Why Is Money Important?: A Voice From the Past

"We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements...our people...must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give our earnings of fifteen of these to the government...have no time to think, no means of calling our mis-managers to account; but be glad to obtain maintenance by hiring ourselves out to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers...And this is the tendency of all human governments...til the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery...and the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression." (Thomas Jefferson to Sam Kercheval, Basic Writings, New York: Willey Book Co., 1944, pp. 749-50.)