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Abraham Lincoln's Monetary Policy (1865)

Money is the creature of law, and the creation of the original issue
of money should be maintained as the exclusive monopoly of national
government. Money possess no value to the state other than that given
to it by circulation.

Capital has its proper place and is of men should be recognised in the
structure of and in the social order as more important than the wages
of money.

No duty is more imperative for the government than the duty it owes
the people to furnish them with a sound and uniform currency, and of
regulating the circulation of the medium of exchange so that labour
will be protected from a vicious currency, and commerce will be
facilitated by cheap and safe exchanges.

The available supply of gold and silver being wholly the issuance of
coins of intrinsic value or paper currency convertible into coin in
the volume required to serve the needs of the People, some other basis
for the issue of currency must be developed, and some means other than
that of convertibility into coin must be developed to prevent undue
fluctuation in the value of paper currency or any other substitute for
money of intrinsic value that may come into use.

The monetary needs of increasing numbers of higher standards of living
can and should be met by the government. Such needs can be met by the
issue of national currency and credit through the operation of a
national banking system. The circulation of a medium of exchange
issued and backed by the government can be properly regulated and
redundancy of issue avoided by withdrawing from circulation such
amounts as may be necessary by taxation, re-deposit and otherwise.
Govemment has the power to regulate the currency and credit of the
nation.

Government should stand behind its currency and credit and the bank
deposits of the nation. No individual should suffer a loss of money
through depreciation or inflated currency or Bank bankruptcy.

Government, possessing the power to create and issue currency and
credit as money and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and
credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should
not borrow capital at interest as a means of financing governmental
work and public enterprise. The government should create, issue and
circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending
power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The
privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme
prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest
creative opportunity.

By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform
medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of
interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public
enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered
progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of
practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a
currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the
master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise
superior to the money power.'

Abraham Lincoln. Senate document 23, Page 91. 1865.

"It is noteworthy that Lincoln issued this statement of his monetary
policy in1865, just before the end of the civil war. A matter of weeks
later, he was assassinated. As the publication date and whole tenor of
the document show, Lincoln's intention was to advance his monetary
policy, based upon the government creation of money, and apply it more
fully after the war... It has been speculated many times that
Lincoln's death was connected with the fact that such a monetary
policy as he was proposing, if pursued effectively, would have
signalled the end of banking and money power in the United States, and
very rapidly everywhere throughout the developing world. Once that one
government was seen to be capable of supplying its nation's monetary
needs, others would certainly have followed. The power and profit
which national debts and widespread private industrial debts provided
to the world's most shadowy and powerful elite