Thomas Jefferson quotes on national debt and credit
On the rare
occasions that I may start thinking too highly of myself, all I have to do is
read the writings of people such as Thomas Jefferson. That is a sure way
to restore my sense of humility.
Jefferson had
many poignant thoughts on national debt and credit. Had we followed his advice
we wouldn't be in the trouble we are in today. All quotes cited.
Let's start
off with paying off each public debt within 19 years so that it would not
accumulate and our children would not be in ruins due to our debt:
"[Using], for instance, the table of M.
de Buffon, [it can be determined that] the half of those of 21 years and upwards
living at any one instant of time will be dead in 18 years, 8 months, or say 19
years as the nearest integral number. Then 19 years is the term beyond which
neither the representatives of a nation nor even the whole nation itself
assembled can validly extend a debt... With respect to future debts, would it
not be wise and just for [a] nation to declare in [its] constitution that
neither the legislature nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt
than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years? And that
all future contracts shall be deemed void as to what shall remain unpaid at the
end of 19 years from their date?" --Thomas Jefferson to James
Madison, 1789. Papers 15:394
Concerning
paying off not only the annual interest but also the principal, (the whole of
the debt) he also said:
"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
He based this
on his belief that:
"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
and:
"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
Because:
"[With the decline of society] begins,
indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia [war of all against all], which some philosophers observing to be so
general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive
state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation
follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:40
Today the
U.S. has far over-extended itself. Our nations credit is in
shambles. Jefferson believed in a nation having much credit, but exercising
little of it, because the consequences of excessive borrowing and the
accompanying required taxation are dire.
"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 are
undone:
"There [is a measure] which if not taken
we are undone...[It is] to cease borrowing money and to pay off the national
debt. If this cannot be done without dismissing the army and putting the ships
out of commission, haul them up high and dry and reduce the army to the lowest
point at which it was ever established. There does not exist an engine so
corruptive of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt.
It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad against
whom this army and navy are to protect us." --Thomas Jefferson
to Nathaniel Macon, 1821. (*) FE 10:193
We are beyond
preserving the independence of the people.
We must now restore it!:
"To preserve [the] independence [of the
people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. 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
necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings
and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come
to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these
to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being
insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and
potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account,
but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on
the necks of our fellow-sufferers." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel
Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Papers)
Edited by Julian
P. Boyd
60 Vols., Princeton, 1950-. . . 28 vols. complete to date.
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (FE)
Edition by Paul
Leicester Ford
10 Vols., New York, 1892-99.
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (ME)
Memorial Edition
(Lipscomb and Bergh, editors)
20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.
Tracy
"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
Samuel Adams
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - also Samuel Adams