President Lincoln would be the last President to issue debt free United States notes, and on this subject he stated,

"The Government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is in the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles...the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity."