Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, about 1800, said:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken from the banks and restored to the Government and to the people to whom it belongs. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the corporation that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property, until their children will wake up homeless on the land their fathers conquered."