4um: McCain Endorser Pastor John Hagee: God Curse and Doom America

Title: McCain Endorser Pastor John Hagee: God Curse and Doom America
Source: Talk To Action
URL Source: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/4/30/142126/284
Published: Apr 30, 2008
Author: Bruce Wilson
Post Date: 2008-04-30 17:10:57 by aristeides
Keywords: None
Views: 643
Comments: 23

"As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now." That ominous slam at America came from Pastor John Hagee, whose endorsement Republican presidential candidate John McCain sought, secured, and recently affirmed to ABC News that he is "glad to have." Hagee claims God's "curse" and "doom" is upon America because of two key issues: reproductive freedom and broad support for the teaching of the theory of evolution.

Although Senator McCain recently told George Stephanopoulos in an interview that his seeking of Hagee's endorsement was "probably" a mistake, he then doubled back to affirm his approval of Hagee's endorsement, stating, "I'm glad to have it."

If McCain did not know of Hagee's belief that God is against America, he should have: Hagee's pronouncement of God's "curse" and "doom" on our nation was not a passing comment. It was a major theme of Hagee's book, Day of Deception (1997). In fact, Hagee devotes a whole chapter to it. Here's the curse and doom quote in context:

In "America Under a Curse," a seventeen page chapter in Day of Deception, John Hagee wrote, "As a nation, America is under the curse of God, even now. Look at the scriptures and see for yourself. The stand we have taken on abortion, the stand we have taken against God in our classrooms, just may have sealed or doom."

In Hagee's telling there's a whole taxonomy of divine curses that afflict Americans and all of Homo Sapiens - curses on individuals, curses on families, curses on nations and curses on mankind. "The Curse on America" is neatly organized into subsections for different types of divine curses sapping and damaging America and its people, its culture and economic well-being: God's curses on individuals; God's `curse on America'; "The Curse on The Home"; "The Curse against People" (Americans generally); "The Curses of The Cities"; "The Economic Curse"; "The Curse of The Plagues"; "The Curse of Servitude". According to Hagee, in the case of curses humans speak against each other, "[if} you are not protected by the blood of Christ that curse will stick. It can follow you and your family for generations." The implication is that Christianity alone confers special protection against curses, which slide off Christians but stick to people of all other faiths and beliefs. In a later book, Hagee has described a terrible, permanent divine curse upon Jews for worshipping idols. To work and to sweat, explains Hagee, are the curses of men while menstruation and childbearing are curses of women.

There are many curses that afflict individuals, some of them unsurprising - incest and thievery incur divine penalty, but other curses Hagee describes seem better placed in the Medieval Era than the post-Enlightenment age. The poor may be cursed simply because they're poor; divine curses can extend for four generations so that Americans can be cursed for the deeds of their great-great grandparents and disobedient children can be cursed for rebelliousness.

America is also collectively cursed for specific reasons, such as legalized abortion and a Supreme Court decision against sectarian Bible classes in public schools but also, more generally, for rebelling against God. As a consequence of America's disobedience and rebellion, according to McCain-endorser John Hagee, God's has cursed America and that curse has caused American military defeats, in Korea and Vietnam, plagues such as AIDS and social blights like violent crime. God's curse on America has also led "hundreds of thousands" to secretly sacrifice children to the devil.

Pastor Hagee bears in on Hollywood, with special intensity, as an almost uniquely pernicious curse on the nation - "Hollywood continues to show its hatred towards God, because Hollywood hates Christianity. It is... a cancer that eats at the soul of the country."

The belief in divinely mandated collective and generational punishments is one Pastor John Hagee has carried from the 90's into the current decade. In a September 18, 2006 interview on the WHYY radio show Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, Hagee stated that God nearly obliterated the whole city of New Orleans, via Hurricane Katrina, due to a gay pride event which had been planned prior to the disaster. In his 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown" and in "Jerusalem Countdown" Hagee wrote that God may curse the East and West coasts of the United States, for insufficient support of the type of US foreign policy approach towards Israel Hagee advocates, punishing them with a Russian nuclear first strike that immolates America's coastal regions. In the same book, Hagee describes how Jews are cursed collectively because the ancient Hebrews once worshipped idols. Thus God, expressing "boundless love for the Jewish people", sent Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust. Hagee does not mention whether Americans who are 1/2 or 1/4 Jewish carry 1/2 or 1/4 of that specific curse.

