SECTION I.—NO FREE GOVERNMENT OR THE BLESS­INGS OF LIBERTY CAN BE PRESERVED TO ANY PEO­PLE, BUT BY A FREQUENT RECURRENCE TO FUN­DAMENTAL PRINCIPLES.

THE state of politics at all times, ought to attract the attention of a nation, jealous of its liberty, lately purchased at the expence of much blood and trea­sure. To what more important subject, can a portion of our attention and enquiries be applied? Private im­morality, is often confined to the destruction of an in­dividual, whilst political immorality will ruin a nation. When the honest and unsuspicious, are falling into the snares of the selfish and cunning, it behoves all possessed of a single sympathetic spark, to sound the alarm; and when an alarm is sounded, temerity and folly only, will have to deplore the want of prudence and caution.

National watchfulness is the only preservative of liberty. A patriot magistracy hardly appears to glad­den the historic page, once in a century. Shall Ame­ricans then rely on a phenomenon to guard their rights? Fanaticism alone will fondly wait for a miracle. Or shall we call in the aid of plain and unerring arithmetic, from whence to extract a rule for our conduct. Cal­culate. How many bad kings for one good one are recorded in history? Ascertain this, and the result ex­hibits [Page 2] the exact chance for freedom, held by the tenure of a blind and implicit reliance on the integrity of the magistracy.

If to be watchful at all times, is a necessary effort of national prudence, the precept is pronounced by the tongue of liberty to be indispensable, at an epoch of ex­periment. Corrupt morals in a state of infancy, fore­bode a licentious manhood, and a wicked old age.—By giving a proper tone to a young government, and rooting an administration in the sound principles of political morality, happiness will be acquired for our­selves and our posterity. By sparing the rod, we may spoil the child. Like an ill weed which grows apace, it will soon become too strong for correction, and in­stead of being a blessing, it will turn out a curse to its parents.

To leave the allegory. As a bad form of govern­ment, may by means of a good administration, produce national happiness, so a good form of government, may be abused into an engine of fraud and corruption. Mischievous precedents, or innovations upon the con­stitution, are matured by time into municipal regulati­ons, or fundamental rules. Antiquity will begin to shew its silvered locks, and under the disguise of sancti­ty, will lay hold of the first admissible moment to in­trench itself behind the bulwark of prescription. Cus­tom will be arrayed against reason. Prejudice, interest, ridicule, invective, authority and power, will appear as auxiliaries to the former; whilst the latter will have no ally, except argument, and must also assume the unplea­sant language of reformation. Combating with such odds, a defeat would be almost inevitable, and afflicting would be the sensations of honest men in the reflection, that by their supineness they have betrayed the most sacred deposit, instead of transmitting it unimpaired to posterity.

[Page 3] Every acquisition is infallibly lost by inattention.—Liberty, tho' inestimable, is the most difficult to pre­serve. It is incapable of being secured by bars and bolts, and is therefore constantly exposed to the pilla­ges of interest. It is a general indivisible property, whence few feel a particular obligation or interest, to be militant under its banner. It is committed to the cus­tody of magistrates, but in the end they seldom fail to betray their trust, unless awed by the social jurisdiction. Are magistrates enraptured with her beauties, and jea­lous lest others should participate in her charms? Or do they detest a deity, who bestows liberally upon all, because it is her character to bestow impartially?

The assaults upon the virtue of men in power, if facts can be ascertained from effects, must be hard to with­stand. But many brilliant examples exist, proving that they are not irresistable. A frequent and firm national enquiry into the measures of government, will check political vice, and reward political virtue. The ardour of honesty will be awakened. What incitement to pa­triotism exists, if the good and bad—the honest and knavish—the benevolent and misanthropic, are deposi­ted by national supineness in one common oblivious receptacle? Self interest, chicanery, peculation, and not public esteem, will shapen the administration. Ma­gistrates will provide such a recompence as they love, and when sordid passions are to be gratified, and are their own carvers, what degree of moderation is to be expected? The wheat can only be separated from the chaff by sifting. Laziness in politics is like laziness in agriculture. It will expose the soil to noxious weeds. The wholesome plants will shrink from a state of indis­criminate amnesty, and disdaining a dishonorable so­ciety, will leave the field in the possession of tares and thistles.

If these principles are political axioms, whence hap­pens it, that the direction in which the American go­vernment [Page 4] is moving, hath hardly attracted the public notice of the particular states, or of private individuals? Is this direction invariably right? Is it universally sa­tisfactory? Have interest, ridicule or invective, depri­ved truth of her articulating powers? Or is the brow­beaten by power or authority?

