Jefferson. Jackson and Lincoln on banks

Thos. Jefferson, c. 1814Although all the nations of Europe have tried and trodden every path of force and folly in a fruitless quest of the same object, yet we still expect to find in juggling tricks and banking dreams, that money can be made out of nothing, and in sufficient quantity to meet the expense of heavy war. ...The toleration of banks of paper discount costs the United States one-half of their war taxes; or, in other words, doubles the expenses of every war...The crisis, then, of the abuses of banking is arrived. The banks have pronounced their own sentence of death. Between two and three hundred millions of dollars of their promissory notes are in the hands of the people, for solid produce and property sold, and they (the banks) formally declare that they will not pay them...Paper was received on a belief that it was cash (gold), and such scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion  of avarice and swindlers,...It is a wise rule never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax at the same instant for paying the interest annually and the principal within a given term...We shall consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves...The earth belongs to the living, not the dead...we may consider each generation as a distinct nation with a right to...bind themeslves but not the succeeding generation...The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating.Andrew Jackson, explaining why he vetoed a bill to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States (an earlier version of the Federal Reserve) in 1832: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? ... (Is there not) cause to tremble for the purity of our elections in peace and for the independence of our country in war? ...Of the course which would be pursued by a bank almost wholly owned by the subjects of a foreign power, and managed by those whose interests, if not affections, would run in the same direction there can be no doubt... Controlling our currency, receiving our public monies, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidble and dangerous than a naval and military power of the enemy...It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cnnot be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics and laborers--who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unncessary departure from these just principles.Abraham Lincoln, 1864:The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will foloow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong the reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic destroyed. Quoted in The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, G. Edward Griffin, pp. 338-339, 350, 389.