701. BANKS, Evils of.—[further continued] .
The evils of this deluge
of paper money are not to be removed until
our citizens are generally and radically instructed
in their cause and consequences, and
silence by their authority the interested clamors
and sophistry of speculating, shaving,
and banking institutions. Till then we must
be content to return, quoad hoc, to the savage
state, to recur to barter in the exchange of
our property, for want of a stable, common
measure of value, that now in use being less
fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian,
and to deliver up our citizens, their
property and their labor, passive victims to
the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebankers.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 115.
(M.
1819)