That this universal satisfaction does not exist, is exhi­bited by almost every private company. It is often as­serted that the administration is driving at monarchy—that the legislature is corrupt—and that the constitution has been more deliberately broken, than it was formed.

These assertions are alarming. They deserve investi­gation. The national mind is moved, and must be sa­tisfied. Shew it the good or harm which awaits the community, that it may either rejoice in the one, or repel the other.

The conclusion of a Presidential revolution, is a pro­per period from whence to look back. Let us consider whether the retrospect exhibits encouragement to pro­ceed, and to what ultimate point the same direction will probably lead us.

Will you, reader, accompany me in such reflections? Ye sovereign states, will you contribute your contin­gents of investigation? It may obviate a necessity for contingents of another nature, upon some occasion, which may not be very distant.

SECTION II.—THE PRINCIPLES OF THE INVESTI­GATION.

BUT before we proceed it is proper to form a political compass to guide our course. If political principles exist—if the rights of man, are words of real mean­ing; [Page 5] if there are none favoured of heaven, with an inscrip­tion of supremacy on their foreheads, surely there can be no difficulty in selecting a few simple axioms, beyond the reach of polemical artifice, and containing a degree of internal evidence, compelling indubitable conviction.

Unhappily we dare not rely intirely on the constitu­tion of the United States. That hath indeed a conso­lation, in not having been treated worse than the holy scriptures. Political and religious heresy, being of kindred families, will act from similar motives. Nei­ther will ever want a text to defend its usurpations up­on orthodox principles either human or divine, because neither have in view the public good. And self inter­est is the most industrious principle imaginable, in hunt­ing out casuistical arguments and distinctions, to de­lude mankind into a state, the most favourable for its designs. It would be difficult for instance, for a man of understanding, whose only motive was the common good, to find in the constitution, a single expression which contemplated the erection of banks, or other corporations. For corporations are only deeds of gift, or of bargain and sale, for portions of valuable common rights; and parts may be disposed of until the whole is distributed among a few individuals. But yet, poli­tical heresy, views of interest, and a union of talents and industry, may puzzle, perplex and mislead, even a sound head, and a good heart. Hence arises an argument for avoiding so broad a theoremic basis, as the consti­tution of the United States.

A selection of plain, tho' great principles, resulting from the constitution, as the theorems to guide our in­vestigations into the objects and designs of the adminis­tration, is the only remaining alternative. Without a test for truth, self interest and innovation, by their wily ar­tifices, will slip out of our grasp. Or by assuming new and harmless forms, they may withdraw themselves from the view, even of an investigating eye.

[Page 6] Are not the following propositions unquestionable?

• 1. That the constitution contemplates a republican form of government, flowing from and depending on the people; and that a mode of administration, destructive of such dependence, and introductory of monarchical ingredients, innovates upon and sub­verts the constitution.
• 2. That Congress can impose taxes for the common defence and general welfare, of the United States, but not for the benefit of individuals or their own private emolument.
• 3. That the right of legislation, resided, and yet re­sides in the people of the United States.
• 4. That this right is periodically delegated by electi­on to their representatives.
• 5. That the right of election is a substance and not a form, and that a legitimate representation, implies an existing operative principle, in the representing, im­pelling them for the good of the represented.
• 6. That whenever this principle ceases to exist, go­vernment is converted into an usurpation.

Let these positions constitute the text. Compare with it strictly the ensuing commentary. Consider if the arguments are conformable and apposite. With­out much reflection we assent to propositions, self evi­dently true, but a composition of reasonings, deducing political effects from political causes, and trying mea­sures by the test of principle, require consideration. If conviction would flash in upon our minds, when a public mischief was barely named, argument would be superfluous. And yet too ready an assent, leaves the mind unprepared to repel the deceitful efforts, which will be made to delude it; whereas a conviction, re­sulting from a deliberate investigation is hard to shake. The following performance solicits nothing, but a cir­cumspect consideration. Conscious of human weak­ness, it presumes not to set up for infallibility; and in exerting its own privilege of thinking, only designs to [Page 7] induce others to think also. Conscious too of politi­cal purity, a detection of its errors will give it pleasure, whilst it will cling to its truths with principled fidelity.

SECTION III.—THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES CONSIDERED.

