"Indeed, in authorising Congress at all to emit an unfunded paper as the sign of value, a resource which though useful in the infancy, of this country, indispensable in the commencement of the revolution, ought not to continue a formal part of the constitution, nor ever hereafter to be employed, being in its nature pregnant with abuses and liable to be made the engine of imposition and fraud, holding out temptations equally pernicious to the integrity of government and to the morals of the people."
- Alexander Hamilton, 1783.
Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, was killed 21 years later in a duel with Aaron Burr, then Vice President and founder of the Bank of the Manhattan Company (a predecessor of JP Morgan Chase).
