Usury

“ It consists in the recognition of the supreme wisdom which forbade the taking of usury. We should not reimpose the usury laws, which were in themselves a blunder and a snare, nor would we advocate the forcible repression of the vice any more than we do that of other vices, such as gambling or prostitution, but we would put them on precisely the same footing, and enact thus—
Whereas, usury is a sin detestable and abominable, the law will refuse to recognize any contract in which it is an element. ”

“ One is, that the secular legislature is also taking jurisdiction of minors, who were claimed at that time to be solely under the jurisdiction of the church; and the other is the reference to usury. Mind you, usury is interest. It didn't mean excessive interest, as it does now. As you probably know, the notion prevailed in the early Middle Ages that all usury—interest—was a sin and wrong; and even Ruskin has chapter after chapter arguing that principle, that it is wrong to take interest for money. ”

“ There are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. Whoever is in receipt of any of these is a usurer. And who is not? Scarcely any one. The banker is a usurer; the manufacturer is a usurer; the merchant is a usurer; the landlord is a usurer; and the workingman who puts his savings, if he has any, out at interest, or takes rent for his house or lot, if he owns one, or exchanges his labor for more than an equivalent,—he too is a usurer. The sin of usury is one under which all are concluded, and for which all are responsible. ”

“ They must take a solemn vow that this sin shall henceforth be unknown among them. The law against usury or interest must henceforth be carefully obeyed. These distinctions that had grown up among them must disappear forever, and the cause of the poverty of the many and the wealth of the few must be shunned. ”

“ Riches, property, as the means of supplying our needs, is an object more coveted than any other. The principle of usury greatly aggravates this tendency. The principle of usury makes it imperishable; it can be perpetuated, unimpaired from year to year and from age to age; it is a constant source of benefit; it is productive of all that is necessary to supply human needs. ”

“ Yet that is the ultimate, the extreme goal, to be reached by the abolition of usury; every man free from debt and every man caring for his own property.
3. "If usury is not permitted, the great modern enterprises are impossible."
A great modern enterprise that is not for the general good has no right to be. Splendid enterprises are often made possible by the sacrifice of the welfare of the many for the interests of the few. The splendid plantations of the southern states flourished in time of slavery, when the labor of many was subordinate to the welfare of one. ”

“ The usurer and the borrower on usury, both, reverse the true order by assuming that a thing can claim man's service. Both grant that a thing has rights to be respected. The usurer takes the service as due to the thing he owns. It is his property that is exalted, and for which he claims the service must be rendered, and if the borrower will think closely, he will find that in paying usury he is serving a thing.
A man reverses the divine order and degrades himself, and becomes a gross idolater, when he serves things unowned instead of commanding their service, "stocks and stones." ”

“ As the relief afforded by property decreases, the oppressive burden of usury in present conditions increases.
It is a fair estimate that usury is oppressive until relieved by the income from property to the amount of one-half of the entire income received. When less, the oppression begins and leans its full weight and without pity upon the poorest and most helpless.
He that has no property is dependent upon others for employment and in his wages must give a part of his product as tribute to the capital he uses. ”

“ SECTION 2.—THE SALE OF THE USE OF MONEY § 1. Usury in Greece and Rome.
The prohibition of usury has always occupied such a large place in histories of the Middle Ages, and particularly in discussions relating to the attitude of the Church towards economic questions, that it is important that its precise foundation and extent should be carefully studied. The usury prohibition has been the centre of so many bitter controversies, that it has almost become part of the stock-in-trade of the theological mob orators. ”

“ I say this only, that usury is a "concessum propter duritiem cordis:" for since there must be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted. Some others have made suspicious and cunning propositions of banks, discovery of men's estates, and other inventions; but few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good to set before us the incommodities and commodities of usury, that the good may be either weighed out, orculled out; and warily to provide, that, while we make forth to that which is better, we meet not with that which is worse. ”

“ The property may be in public bonds or that of incorporations, requiring no care or effort on their part, yet it may be continually increasing. A usurer in any community in one life comes to absorb the wealth of that community, though the amount loaned at the beginning was small.
The accretions are the irresistible result of the principle of usury.
The wealth is more and more centralized as the years pass. Great trees in the forest shadow the smaller, and rob them of the sunshine and moisture until they perish. ”

“ The prohibition of usury would be to the material advantage of the great mass of our people. It would be a blessing to all, though it might hinder the material gain of a few, but the hindered would not be a tithe of our people. It is not easy to forsake the wrong when appetite or passion or selfish interests plead for it. ”

“ There is no doubt that the doctrine of the canonists which impresses the modern mind most deeply is the usury prohibition, partly because it is not generally realised that the usury doctrine would not have forbidden the receipt of any of the commonest kinds of unearned revenue of the present day, and partly because the discussion of usury occupies such a very large part of the writings of the canonists. ”

“ Let us now say a word or two about men of business. You are aware that our great difficulty with these gentlemen is to keep them from usury—an object to accomplish which our fathers have been at particular pains; for they hold this vice in such abhorrence, that Escobar declares ‘it is heresy to say that usury is no sin;’ and Father Bauny has filled several pages of his Summary of Sins with the pains and penalties due to usurers. ”

