"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, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life." | by: | Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President |
Source: | The Works of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 11 (Correspondence and Papers 1808-1816) > TO JOHN TAYLOR > paragraph 790 |
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