“You can violate the law. The banks may violate the law and be sustained in doing so. But the President of the United States cannot violate the law.”

Reply to brokers who urged him to lend $44 million from the U.S. Treasury reserve to banks. Harper's Weekly (11 October 1873).
1870s

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Ulysses S. Grant 177
18th President of the United States 1822–1885

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