Rise up Rochester features a post from www.mises.org entitled “The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking,” written by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.
Central banking has been a corrupt, mercantilist scheme and an engine of corporate welfare from its very beginning in the late 18th century. The first central bank, the Bank of North America, was “driven through the Continental Congress by [congressman and financier] Robert Morris in the Spring of 1781,” wrote Murray Rothbard in The Mystery of Banking (p. 191). The Philadelphia businessman Morris had been a defense contractor during the Revolutionary War who “siphoned off millions from the public treasury into contracts to his own … firm and to those of his associates.” He was also “leader of the powerful Nationalist forces” in the new country.
Robert Morris had a heavy influence on America’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.
[Robert Morris] recruited a young Alexander Hamilton to serve more or less as his political puppet within the Washington administration. (Rothbard called Hamilton “Morris’s youthful disciple.”) In fact, the reason why Hamilton became Treasury secretary, despite having no reputation at all in the field of finance, was the recommendation by Morris to George Washington.
(Photo credit – http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/Magazine/images/Fall2002/Hamilton.jpg)
Mr. DiLorenzo concludes his article:
Northern merchants provided the main political support for Hamilton’s Bank, whereas southern politicians like Jefferson supplied most of the opposition to it, seeing it as nothing more than a vehicle for financing an American version of the corrupt British mercantilist system, which would be destructive of liberty and prosperity. They were right, of course, and remain right to this day.
And here’s a shameless plug for DiLorenzo’s book on Hamilton: Buy a copy of “Hamilton’s Curse” by Thomas DiLorenzo today! Just like he killed sacred cows related to Lincoln, he does the same thing to Hamilton. It’s a real eye opener.