Let vigorous measures be adopted; not to limit the prices of articles, for this I believe is inconsistent with the very nature of things, and impracticable in itself, but to punish speculators, forestallers, and extortioners, and above all to sink the money by heavy taxes. To promote public and private economy; encourage manufacturers, etc.

Source: George Washington
Writings of George Washington, 14:313.

Topics: Economics

[The] Bank of the United States... is one of the most deadly hostility existing, against the principles and form of our Constitution... An institution like this, penetrating by its branches every part of the Union, acting by command and in phalanx, may, in a critical moment, upset the government. I deem no government safe which is under the vassalage of any self-constituted authorities, or any other authority than that of the nation, or its regular functionaries. What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war! It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?

Source: Thomas Jefferson, writing to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, in 1803

Topics: Economics

We are overdone with banking institutions, which have banished the precious metals, and substituted a more fluctuating and unsafe medium.... These have withdrawn capital from useful improvements and employments to nourish idleness.... [These] are evils more easily to be deplored than remedied.

Source: Thomas Jefferson
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 12:379-80

Topics: Economics

All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, as much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

Source: John Adams
Works 8:447

Topics: Economics

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied 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.

Source: Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

Topics: Economics

The few who understand the [banking] system, will either be so interested from it’s profits or so dependant on it’s favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.

Source: Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

Topics: Economics

The Federal Reserve banks, while not part of the government,...

Source: United States budget for 1991 and 1992 part 7, page 10

Topics: Economics

Where The Bondage Of Debt Falls.

I know of no other factor which has had such potent influence, in the dissolution of nations which have flourished and passed away, as has the bondage of debt. When nations become debtors the only means of providing revenue with which to meet their obligations is by taxation. This burden falls heaviest upon the masses, the common people, who are the producers of the indispensable necessities of life.

The men who till the soil, who tend the flocks and herds, who dig from the earth the treasures which are hidden there, the men who take the raw materials which are provided by nature and convert them into the things which man requires for his convenience and comfort, who are real producers, they are the people who do the world’s work, fight the world’s battles, and pay the world’s taxes.

I know there are those who will not agree with me in this statement, and I shall not discuss it with them at this time, only to say that I have given the subject as careful study as I am capable of doing, and have concluded that commerce, the professions, and the great industrial systems of our country find means by which the burden of taxation may be shifted until in the last analysis it falls heaviest on the classes to which I have referred.

Source: President Anthony W. Ivins
General Conference, October 1921

Topics: Debt; Economics

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of the waters. This struggle may be both moral and physical, but it must be struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. And these wrongs will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”

Source: Frederick Douglass, 1857

Topics: Power

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