“As I said, this is a great question, affecting the honor and duty of a strong, and, I hope, a proud people, and sharp dealings are out of place in considering our national credit. The credit of a nation must never die or fail; it must be perpetual, and no decision can ever be adopted that contemplates its decay. A discredited man! Who can fail to recognize his misery as he walks among his fellows, down-cast and broken, bereft of that which should be ‘the immediate jewel of his soul’; and shall this grand confederation of republics become in the family of nations a discredited member, a pitiable object, crowned with the ashes of repudiated faith?” - Thomas F. Bayard, speech in the Senate, December 13, 1877.
“Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history. No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large a surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is exerted in contriving and promoting expedients to obtain public money. The purity of official agents, whether rightfully or wrongfully, is suspected, and the character of the government suffers in the estimation of the people. This is in itself a very great evil.” - James Buchanan, Inaugural Address, Wednesday, March 4, 1857.