Monetary Control Quotes



Jefferson was of the opinion that a central bank was unconstitutional and that it was a great economic danger to the nation, a view also held later by President Andrew Jackson.


The alternative would have been for the colonies to borrow English money at high interest rates and use that. Or use money from private banks (which occurred later.) Many conservatives are today a little shocked that some of the American Colonies just printed money with no backing but it worked—at least at the local level. A Boston Bank for example, would take a large commission for a Bostonian to convert Pennsylvania money into Massachusetts money. So it was not a very good system for trade between colonies and International trade. But English money was used for that. The colonists pragmatically got the “best of both worlds” and paid as little interest as they needed to. This system is essentially what we use today on a national scale with no gold or silver backing of the money.


The Hoover administration had lost control of the economy. The nation was in a depression. Banks were failing. Gold was being hoarded and taken out of circulation while we were on the gold standard. Roosevelt’s solution was to decouple American money and gold—a solution that William Jennings Bryan had suggested many years earlier. See {640978}.