Francis Bellamy, the author of the Pledge, was a former Baptist minister who preached that Jesus was a socialist. He was allied ideologically with his cousin, Edward Bellamy, one of the most renowned socialists of the late 19th century. Strongly opposed to capitalism, Francis advocated income taxation, central banking, nationalized education, nationalization of industry, and other tenets of socialism. A primary objective of his was to replace the existing federalist view of the country (where states are sovereign) in the public's mind with a nationalist one that would open the way to creating a centralized government.