William Appleman Williams on Thomas Jefferson and the Federal Reserve Bank

Jefferson "worried lest the bank in time become an institution that cut across all regional and political lines. Doing so, he reasoned, it would subvert the authority of the states and hence replace or override them as an institution in the political economy. It would do so moreover, outside the constitutional framework. This would not only recast the entire balance of power that the constitution established, but the bank would effect the change as an institution which was not in any way directly responsible to the people. He feared the end result would be a kind of 'vassalage' imposed on both the individual and the government.

"...It was an astute analysis of the relationship between economic power and its social and political consequences, and our modern industrial corporations, together with the Federal Reserve Board itself have verified it."

----William Appleman Williams, Contours of American History,Chicago: Quadrangle Paperbacks, 1961, 1966, p. 190.