"Put down the banks, and if this country could
not be carried through the longest war against her
most powerful enemy, without ever knowing the
want of a dollar, without dependence on the traitor-
ous class of our citizens, without bearing hard on
the resources of the people or loading the public
with an indefinite burden of debt, I know nothing of
my countrymen." — Thomas Jefferson.
The message of President Jackson in 1834 reads,
now, sixty years after, like a prophecy:

JACKSON ON NATIONAL BANKS.
Message December 2, 1834.
"Circumstances make it my duty to call the atten-
tion of Congress to the Bank of the United States.
Created for the convenience of the government, that
institution has become the scourge of the people.