THE bank of the United States, is the master key of that system, which governs the administration. It could unlock a depository of secrets, which would, if exposed, reflect much light upon the subject. But we are confined to the information to be extracted from the law itself, and its obvious effects; premising however, that secrets enacted by law, are secret laws. They ope­rate upon the ignorant, and punish the innocent; and are as inevitable, as the stroke of death. An instituti­on, the object of which is gain, would not have studi­ously legalised the privacy of its transactions, unless that privacy had begotten gain. The value to some, of be­ing in the secret, is precisely the amount of a fraudu­lent loss inflicted upon others, who are not so.

It is about to be proved, that a design for erecting aristocracy and monarchy, is subsisting—that a money im­pulse, and not the public good, is operating on Congress; and that taxes are imposed upon motives, other than the general welfare. The leading evidence evincing these assertions, is to be extracted from the bank scheme, which was contrived, proposed, and modelled by the Secretary of the Treasury, and therefore it is selected as the first subject of investigation.

The business of banking, is simply a reiterated ex­change of obligations for the payment of money. A. gives his bond to B. and receives B's bond in exchange. But A. pays B. an interest, whereas B. pays A. none. A. is the community, B. is the bank. How must this traffic end?

[Page 8] This idea requires illustration. In a barter of two commodities, two interests only are concerned, altho' each of these interests may be compounded of many individuals. Thus buyer and seller comprise many persons, though they consist of but two classes. All those who deal with the bank, constitute one class, and the stockholders, or proprietors of the bank, another. The dealers deposit their bonds or notes carrying an interest, and receive in exchange the bonds or notes of the stockholders, carrying no interest. And the difference between receiving an interest out of paper, whilst it pays none on similar paper, constitutes the great ground of profit to the bank.

The scheme represents the idea of a perpetual rota­tion, depositing a profit at every revolution. It might have been compared to a species of hazard, called the A. B. C. table, except that the latter proposes to the adventurers some chance to win; whereas the bank can never lose. The table bets with its gamblers up­on every revolution 100 to 102½, so that in forty re­volutions, the adventurers bet two to one. Yet a chance for winning exists. But in that respect the comparison fails. The bank is perpetually betting 100 to 106, the wager is always drawn, and the bank re­ceives the six in every hundred, by way of forfeit.

Suppose two persons were every moment in the year exchanging bonds, one paying an interest of six per centum, and the other not, how would matters stand when a settlement took place? The gain acquired by one, would be precisely similar to that which consti­tutes the dividend of banks. In a private case, it would be called a gross device, to evade the statutes of usury; and yet the enactors of those statutes have le­galised the same device in the erection of banks, and thus subject the whole community to that which would be a [...] upon an individual.

The bank evidently constitutes one class, and those who deal with it another. It evidently appears that [Page 9] the bank must gain. This gain necessarily implies a loss, because the traffic is of an unproductive nature. 'Tis a traffic in ideas, not in substances. But it is not so easy to discern upon whom this loss falls. And this is a difficulty, which the favourers of the artifice have taken care to promote, because a detection upon this point would blow up the contrivance.

And yet a small portion of reflection must get over it. The misfortune must fall upon somebody. The immediate dealers with the bank must bear it, or they are reimbursed by those who deal with them. There­fore the loss must fall upon the whole community, or a part of it. What defence of the institution would it be, to say, that it selects a devoted few for annual ruin, whilst it spares the great mass of the community? If the monster is to be fed on human labour, it would be fair to determine the victim by lot, as to resort to a decoy.

But it would be unjust to impeach the bank of an imposition, not palliated by the subterfuge, "that those imposed on are able to bear the loss." To this species of palliation, it is certainly entitled. For if the loss necessarily resulting from the traffic, had fallen exclusively on the immediate adventurers, inevitable and speedy ruin must have ensued from the enormous profit of the bank; and the destruction of some would have deterred others from adventuring within the reach of this devouring monster. A contrary effect is clearly observable; and therefore the immediate deal­ers must, by some circuitous operation, obtain a re­imbursement. Hence the bank may certainly boast, that the evils she dispenses, like the contents of Pan­dora's box, are pretty equally distributed.