If America and most Americans are cursed, there's one person who, according to John Hagee, isn't at all cursed, doomed or damned: John Hagee. In a 2002 BBC interview Hagee declared he knows the future with absolute certainty and the good pastor has repeatedly stated his certainty of going to Heaven.

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)

I approve of the sentiment in your tag, but surely that is not by Jefferson? I very much doubt if anyone in 1802 would have used the words "inflation", "deflation", and "corporations" in that way.

To reason, indeed, he was not in the habit of attending. His mode of arguing, if it is to be so called, was one not uncommon among dull and stubborn persons, who are accustomed to be surrounded by their inferiors. He asserted a proposition; and, as often as wiser people ventured respectfully to show that it was erroneous, he asserted it again, in exactly the same words, and conceived that, by doing so, he at once disposed of all objections. - Macaulay, "History of England," Vol. 1, Chapter 6, on James II.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

I did a bit of googling and found a discussion of the quote that shares my reaction.

Truth Wins Out Calls on Barack Obama to Immediately Cut Ties With 'Ex- Gay' Preacher Who Rails Against Homosexuality

To: POLITICAL EDITORS

Contact: Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out, +1-917-691-5118, wbesen@truthwinsout.org

Singer Donnie McClurkin's Divisive Rhetoric Defies Obama's Pledge To Bring Americans Together, says TWO

NEW YORK,Oct. 22/PRNewswire-USNewswire/--Truth Wins Out called on Sen. Barack Obama to immediately distance his campaign from ex-gay preacher and gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. Obama is scheduled to tour South Carolina with the controversial singer, even though McClurkins mean-spirited rhetoric runs counter to the senators conciliatory efforts, says Truth Wins Out.

We strongly urge Obama to part ways with this divisive preacher who is clearly singing a different tune than the stated message of the campaign, said Truth Wins Outs Executive Director Wayne Besen. We can only hope that Obama is unaware of McClurkins anti-gay history and will swiftly condemn such intolerance. Real leadership includes standing up to those who drive wedges between the American people.

McClurkin says he once suffered from the curse of homosexuality and has used his platform as a well-known gospel singer to spread untruths about gay and lesbian people.

"There are countless numbers of people who are not happy in this lifestyle and want to be freed from it, said McClurkin. They were thrust into homosexuality by neglect, abuse and molestation, and want desperately to live normal lives and one day have a happy home and family."

McClurkins explanations for homosexuality are patently absurd, unscientific and have no basis in fact, said Besen. He is a sad figure who is using his celebrity to demean and diminish the lives of healthy gay people who have chosen to live openly and honestly. I cant imagine why the Obama campaign would choose to associate with a man who is so closely identified with hatred and discrimination.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the ex-gay myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit http://www.TruthWinsOut.org.

October 22, 2007, 8:03 pm

Obama Criticized Over Singer

By Katharine Q. Seelye

Â32; Senator Barack Obama is drawing criticism for signing up a gospel singer with controversial views about gay men and lesbians for his campaign in South Carolina. The Obama campaign has recruited several gospel acts, including Donnie McClurkin, for a statewide tour to begin this week in Charleston. Gospel music is one of many ways the campaign is trying to reach black evangelicals in South Carolina, an early voting state where half the Democratic primary voters are black and where at least one recent survey shows Mr. Obama is losing ground to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. McClurkin, a black preacher who sang at the Republican National Convention in 2004, has gained notoriety for his view that homosexuality is a choice and can be â€œcuredâ€ through prayer, a view ridiculed by gay people.

Critics on the Internet say Mr. Obama is trying to appeal to conservative blacks at the expense of gay people. Surveys have found that blacks are less supportive than whites are of legalizing gay relationships.

Mr. Obama said through a spokesman that he â€œstrongly disagreesâ€ with Mr. McClurkinâ€™s views. He did not indicate he would cancel Mr. McClurkinâ€™s appearance, but said, â€œI have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts of our community so that we can confront issues like H.I.V./AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country.â€

Man Alleges to Have Had Sexual Relations With Obama57;s Ex-Gay Gospel Singer

Posted October 25th, 2007

Truth Wins Out Offers To Help McClurkin Accept Himself So He Can Live With Dignity and Respect

New York - Truth Wins Out urged Donnie McClurkin to set the record straight after a man on the website Clay Cane said he was having sexual relations with the Grammy winning singer, even as he preached anti-gay sermons. If the allegations are true, McClurkin should cancel his appearance at the Obama rally and learn to be true to himself.

60;McClurkin should do the Obama campaign a favor and bow out gracefully, so he has time to reflect on his alleged hypocrisy and come to a place of self-acceptance,61; said Truth Wins Out57;s Executive Director Wayne Besen. 60;We offer a helping hand to assist him in the coming out process. Truth Wins Out understands that the notion of 56;ex-gay57; is a myth and McClurkin will be conflicted until he lives honestly and openly.61;

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the 60;ex-gay61; myth and educates America

Ever since Falwell croaked, Hagee has taken his place as America's most prominent, shrill and delusional Bible-banging Armegeddonite. And it seems that no GOP candidate could ever get elected without Falwell (now Hagee's) blessing.

I think it would be more accurate to say America is under the curse of the globalist elites and the Jewish Lobby.

Google long enough and you might find your head, which I can save you some time by directing you towards your ass.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

Instead of being so rude, I should think you would be grateful to me for pointing out what I'm reasonably sure is your error.

I even was kind enough (hat tip to blogger Mises) to provide you what I believe is an accurate quote that you could use instead.

Part of the tagline quote appears to be lifted from a letter by Jefferson to John Taylor.

I located the quote online and found it amazingly relevant. I couldn't take any credit or personal satisfaction for someone else having said it. However, someone has said it. Whether it was Jefferson, Archie Bunker, Fred Flintstone, or Mick Jagger is really irrelevant in my opinion and I find it counter productive to argue the validity of the author when it wasn't the author's name that was of importance but the statement itself.

Aristeides necessity to correct me or Jefferson, or just anyone regarding the statement falls into the menstrual cycle category of whining bitches that find themselves screaming mindlessly at their better half without a good explanation for doing so. I have difficulty keeping my patience with such behavior.

Between you and I, I wasn't there and cannot for the life of me verify that statement ... I think it sums up the situation we find ourselves in today and think I'll keep it. Long live Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

I was not correcting Jefferson, as the quotation you continue to give in your tag does not come from Jefferson's pen.

I see you regard being pointed (courteously, I might add) in the direction of intellectual honesty and correct quotation as "whining bitching." That says a lot about your own intellectual honesty, or the lack of it.

Would you please make it clear to noone222 that it is not honest practice for him to continue to use the rest of that quote in his tagline (as he reacts with fury to my attempt to correct him courteously). It certainly does not stem from Jefferson's pen.

The quote is often cited as coming from a letter written to James Lewis in 1798. However, no such letter exists.

Check the tagline and re-do your homework. And don't worry about being polite, most politicians are polite, and yet most are assholes.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

Nolu Chan's posting at #12 appears to indicate that only the first clause of your quote is from Jefferson. I think the usage you attribute to Jefferson of the words "inflation", "deflation", and "corporations" is serious anachronistic -- which would suggest to anyone reading your tag that your alleged quote is spurious.

If the first clause is correct, and if the rest correctly expresses Jefferson's thought -- even if not his wording -- you really should cite an accurate quote or quotes. Otherwise, anyone reading your tag will immediately conclude -- as I did -- that the quote is almost certainly spurious, and dismiss it out of hand. Surely that is not what you want.

If Jefferson didn't say it exactly the way my tagline does, and we don't know that he didn't, he should have. And you, are worse than a nagging wife ... quit worrying about my tagline and find someone else to whine at.

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

If someone pointed out to me that I was quoting something inaccurately, I would be grateful, and make the necessary correction.

As I said before, someone knowing nothing about our discussion and seeing your tag would immediately conclude that the quotation must be spurious, as it uses language Jefferson would never have used. Do you really want that to happen?

The tagline quote has been echoed all over the net in that precise form lending it an air of authencity. However, as aristeides points out, the word usage of inflation and deflation is anachronistic, indicatiing the quote is spurious. This is confirmed by the Congressional Research Service, see below.

While one may may embrace the words and their sentiment, it is not correct to imbue them with the authority of Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson did say, "The States should be applied to, to transfer the right of issuing circulating paper to Congress exclusively, in perpetuum, if possible...." Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, June 24, 1813. [letter quoted below in full]

TITLE: Respectfully quoted: a dictionary of quotations requested from the Congressional Research Service, edited by Suzy Platt.

CITATION: Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989; Bartleby.com, 2003. www.bartleby.com/73/. [Date of Printout].

QUOTATION: If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to THOMAS JEFFERSON. Although Jefferson was opposed to paper money, this quotation is obviously spurious. Inflation was listed in Webster’s dictionary of 1864, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but the OED gives 1920 as the earliest use of deflation.

-- This letter will be on politics only. For although I do not often permit myself to think on that subject, it sometimes obtrudes itself, and suggests ideas which I am tempted to pursue. Some of these relating to the business of finance, I will hazard to you, as being at the head of that committee, but intended for yourself individually, or such as you trust, but certainly not for a mixed committee.

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. But the term of redemption must be moderate, and at any rate within the limits of their 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. Some societies give it an artificial continuance, for the encouragement of industry; some refuse it, as our aboriginal neighbors, whom we call barbarians. The generations of men may be considered as bodies or corporations. Each generation has the usufruct of the earth during the period of its continuance. When it ceases to exist, the usufruct passes on to the succeeding generation, free and unincumbered, and so on, successively, from one generation to another forever. We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country. Or the case may be likened to the ordinary one of a tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land for his debts, during the continuance of his usufruct; but at his death, the reversioner (who is also for life only) receives it exonerated from all burthen. The period of a generation, or the term of its life, is determined by the laws of mortality, which, varying a little only in different climates, offer a general average, to be found by observation. I turn, for instance, to Buffon's tables, of twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four deaths, and the ages at which they happened, and I find that of the numbers of all ages living at one moment, half will be dead in twenty-four years and eight months. But (leaving out minors, who have not the power of self-government) of the adults (of twenty-one years of age) living at one moment, a majority of whom act for the society, one half will be dead in eighteen years and eight months. At nineteen years then from the date of a contract, the majority of the contractors are dead, and their contract with them. Let this general theory be applied to a particular case. Suppose the annual births of the State of New York to be twenty-three thousand nine hundred and ninety-four, the whole number of its inhabitants, according to Buffon, will be six hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and three, of all ages. Of these there would constantly be two hundred and sixty-nine thousand two hundred and eighty-six minors, and three hundred and forty-eight thousand four hundred and seventeen adults, of which last, one hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and nine will be a majority. Suppose that majority, on the first day of the year 1794, had borrowed a sum of money equal to the fee-simple value of the State, and to have consumed it in eating, drinking and making merry in their day; or, if your please, in quarrelling and fighting with their unoffending neighbors. Within eighteen years and eight months, one half of the adult citizens were dead. Till then, being the majority, they might rightfully levy the interest of their debt annually on themselves and their fellow-revellers, or fellow-champions. But at that period, say at this moment, a new majority have come into place, in their own right, and not under the rights, the conditions, or laws of their predecessors. Are they bound to acknowledge the debt, to consider the preceding generation as having had a right to eat up the whole soil of their country, in the course of a life, to alienate it from them, (for it would be an alienation to the creditors,) and would they think themselves either legally or morally bound to give up their country and emigrate to another for subsistence? Every one will say no; that the soil is the gift of God to the living, as much as it had been to the deceased generation; and that the laws of nature impose no obligation on them to pay this debt. And although, like some other natural rights, this has not yet entered into any declaration of rights, it is no less a law, and ought to be acted on by honest governments. It is, at the same time, 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 burthens ever accumulating. Had this principle been declared in the British bill of rights, England would have been placed under the happy disability of waging eternal war, and of contracting her thousand millions of public debt. In seeking, then, for an ultimate term for the redemption of our debts, let us rally to this principle, and provide for their payment within the term of nineteen years at the farthest. Our government has not, as yet, begun to act on the rule of loans and taxation going hand in hand. Had any loan taken place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax. For the loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should now set the example of appropriating some particular tax, sufficient to pay the interest annually, and the principal within a fixed term, less than nineteen years. And I hope yourself and your committee will render the immortal service of introducing this practice. Not that it is expected that Congress should formally declare such a principle. They wisely enough avoid deciding on abstract questions. But they may be induced to keep themselves within its limits.

I am sorry to see our loans begin at so exorbitant an interest. And yet, even at that you will soon be at the bottom of the loan-bag. We are an agricultural nation. Such an one employs its sparings in the purchase or improvement of land or stocks. The lendable money among them is chiefly that of orphans and wards in the hands of executors and guardians, and that which the farmer lays by till he has enough for the purchase in view. In such a nation there is one and one only resource for loans, sufficient to carry them through the expense of war; and that will always be sufficient, and in the power of an honest government, punctual in the preservation of its faith. The fund I mean, is the mass of circulating coin. Every one knows, that although not literally, it is nearly true, that every paper dollar emitted banishes a silver one from the circulation. A nation, therefore, making its purchases and payments with bills fitted for circulation, thrusts an equal sum of coin out of circulation. This is equivalent to borrowing that sum, and yet the vendor receiving payment in a medium as effectual as coin for his purchases or payments, has no claim to interest. And so the nation may continue to issue its bills as far as its wants require, and the limits of the circulation will admit. Those limits are understood to extend with us at present, to two hundred millions of dollars, a greater sum than would be necessary for any war. But this, the only resource which the government could command with certainty, the States have unfortunately fooled away, nay corruptly alienated to swindlers and shavers, under the cover of private banks. Say, too, as an additional evil, that the disposal funds of individuals, to this great amount, have thus been withdrawn from improvement and useful enterprise, and employed in the useless, usurious and demoralizing practices of bank directors and their accomplices. In the war of 1755, our State availed itself of this fund by issuing a paper money, bottomed on a specific tax for its redemption, and, to insure its credit, bearing an interest of five per cent. Within a very short time, not a bill of this emission was to be found in circulation. It was locked up in the chests of executors, guardians, widows, farmers, &c. We then issued bills bottomed on a redeeming tax, but bearing no interest. These were readily received, and never depreciated a single farthing. In the revolutionary war, the old Congress and the States issued bills without interest, and without tax. They occupied the channels of circulation very freely, till those channels were overflowed by an excess beyond all the calls of circulation. But although we have so improvidently suffered the field of circulating medium to be filched from us by private individuals, yet I think we may recover it in part, and even in the whole, if the States will co-operate with us. If treasury bills are emitted on a tax appropriated for their redemption in fifteen years, and (to insure preference in the first moments of competition) bearing an interest of six per cent. there is no one who would not take them in preference to the bank paper now afloat, on a principle of patriotism as well as interest; and they would be withdrawn from circulation into private hoards to a considerable amount. Their credit once established, others might be emitted, bottomed also on a tax, but not bearing interest; and if ever their credit faltered, open public loans, on which these bills alone should be received as specie. These, operating as a sinking fund, would reduce the quantity in circulation, so as to maintain that in an equilibrium with specie. It is not easy to estimate the obstacles which, in the beginning, we should encounter in ousting the banks from their possession of the circulation; but a steady and judicious alternation of emissions and loans, would reduce them in time. But while this is going on, another measure should be pressed, to recover ultimately our right to the circulation. The States should be applied to, to transfer the right of issuing circulating paper to Congress exclusively, in perpetuum, if possible, but during the war at least, with a saving of charter rights. I believe that every State west and South of Connecticut river, except Delaware, would immediately do it; and the others would follow in time. Congress would, of course, begin by obliging unchartered banks to wind up their affairs within a short time, and the others as their charters expired, forbidding the subsequent circulation of their paper. This they would supply with their own, bottomed, every emission, on an adequate tax, and bearing or not bearing interest, as the state of the public pulse should indicate. Even in the non-complying States, these bills would make their way, and supplant the unfunded paper of their banks, by their solidity, by the universality of their currency, and by their receivability for customs and taxes. It would be in their power, too, to curtail those banks to the amount of their actual specie, by gathering up their paper, and running it constantly on them. The national paper might thus take place even in the non-complying States. In this way, I am not without a hope, that this great, this sole resource for loans in an agricultural country, might yet be recovered for the use of the nation during war; and, if obtained in perpetuum, it would always be sufficient to carry us through any war; provided, that in the interval between war and war, all the outstanding paper should be called in, coin be permitted to flow in again, and to hold the field of circulation until another war should require its yielding place again to the national medium.

But it will be asked, are we to have no banks? Are merchants and others to be deprived of the resource of short accommodations, found so convenient? I answer, let us have banks; but let them be such as are alone to be found in any country on earth, except Great Britain. There is not a bank of discount on the continent of Europe, (at least there was not one when I was there,) which offers anything but cash in exchange for discounted bills. No one has a natural right to the trade of a money lender, but he who has the money to lend. Let those then among us, who have a monied capital, and who prefer employing it in loans rather than otherwise, set up banks, and give cash or national bills for the notes they discount. Perhaps, to encourage them, a larger interest than is legal in the other cases might be allowed them, on the condition of their lending for short periods only. It is from Great Britain we copy the idea of giving paper in exchange for discounted bills; and 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 prove to her, and with the gulph yawning before us into which these very practices are precipitating her. The unlimited emission of bank paper has banished all her specie, and is now, by a depreciation acknowledged by her own statesmen, carrying her rapidly to bankruptcy, as it did France, as it did us, and will do us again, and every country permitting paper to be circulated, other than that by public authority, rigorously limited to the just measure for circulation. Private fortunes, in the present state of our circulation, are at the mercy of those self-created money lenders, and are prostrated by the floods of nominal money with which their avarice deluges us. He who lent his money to the public or to an individual, before the institution of the United States Bank, twenty years ago, when wheat was well sold at a dollar the bushel, and receives now his nominal sum when it sells at two dollars, is cheated of half his fortune; and by whom? By the banks, which, since that, have thrown into circulation ten dollars of their nominal money where was one at that time.

Reflect, if you please, on these ideas, and use them or not as they appear to merit. They comfort me in the belief, that they point out a resource ample enough, without overwhelming war taxes, for the expense of the war, and possibly still recoverable; and that they hold up to all future time a resource within ourselves, ever at the command of government, and competent to any wars into which we may be forced. Nor is it a slight object to equalize taxes through peace and war.

I was in Bedford a fortnight in the month of May, and did not know that Francis and his cousin Baker were within 10. miles of me at Lynchburg. I learnt it by letters from themselves after I had returned home. I shall go there early in August and hope their master will permit them to pass their Saturdays & Sundays with me.

When I get home and have a chance to check in my Oxford English Dictionary, I will see what the earliest uses are in English of "inflation" and "deflation" in the sense they have in your quotations. I will be very surprised if I find any instances as early as 1802.

(Spurious Quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson) Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)