Did any U.S. president try to set up an interest free monetary system in the past?

Question

On this ultra-fascist page 12 Things You Were Not Told About Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, it is claimed that:

If America nationalized their currency as Hitler did for Germany, they would effectively sever all ties with international bankers, the manipulation of their government and economy would cease, and they would live debt-free. Just as Hitler issued debt-free currency for Germany, Abraham Lincoln setup an interest free banking system in the United States when he was President, and he was murdered for it. Former US president Andrew Jackson issued interest-free currency, and two shots were fired at his head in an assassination attempt, but the shots misfired and he survived. John F. Kennedy issued interest-free currency during his presidency and we all know how he met his untimely demise.

Did either President Lincoln, Jackson or Kennedy try to set up any interest free monetary system?

Bonus question: Is there any proof they were assassinated for this reason?

Answer 1

Did either President Lincoln, Jackson or Kennedy tried to set up any interest free monetary system?

Lincoln established interest-free currency (greenbacks):

In July 1861, Congress authorized $50,000,000 in Demand Notes. They bore no interest, but could be redeemed for specie "on demand".

As explained in History of the Last Quarter Century in the United States Scribner's Magazine volume 18, pages 71-91, (July 1895):

An act of Congress passed February 25, 1862, had authorized the issue of $150,000,000 in non-interest-bearing Treasury notes. These notes had no precedent with us since colonial times. Neither receivable for duties nor payable for interest on the public debt, they were yet legal tender for all other payments, public and private. As the Government paid its own debts with them they amounted to a forced loan.

(reference also available in book form as The History of the Last Quarter-century in the United States, 1870-1895)

Similarly, The Cambridge Modern History, volume VII (1903) says:

On December 27, 1861, both the banks and the government by agreement suspended specie payments; and on February 25, 1862, the President signed an Act passed by Congress making non-interest-bearing Treasury notes a legal tender for all debts except duties on imports, and in satisfaction of all claims against the government except for interest upon the public debt, both these exceptions remaining payable in coin.

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Is there any proof they were assassinated for this reason?

Regarding the attempted assassination of Jackson:

Lawrence offered a variety of explanations for the shooting. He blamed Jackson for the loss of his job. He claimed that with the President dead, "money would be more plenty," (a reference to Jackson's struggle with the Bank of the United States)

More specifically, according to Thirty Years' View Or a History of the Working of the American (1854), further concerning Lawrence's motivation for attempted assassination:

mechanics would have plenty of work; and that money would be more plenty. On being asked why it would be more plenty, he replied, it would be more easily obtained from the bank. On being asked what bank, he replied the Bank of the United States. On being asked if he knew the president, directors, or any of the officers of the bank, or had ever held any intercourse with them, or knew how he could get money out of the bank, he replied no—that he slightly knew Mr. Smith only.

Answer 2

Re "set up any interest free monetary system?"

This could use some semantic clarification. The current monetary system is interest-free in that the Federal Reserve Notes you have in your pocket do not earn interest. If you want interest directly guaranteed by the Federal government you have to buy a Treasury bond, bill, or note. Treasury bonds, bills and notes are NOT the currency - that's sovereign debt. Countries can and do issue sovereign debt in currencies other than their own. Obvious examples are Spain, Italy, France and the other EU members which abandoned their own currencies for the Euro. Their government bonds are issued in Euros. It's also common outside the EU - here's an example from Argentina, issuing bonds in US dollars.

So the US has ALWAYS had an "interest free monetary system" in this sense. Holding dollars in your pocket doesn't get you any interest.

What the author was probably alluding to is this: The currency is issued by the Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed). The Fed is empowered by law to do so, quoting the Treasury Dept. "Federal Reserve notes are legal tender currency notes. The twelve Federal Reserve Banks issue them into circulation pursuant to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913". Those notes are theoretically backed by assets. That's theoretically backed by assets because you can't take your currency to the Fed and ask for the asset, they'll tell you to get lost. At the current time most of Fed assets are debt; US treasury debt, corporate debt, foreign sovereign debt, and mortgages. So the system is based on interest in that the currency is issued by a bank which is backing it with debt that earns interest. The list of assets backing the currency is published by the Fed here.

That's universally true of sovereign currencies today, but it wasn't always the case. The US dollar used to be backed by gold, and up until FDR confiscated gold you could take the currency back to the Fed and get your gold back.

That's likely the meaning of 'interest free monetary system' in this context, a currency backed by a hard asset, not an interest-bearing note that we hope someone else will pay off.