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Jeffersonian Concerns
The founding fathers knew that the freedoms they had fought and died for could easily be lost by future generations. They understood the price would be eternal vigilance. Thomas Jefferson, in particular, seemed to have understood the potential for a loss of freedom due to banking laws, and especially “Central Banks” akin to The Federal Reserve (the latter which is probably worst than anything that Jefferson imagined in his worst nightmares). <http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeffcont.htm> provides an extraordinary treatise on this subject. It begins with a quote from John Steele Gordon’s Hamilton’s Blessing, The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt: “Today we tend to think of the American Revolution as having brought ‘democracy’ to the thirteen colonies. In fact it brought no such thing. The eighteenth century was an age of aristocracy, and the American colonies were no exceptions. Each colony had its oligarchy of the rich, established families who dominated the economic and, under the control of a royal governor, political affairs of that colony.” “...With the removal of royal control, these oligarchies inherited a near monopoly of political power in each colony.” “...The oligarchies, it need hardly be said, abused this monopoly of political power; monopolies, whether private or governmental, are always abused by those who hold them.” Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, in response to a huge debt to pay from the excesses of the Revolutionary War, created a central bank and issued paper notes to pay the debt. It was the beginning of The Federal Reserve and a system destined to result in a condition of monumental debt. From Hamilton’s viewpoint, “A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. It will be a powerful cement to our nation. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which, without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.” Unfortunately, such cement has become the kind used to dispatch individuals into the East River. Furthermore, what Hamilton apparently failed to realize was the ease at which a national debt can become excessive. Furthermore, such a device leaves open the door to the machinations of Banksters of every stripe, and ultimately to excessive taxation -- the kind of stuff from which the Revolutionary War was fought in order to free the nation. Jefferson realized that neither a country nor a man can be free and be in debt. This led him to believe that the Union might fall apart if Washington retired from public life. In a letter to Washington, while the latter was still the President of the United States, Jefferson said, “It has been urged, then, that a public debt, greater than we can possibly pay... that this accumulation of debt has taken forever out of our power those easy sources of revenue... which would have answered them... and covered us from habitual murmurings against taxes and tax-gatherers... yet we are already obliged to strain the impost [imposition: literally a laying on, a tax, a deception] till it produces clamor, and will produce evasion and war on our own citizens to collect it. “They cite propositions in Congress, and suspect other projects on foot still to increase the mass of debt...the banishment of our coin will be complicated by the creation of ten millions of paper money, in the form of bank bills now issuing into circulation. “They think the ten or twelve percent annual profit paid to the lenders of this paper medium taken out of the pockets of the people, who would have had without interest the coin it is banishing:” Jefferson was talking about money backed by something real or tangible, and not colored, Fiat Currency (money by decree) created by an institution over which the ordinary people who are deeply affected by its policies have no say. He saw that a system of debt impoverished the whole of life. “...that all the capital employed in paper speculation is barren and useless, producing like that on a gambling table, no accession to itself, and is withdrawn from commerce and agriculture, where it would have produced addition to the common mass: “...that it nourishes in our citizens habits of vice and idleness, instead of industry and morality: “...that it has furnished effectual means of corrupting such a portion of the legislature as turns the balance between the honest voters, which ever way it is directed: “...that this corrupt squadron, deciding the voice of the legislature, have manifested their dispositions to get rid of the limitations imposed by the Constitution by the general legislature, limitations, on the faith of which, the States acceded to that instrument: “...that the ultimate object of all this is to prepare the way for a change from the present republican form of government to that of a monarchy...” [or totalitarianism] “...they are still eager after their object, and are predisposing everything for its ultimate attainment.” Other quotes from Jefferson, include: “Because of the imperfections in human nature, evil men will always seek to gain control of the government to further their own ends. In order to prevent this, power must be vested in the people, whose interest it is to prevent the ascendancy of evil. “Democrats consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them, therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.” “I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.” “Aristocrats fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society.” “The people...are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” “No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.” <http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeffcont.htm> even provides more on Thomas Jefferson.
Bank Letter Money The Federal Reserve Forward to: The Golden Rule Gold Gold Peace Eurogold
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