America did not always have a credit system like the present one. Rather, the early days of the republic saw many who did not like systems of easy credit and saw the dangers of overextended credit as a threat to the ordinary people who might become engulfed in debt.
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John Adams denounced credit as responsible for “most of the Luxury and Folly which has yet infected our People.” He declared that anyone who could devise a way to abolish credit forever “would deserve a Statue to his Memory” (Stephen M. Klugewicz and Lenore T. Ealy, History, on Proper Principles, Essays in Honor of Forrest McDonnald, ISI Books, Wilmington, Del., 2010, p. 265).
