I found this quote supposedly by Thomas Jefferson floating around the Internet:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1802
While a bit poetic, I think the quote is fabricated. The folks at Snopes think its bogus. It also doesn’t appear on UVa’s Thomas Jefferson Quotation Page.
Just like the Einstein Bee quote, someone used Jefferson’s stature to prop up their modern-day argument.
[Update:] See my follow-up post where I trace it back to the source (or trace it back to a source that traced it back, at least!)