Thread: Is this John Adams quote accurate?

Is this accurate and does anyone know more about the context it was delivered in?

"Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility,
prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever
will do good." -- John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US
President

W

William,

I found this, I hope it helps:

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blo ... Quote.4F8F

I also find these two by Thomas Jefferson, which I find appropriate for these times:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson

I'm sure this has to do with the establishment of a central bank of the First Bank of North America to help the newly formed country of the United States get over its financial woes due to the financial burden of the war with Britain and the problems suffered with the bank and it's charter as well as the money changers but I have not been able to find the quote in discussions about the bank. Nevertheless here is some interesting information from this website...

http://www.ojczyzna.pl/BOOKS/the-money- ... h10-14.htm

It has contained within it some very interesting similarities to what is happening today with the Federal Reserve and our current financial crisis! Here is the text in case you dislike following links....

10. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION







In 1787, colonial leaders assembled in Philadelphia to replace the ailing Articles of Confederation. As we saw earlier, both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were unalterably opposed to a privately owned central bank. They had seen the problems caused by the Bank of England. They wanted nothing of it.



As Jefferson later put it:



"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."



Many believed that the Tenth Amendment, which reserved powers to the states which were not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, made the issuance of paper money by the federal government unconstitutional, since the power to issue paper money was not specifically delegated to the federal Government in the Constitution. The Constitution is silent on this point. However, the Constitution specifically forbade the individual States to "emit bills of credit" (paper money).



Most of the framers intended the Constitution's silence to keep the new federal government from having the power to authorise paper money creation. Indeed, the Joumal of the Convention for 16 August reads as follows:



“It was moved and seconded to strike out the words 'and emit bills of credit and the motion... passed in the affirmative.â€