Though it might redound to our amusement to trace this operation, it would contribute but little to our edification. The conclusion will be better evinced [Page 10] by a few strong lines, than by an assemblage of the most diversified colourings. The gain is made. The loss cannot fall on the immediate gamblers, for two reasons. They are not ruined, nor do they work. Gain can never arise out of nothing, because it is sub­stantial. It must therefore be the product of labour, and labour only; and that which produces the gain, must of course bear the loss. The gamblers themselves are only the brokers between the bank and those who really suffer by the institution. Brokers add nothing to the commodity. They carry on the traffic between their employers to a great amount for a profit. If they made no profit, they would cease to pursue the profession. The immediate receivers of the bank pa­per, circulate it identically, or virtually, among their principals, who pay both their profit, and the gain of the bank. This gain flows in upon the bank in num­berless devious streams, supplied by the whole commu­nity. These streams, unless thus supplied, would have become dry, because they would have exhausted a few unfed reservoirs. But they appear to be inex­haustible, and therefore they must arise from the la­bour of the community, which is the only inexhausti­ble, ever running fountain of wealth.

The principals of these brokers, are the original sellers of whatever labour produces, and the consumers of the wares the brokers deal in. This definition in­cludes the whole agricultural, mechanical, professional and mercantile interests of the community, unconcern­ed in the device. And upon this aggregate must fall the gain so regularly collected by the bank.

Without perplexing ourselves, to trace out the vari­ous modes, by which the first dealers with the bank are reimbursed from the wealth of this aggregate, it may not be amiss to select one, the features of which are so gross and prominent, as not easily to be for­gotten.

[Page 11] The system throws into a few hands, a monopoly of the bulk of the circulating medium. If a man could monopolize any necessary article of commerce, he would gain, by borrowing money at six per centum to effect such an object. In the event, he would not lose this inte­rest. The profits resulting from his monopoly, would reimburse it manifold. The interest, as well as his pro­fit, would be reimbursed by those upon whom the mo­nopoly operated. Can any monopoly be more diffusive in its operations, than that of the great bulk of the circulating medium.

Such a monoply is a kind of general search warrant for wealth, silently penetrating, and constantly ex­tracting from, the most secure funds. The profits of the national labour, are in the situation of a treasure, gradually diminished by secret and continual thefts.

SECTION IV.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE powers of a weapon ought to be thoroughly understood, before we venture to try its edge.—A bank is a machine of such wonderful and cunning contrivances, that we must be content to proceed much farther in our enquiries, before we shall comprehend its mechanism, or be able to form a competent judg­ment of its effects.

If the reasonings of the last section are just, we are forcibly impelled to an awful idea. The reader has already exclaimed, that the profits of the bank are ob­viously an indirect tax upon the community. He is right, and it is impossible for the most cunning argu­mentative delusion to refute the assertion.

Can the pecuniary necessities of a government be supplied by any possible contrivance, which will not operate as a tax? If an answer is given in the affirma­tive, divulge, we reply, the glorious secret for man­kind, [Page 12] by which they may enjoy all the benefits of good government, without paying for them. If in the ne­gative, we thus proceed:

The capital of the United States' bank is ten millions, of which the United States own two. The dividend is eight per centum per annum. This alone is an annual income of 800,000 dollars, of which 160,000 belong to the nation. The whole dividend, though but an article of the income, is considerably more than suffi­cient to defray the whole expence of the civil govern­ment. If it was the property of the continent, it would be thus applied, and in such an event, would the government be carried on, without any expence to the community?

Except for the unaccountable infatuation which ex­ists upon the subject, arguments, as to this point, would appear puerile. Because positions, evidently true, re­quire no proof.

If the whole profits of the bank had been raised and applied for public use, as a part really are, it must be admitted, that it would have been an indirect tax, un­til it is proved, that government possess a faculty of sup­porting itself, by paper slight of hand, without burthen­ing the community.

It then occurs to demand, whether the nature of the contribution is altered as to the payers, by a transmu­tation of those who receive the tribute? Is it the less a tax upon the community, because it is received by an individual corporation, consisting of a few private per­sons, many of them foreigners?

But suppose we borrow one of those newly invented expressions, conveying no determinate idea, and cal­culated to deceive: And instead of calling the bank act a tax law, baptize it thus, "a law exercising a faculty of government." It must yet be confessed, that it is a very valuable faculty. It is worth to the bank of the [Page 13] United States, an annuity, more than sufficient to defray the whole expence of civil government, and to all the banks now operating, an income probably equi­valent to the public expences, both ordinary and extra­ordinary.

But whatever is its value, it was undoubtedly a pub­lic property, because the legislature in exercising this faculty, were public, and not private agents. The con­veyance then of this faculty by law, was a gift or bar­gain and sale, of so much public property to private persons. If the former, it bestowed upon them gra­tuitously, an immense revenue, which can only arise from the common stock of wealth; if the latter, it sells in a ratio of 800,000 dollars annually of faculty, for the privilege of having 160,000 dollars of the same faculty, annually restored. In either view, the measure was a public folly, and a private gain.

