"Who, then, created these debts, in the name of “the United States?” Why, at most, only a few persons, calling themselves “members of Congress,” &c. who pretended to represent “the people of the United States,” but who really represented only a secret band of robbers and murderers, who wanted money to carry on the robberies and murders in which they were then engaged; and who intended to extort from the future people of the United States, by robbery and threats of murder (and real murder, if that should prove necessary), the means to pay these debts."

Lysander Spooner, No Treason