Thomas Jefferson: Modern American Icon and 19th Century Spendthrift...

That's right, Thomas Jefferson was a debtor!

He left the White House 20 grand in debt, and that's in turn of the century dollars. Turn of the nineteenth century. Multiply that by about a thousand to get it to current dollars. Indeed, even a columnist in the New York Times compared Jefferson to "modern spendthrifts."

Jefferson on Banking Institutions

Thomas Jefferson once said on the Banking Institutions of America...

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . 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 [the banks], will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809).

Congress and the American Dollar

The Makers of the Constitution foresaw the need of a national capital. The city of Washington, the District of Columbia, became the capital in 1800. There the work of the government is centered. Congress is given complete charge and control over it. Its residents have no vote. They, alone, of all the people in the United States, must obey laws, with the making of which, they have had nothing to do. They elect no representative to Congress; neither do they elect any city or district officer.

The money, which you use in all your business affairs, is made according to laws passed by Congress. Congress controls the printing of paper money, as well as, the coining of gold and silver money and the smaller coins of nickel and copper.

United States money, in the form of bills, is usually accepted, as equal to gold, in any civilized country. That is because the government keeps enough gold in the United States treasury, and in the banks, to meet all demands on it, for redeeming the paper money.

Congress alone may have money coined. No state may do so.

It is interesting to read the printing on several different kinds of bills . . . a "green-back" or United States note, a federal reserve note, a gold certificate, and a national bank note, perhaps, given by a bank in your own city.

One of these guarantees that the holder will be given the amount of the bill, in gold coin, upon demand; and in fact, gold can be obtained for any of them.

With the power of Congress, to have money made, goes its power to punish those who make false money. To make any coins or bills or stamps, in imitation of those, of the United States, is counterfeiting. Even if it cost a gang of counterfeiters twenty-five cents to make a coin, to pass for a dime, this would be counterfeiting and severely punishable in the United States courts.

References:
"THE CONSTITUTION OF OUR COUNTRY" By Frank A. Rexford

SUPERVISING CIVICS IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK by Clara L. Carson, Chairman Of The Civics Department Of Wadleigh High School, City Of New York Copyright 1924, by AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY