664 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high 

 places will follow, and the money power of the country 

 will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the 

 prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated 

 in few hands and the republic is destroyed. God grant 

 that my fears may prove groundless. ' ' 



This was the danger which Daniel Webster foresaw 

 when he said: 



11 liberty could not long endure, in any country, 

 where the tendency of legislation is to concentrate wealth 

 in the hands of the few." 



When Alexander Hamilton brought forward the fund- 

 ing and banking scheme, which he copied from Great 

 Britain, in 1791, Wm. Pitt, a member of the British 

 Parliament, and one of the greatest of English statesmen, 

 said: 



"Let the Americans adopt the funding system and go 

 into their banking institutions, and their boasted indepen- 

 dence will be a mere phantom." 



Of this system Thomas Jefferson, when consulted 

 about it, said: 



u lvet us have banks, but let them be such as are alone 

 to be found in any country on earth, except Great Britain. 

 * * * While we have derived from that country 

 some good principles of government and legislation, we 

 unfortunately run into the most servile imitation of all 

 her practices, ruinous as they are to her, and with the 

 gulf yawning before us, into which these practices are 

 precipitating her. ' ' 



Instead of being warned by him through the ignor- 

 ance and prejudice of the people on the otfe hand, and the 

 scheming cupidity of statesmen and politicians on the 

 other, we find ourselves now upon the rocks and shoals, 

 and under the howling winds of monopoly and anarchy, 

 individual freedom and independence are being wrecked. 



