Community | September 29, 2008 | 17 comments

Thomas Jefferson on The National Debt

source: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1340.htm

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Stradius
Some choice quotes from the paper. We should NEVER forget history, try hard people.

The National Debt

"I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:64

The Limits on Contracting Debt

"The term of redemption must be moderate, and at any rate within the limits of [the government's] rightful powers. But what limits, it will be asked, does this prescribe to their powers? What is to hinder them from creating a perpetual debt? The laws of nature, I answer. The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead. The will and the power of man expire with his life, by nature's law." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:169

"Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

"The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:457, Papers 15:398n

"[The natural right to be free of the debts of a previous generation is] a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment, which, since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:272

Saddling Posterity with Debt

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820. FE 10:175

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17 comments // Thomas Jefferson on The National Debt

  • SexyErica
    • 0
      SexyErica  

    • Shadow,
      I suggest you stop quoting and make your own opinions. I mean we are dealing with the new times. Good for you for quoting people that are DEAD! Sorry, love ya! Quote it otherwise!
      SE

    • 3 years ago
  • regjoeschmo
    • 0
      regjoeschmo  
    • SexyErica:

      hmmm did his words die with him or are we in a country founded by these ideals..... these words should be kept alive regardless of who spoke them's life span. quite an ignorant statement erica.

    • 3 years ago
  • SexyErica
  • donkeyfly69
  • chaostoast
  • roboiii
    • 0
      roboiii  
    • SexyErica:

      SexyErica, go back to being good looking and retarded. We'll keep looking for the good looking and enlightened woman who appreciates that true brilliance and truth, as Jefferson's, never dies. The new times are f#$@ed up because we have too few like Jefferson.

    • 1 year ago
  • VonNbingHam
  • donkeyfly69
  • ashgallagher
  • chaostoast
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • 'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.'

      Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
      3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

      One of the greatest and most prescient men who ever lived. We need his wisdom now.

    • 3 years ago
  • Paratus
    • 0
      Paratus  

    • Good post Stradius but don't expext those socialists in Washington to read or even follow these precepts. To them the writings of the founders of our country are to be ignored or twisted to mean whatever they want. It will only get worse after the next election.
      The bailout, more government plunder of the people.

    • 3 years ago
  • shadowtrekker
  • regjoeschmo
  • queenofit
    • 0
      queenofit  

    • Thanks for the post Stradius, wish our present "trusted servants" could read this right now.

      Our economy (nor our Country) is not what these great hero's worked so fearlessly to create.

      What we all have allowed, is a Corporate system that looks like an octopus with its tentacles spreading far and wide. Tentacles that have become like pathetic parasites, hungering for survival by feeding off whatever it can latch onto.

      I heard someone say today that if you took away the greed from Wallstreet, all you would have left is the pavement.

      Again thanks for the reminder.....

    • 3 years ago
  • Stradius
    • 0
      Stradius  

    • A Tax for Every Debt

      "It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, "never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually and the principal within a given term; and to consider that tax as pledged to the creditors on the public faith." On such a pledge as this, sacredly observed, a government may always command, on a reasonable interest, all the lendable money of their citizens, while the necessity of an equivalent tax is a salutary warning to them and their constituents against oppressions, bankruptcy, and its inevitable consequence, revolution." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:269

      "We should now set the example of appropriating some particular tax [for loans made] sufficient to pay the interest annually and the principal within a fixed term, less than nineteen years." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:273

      Maintaining Good Credit

      "There can never be a fear but that the paper which represents the public debt will be ever sacredly good. The public faith is bound for this, and no change of system will ever be permitted to touch this; but no other paper stands on ground equally sure." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1792. ME 8:317

      Freeing the Nation from Debt

      "I consider the fortunes of our republic as depending in an eminent degree on the extinguishment of the public debt before we engage in any war; because that done, we shall have revenue enough to improve our country in peace and defend it in war without recurring either to new taxes or loans. But if the debt should once more be swelled to a formidable size, its entire discharge will be despaired of, and we shall be committed to the English career of debt, corruption and rottenness, closing with revolution. The discharge of public debt, therefore, is vital to the destinies of our government." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1809. FE 9:264

      "No earthly consideration could induce my consent to contract such a debt as England has by her wars for commerce, to reduce our citizens by taxes to such wretchedness, as that laboring sixteen of the twenty-four hours, they are still unable to afford themselves bread, or barely to earn as much oatmeal or potatoes as will keep soul and body together. And all this to feed the avidity of a few millionary merchants and to keep up one thousand ships of war for the protection of their commercial speculations." --Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816. ME 15:29

    • 3 years ago
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