Thomas Jefferson understood the danger of putting the power to control the currency of a nation in the hands of a few individuals in the form of a monopolistic central bank. This is why he opposed Alexander Hamilton's scheme to establish the First Bank of the United States. Let me repeat what he said in 1791: "If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied." President Andrew Jackson also understood the danger. He refused to renew the charter (a grant of monopoly) of the Second Bank of the United States.
In 1836 Jackson said to the bankers trying to persuade him to renew their charter (so they could continue their harmful monopoly): "You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the Eternal God I will rout you out. If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning."
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