Labor and Capital - A New Monetary System; The Only Means of Securing the Respective Rights of Labor and Property, and of Protecting the Public From Financial Revulsions #266743

Yet, while he thought carefully and anxiously of his Obligations and attended faithfully to all that was to be done, his mind turned with earnest and eager inquiry to the cause of the great calamity in which he saw so many involved. He perceived that it was the result of the existing monetary system, and he began to study out the origin of the evils. He soon became convinced that the money of a country, being a public medium of exchange, ought not to be put under the control of private corporations, but ought to be instituted by the government for the benefit of the whole people, and so managed that usury could not be exacted, and that losses in exchange in sending money from one part of the country to another Should not be incurred. His soul was moved with indignation at the extortions of usurers, which came continually under his notice; and he caused a friend to write a pamphlet setting forth some facts that he furnished. This was printed in 1841 by Harper Brothers, and was called Usury and its Effects: A National Bank a Remedy. By Whitebook. His idea then was that a national bank should be created with a capital of fifty millions, with branches in every State, limited in dividends to five or six per cent., and compelled when its surplus profits exceeded five per cent. On the capital to reduce the rate of interest on its loans. He had not yet ascertained the real nature of money nor devised the true remedy.