The public possess a great variety of valuable facul­ties. In parcelling them out among an aristocracy, whom we see growing up as if by the power of magic, a disposition by portions, would have been less grievous than to give them all away at once. The faculties of some cities, counties, and even states, bestowed upon private corporations, would yet have left others in pos­session of their rights and privileges. And it would have been more excusable for the legislature of a great nation, to have prostituted the public interest in a few particular instances, than to constitute itself the bawd-general, for supplying the insatiable lust of an aristocracy. The attempt of Appius upon Virginia, was more tole­rable, than a general aristocratical invasion of the na­tional chastity. And yet, preferring death to prostitution, her bright example aroused the Roman spirit, and the virtue of a simple maid, restored the liberty of a whole people.

The public faculties are the offsprings of labour.—Leaving therefore unmeaning terms, which may mis­lead [Page 14] or perplex us, we will resume expressions, which convey a determinate idea.

Bank stock is public debt. It is public debt of the worst kind, since it bears an enormous and incomputa­ble interest, as will hereafter be shewn. Nothing but a tax can pay this interest, unless it is proved that the in­terest on the funded debt, might have been paid with­out a tax. And if this could be proved, then it would be replied, that the faculty ought to have been dedica­ted to that use.

The bank might have been sold to public creditors in lieu of interest. If the price had been ten millions of six per cents, and the profits eleven per centum, the purchasers would have made a good bargain, supposing they had deposited ten millions more of actual specie, as stock upon which to circulate paper. But if they could have circulated ten millions of paper, upon a de­posit of not more than one million of specie, as the bank probably does, the bargain would have been a good one, reducing the profit even to eight per centum.—Such a softening measure, is stated as illustrating the perniciousness of the contrivance, and not as allowing that it would have been a sufficient ground of justifica­tion. Where is the merit of a system of finance, which uses public property to increase, and not to diminish the public burthens?

Bank stock is public debt of the most ruinous kind, and yet no consideration was paid, really or nominally for it. If the legislature had presented the bank proprie­tors with ten millions of funded debt, in lieu of this faculty, the community would have been great gainers, because the profit accruing from the gift, could not have exceeded an average of between four and five per centum. If twenty millions had been so presented, even that would have been better for the community, because the profit would not only have been as low as the gain made by the bank, but it would have been [Page 15] known and limited—it might have been provided by tax-laws equalizing the burthen—it would have been subject to redemption—and above all, it would not have committed a depredation upon the fundamental princi­ples of representation.

Had so much public debt been honestly, and not artificial­ly accumulated, it must have been earned by labour, which would have produced a general distribution of it, obvi­ating an exorbitant accumulation of wealth in a few private hands.

But an effect, which was a leading motive for the contrivance would then have been defeated. Its chief design was to make the rich, richer; and the poor, poorer. And thus I prove it.

Money and credit, or an equivalent for them, were to be deposited as the only mode of acquiring bank­stock. The poor had neither to deposit, the rich pos­sessed both. An exclusion of the one, and a preference of the other, though not expressed, was evidently de­signed, because it unavoidably resulted from the nature of the contrivance. And the effect answers the design. A portion of the rich class of citizens, are the pro­prietors of the device, whilst labour supports it. An annuity to a great amount, is suddenly conjured up by law, which is received exclusively by the rich, that is the aristocracy. Will it not make them richer? It is paid out of labour, and labour in all countries falls on the poor. Will it not make this class poorer? and do such effects tend to correct the principles of either?

Suppose a religious society should be exclusively in­corporated, and by hook or crook provided with an ample revenue, payable from the labour of all such societies. Would it not become an established church, and would it not impoverish and eventually swallow up all others? A political sect, thus incorporated, and thus provided for, will have a political tendency, of a [Page 16] nature precisely similar. No distinction exists between the causes, and none therefore will appear in the effects. And if it be said, that our political rights are not worth preserving, let it be remembered that they are the sole guardians of religious liberty.

If the aristocratical sect, thus incorporated, had ac­tually deposited specie in their bank, it would yet have remained in their own custody, and under their own direction; for the corporation manages its own con­cerns. Even in this event, labour would have been taxed, to pay to the rich an exorbitant usurious inte­rest, for their own money, in their own pockets, and at their own disposal. But usury upon actual money, was too slow a process for effecting a vast disproportion of wealth. The contrivance is calculated to bestow upon the rich, interest upon the amount of their cre­dit, not of their cash. Bank-paper is circulated to an amount, far beyond a deposit in money. It rests upon an idea called credit. And all interest gotten for this surplus of paper, beyond a specie deposit, is paid by labour to the rich, because they have, what the poor ardently wish for; and therefore they ought not to be taxed for wanting it, since this precludes even a hope of such an acquisition.

