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Bank of America is the story of some of the most ambitious, aggressive bank builders on the face of the planet.

Out of the bitter experiences of the panic of 1819 emerged the beginnings of the Jacksonian movement, dedicated to hard money, the eradication of fractional reserve banking in general, and of the Bank of the United States in particular.

The Congress has had an uneasy relationship with banks and bankers since Alexander Hamilton. It took the United States until 1913 to set up a central bank. The Federal Reserve earned its hard-won independence over years of effort.

What the study I chaired actually said was we needed tougher regulation of cash and capital in banks, as credit was too easy. Events proved that right.

I think Dodd-Frank has contributed to a concentration of banking assets in the hands of a small number of banks.

It turned out in the long run that Lincoln's credit and the popular confidence that supported it were as valuable both to his creditors and himself as if the sums which stood over his signature had been gold coin in a solvent bank.

Banks were once places to hold money and were very careful in lending to finance families as they built a future - bought homes, bought cars, took out student loans.

The thought for a long time was that banks needed to be too controlled, too regulated to be turned over to the Wild West of the Net. Then the credit meltdown hit, and we saw just how reckless these so-called safe and regulated institutions were.

The Panic of 1819 exerted a profound effect on American economic thought. As the first great financial depression, similar to a modern expansion-depression pattern, the panic heightened interest in economic problems, and particularly those problems related to the causes and cures of depressed conditions.

The Great Recession rocked the foundation of every financial institution, including Johnson Bank. We were struggling, and it was happening under my watch.