No free people ever existed, or ever can exist, without keeping the purse strings in their own hands. Where there is the case, they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which thereby by brought into order without violence. But when such power is not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrolled in its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seeks redress in the midst of blood and confusion! John Dickinson, Signer of U.S. Constitution, 1787, Representative from Delaware.