“ The Bible has much to say on the subject of usury. The writer has never heard a sermon preached on any of the following texts, however—perhaps because bankers and money-lenders rent the best pews. Remember that usury here means simply interest—not excessive interest:
Exodus 22:25: “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.”
Deuteronomy 23:19-20: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. ”

“ Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.” [53] Laws against usury are absurd in the present state of society. But in the state of society with which the Hebrew Lawgiver had to deal, they might, as we learn from the example of Greece and Rome, be the salvation of the people. ”

“ When, moreover, he shall have fulfilled the decree of fate, all his goods, the church having no claim on them, go to the king: unless, as has been said, while life remained he have worthily repented and, his will being made, he have entirely alienated from himself what he shall have decided to will away. It remains now for us to explain what we call public usury, and what not public ”

“ And as for the proportion of every Contributor, why should any man hope or accept [8] to ease himself by his craft and interest in a confusion? or why should he not fear, though he may be advantaged this time, to suffer in the next.
↑ The attempted analogy between usury and exchange is hardly established. In case of usury he who is to receive gets the consideration, in case of exchange he who is to pay. ”

“ Moses, Solomon and the prophets connect usury with the oppression of the poor. For this reason many have thought the divine prohibition of usury applied only to loans to the poor. By careful attention we will find that its evils are not confined to the immediate participants in the transaction. In the natural operation of economic laws the ultimate burden rests upon the poor. It is clear that when each member of a community contributes his portion to the common welfare the burdens are equally distributed. ”

“ Usury is a kind of lending of money, or corn, or oil, or wine, or of any other thing, wherein, upon covenant and bargain, we receive again the whole principal which we delivered, and somewhat more for the use and occupying of the same: as, if I lent one hundred pounds, and for it covenant to receive one hundred and five pounds, or any other sum greater than was the sum which I did lend. This is that that we call usury; such a kind of bargaining as no good man, or godly man, ever used; such a kind of bargaining as all men that ever feared God’s judgment have always abhorred and condemned. ”

“ We discover that the property of the wife cannot be alienated nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; that wards are to be protected from the cupidity of guardians; that property could be bequeathed by will, and that wills are sacred; that all promises are to be fulfilled; that he who is intrusted with the property of another is bound to restitution by the most imperative obligations; that usury should be restrained; that all injuries should be repaired; that cattle and slaves should be protected from malice and negligence; that atrocious cruelties in punishment should not be inflicted ”

“ Philosophers, Greekes, Latins, lawyers, divines, Catholikes, heretics; all tongues and nations have ever thought an usurer as dangerous as a theefe. The very sense of nature proves it to be so. If the stones could speak they would say as much. But some will say all kindes of usury are not forbidden. There may be cases where usury may stand with reason and equity, and herein they say so much as by wit may be devised to paint out a foule and ugly idoll, and to shadow themselves in manifest and open wickednesse. ”

“ Their sovereign bliss is to practise usury with foreigners, and this spirit of usury is so rooted in their hearts, that it is the continual object of the figures they employ in the eloquence which is peculiar to them. ”

“ Usury shall not run against any within Age.
Likewise it is provided and granted by the King, that from henceforth Usuries shall not run against any being within Age, from the time of the Death of his Ancestor (whose Heir he is) unto his lawful Age; so nevertheless, that the Payment of the principal Debt, with the Usury that was before theDeath of his Ancestor (whose Heir he is) shall not remain.'
Co. Lit. ”

“ They who devour usury shall not rise again, save as he riseth whom the Devil hath smitten with his touch; that is because they say, “Selling is only like usury:” but God hath allowed selling, and forbidden usury.—ii. ”

“ In this statute it is declared that the law of the late reign, allowing the taking of interest upon money lent to the amount of ten per cent., "was not meant or intended for maintenance or allowance of usury, as divers persons blinded with inordinate love of themselves have and yet do mistake the same, but rather was made and intended against all sorts and kinds of usury as a thing unlawful ”

“ Perhaps usury may be more properly defined unlawful interest, receiving more for the loan of money than it is really worth, and more than the law allows. It is a wise regulation in the laws of England, that if a man be convicted of usury - taking unlawful interest, the bond or security is rendered void, and he forfeits treble the sum borrowed. ”

“ It is not, then, that usury, in the sense of oppression or extortion, is inherent in196 money-lending; but it belongs equally to every transaction between man and man, where any unrighteous dealing is practised. ”

“ Usury is forbidden by natural, by divine, and by human law. The first is proved thus. Natural law, as far as its first principles are concerned, is contained in the decalogue; but usury is prohibited in the decalogue, inasmuch as theft is prohibited ”

“ Besides that usury, so much as is permitted by the Magistrate and demanded with common equity, is neither against the word of God, nor the rule of charity, as hath been often discus't by men of eminent learning and iudgement. ”

“ But if we allow it the least in the world, under cover of our permission someone will immediately make a general and unbridled licence." The laws against the taking of interest were gradually relaxed throughout the century, but even at its close Bacon could only regard usury as a concession made on account of the hardness of men's hearts. ”

“ MANY have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is a pity, the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe. That the usurer is the greatest Sabbath-breaker, because his plough goeth every Sunday. ”