I Wish I Had Written That!

Credit means credibility or believability, as measured by that most accurate of gauges, people's willingness to entrust their money to the hands of others. In the early days of the Revolution, when patriotic enthusiasm was sufficient to sustain the cause, Congress had had credit in abundance. But the supply of public credit based on goodwill was soon exhausted: ordinary Americans and their duly elected representatives, it turned out, loved liberty so dearly that they were willing to pay for it with anybody's dollars but their own.--Forrest McDonald. Alexander Hamilton. (p. 143)