797, referring to the instability caused by early banking practices. John Adams: “Our whole banking system I ever abhorred. I continue to abhor it and shall die abhorring it.”
— Letter to Benjamin Rush, August 1, 1811.
Benjamin Franklin: “The riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labor its inhabitants are able to purchase, and not by the quantity of gold and silver they possess.”
— The American Instructor, 1748, reflecting Franklin’s skepticism of paper money detached from real economic value.
Alexander Hamilton: “The tendency of a national bank is to increase public and private credit. The former gives power to the state, for the protection of its rights and interests; and the latter facilitates and extends the operations of commerce among individuals.”
— Report on a National Bank, December 13, 1790, showing Hamilton’s support for a national bank, in contrast to others’ opposition.
Thomas Paine: “Paper money is like dram-drinking, it relieves for a moment by deceitful sensations, but gradually diminishes the natural heat, and leaves the body worse than it found it.”
— Dissertations on Government, 1786.
George Mason: “The purse of the people is the real seat of sensibility. It is to be drawn upon with caution and in a way that does not impair the public confidence.”
— Speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788, cautioning against financial systems that erode public trust.
Gouverneur Morris: “The moment you give a government paper money, you give it the power to destroy itself and its people.”
— Attributed to Morris in constitutional convention discussions, though exact sourcing is debated; often cited in anti-paper currency arguments.
Henry Ford: “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
— Linked to Ford’s interviews or writings during the early 20th century, cited in The Federal Reserve and Our Manipulated Dollar by Martin A. Larson (1975)