How delusive is a comparison between bank-debts, and private loans? The latter must consist of money or mo­ney's worth, and without one, debts between individuals cannot be created; the former may be created, though the bank possesses neither money or money's worth, and a banker may live upon the labour of others during his whole life, if he can conceal the fraud of his being a bankrupt. The latter are limited within reasonable bounds, because they are founded on real wealth, which cannot be even doubted by impressing hireoglyphicks upon paper; the former may be infinitely multiplied by a printing press, and are unlimited so long as the nation is able to pay six pounds specie, for every hun­dred pounds of idea, which a bank may be pleased to [Page 17] emit. In the latter case, something is given for some­thing; in the former, the community pays something for nothing.

But a feature of this monstrous contrivance is now to be disclosed, which exposes the partiality of admi­nistration to a moneyed interest, and its real design, beyond a remnant of doubt.

This same worshipful aristocracy, favoured of go­vernment, for the bulk of their bank-stock, were not even obliged to deposit money. Public securities car­rying an interest of six per centum, for three fourths of the whole amount, are by law receivable as a deposit. If actual specie had been locked up in the vaults of the bank, to be occasionally counted by public autho­rity, a semblance of an excuse might have been made, by urging, that the interest of the money thus depo­sited, was lost. But paper certificates are deposited as a fund upon which to circulate other paper certificates. These are gaining of the public a never [...] interest, whether kept by the body corporate, or the individuals composing the body corporate. What an unheard of degree of political iniquity is here disclosed? To the six per centum paid by government on seven millions five hundred thousand dollars of the public debt, is superadded by ministerial contrivance, the customary profit gained by a bank, and the unusual acquisitions, amassed by this particular scheme. Legislative power itself cannot ascertain, to what these amount. If they extend only to six per centum, then twelve per centum is received out of the public labour, by certificate-holders to the amount of 7,500,000 dollars, some of whom may possibly possess no other merit, but the fraud of having purchased them of the true owners, by con­cealing their knowledge of the ministerial designs.

A deposit of paper, as a fund on the credit of which to issue other paper, is a ruinous feature, exhibited in no other scheme of the sort extant, except that of the [Page 18] United States. Hence the poor compensation to the public, of locking up specie in the bank ready for an urgency, in lieu of that taken out of circulation, though pretended, does not exist. Instead of supporting the credit of government, government must support the cre­dit of the bank. For if the credit of the government wavers, public paper cannot support the credit of the bank. When government shall need help, the bank will need it also; nor can the political evils resulting from being compleatly stript of the substantial means of defence, be alleviated by unlocking a hoard of paper certificates. If the bank had really collected the specie into its vaults, government would have been rendered dependent on a private corporation, for the means of national defence. If the bank should disapprove of de­fence, it would withhold the means. Thus it would have become the arbiter of peace and war, and in case a combination of foreign potentates, should endeavour to impose on America a government of king, lords, and prelates, what would have been the arbitrament of a class, from whence those materials must have been taken?

Banking in its best view, is only a fraud, whereby la­bour suffers the imposition of paying an interest on the circulating medium; whereas if specie only circulated, the medium would in passing among the rich, often lie in the pockets of the aristocracy without gaining an in­terest. But the aristocracy, as cunning as rapacious, have contrived this device, to inflict upon labour a tax, con­stantly working for their emolument, whilst they also retain the chief use of the cash, and seldom part with its custody.

The Venitian nobility one day in a year, convert their palaces into gaming houses, reserving and exer­cising the privilege of cheating the citizens with false dice, who are on that occasion indiscriminately admit­ted. Worthy Venitian aristocracy! Three hundred [Page 19] and sixty-five times more worthy than those, who grow rich by means of a political cheat, diurnally revolving, and inevitable by prudence itself.

SECTION V.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE profits of the bank are then a tax upon the community. But a miserable excuse for this pub­lic imposition is urged, in the assertion that it is volun­tary. The effects are the same, whether it is paid willingly or unwillingly. Labour is deprived of its hard earned fruits. A portion of these is gotten from it, and bestowed upon ease and affluence. The loss is the same, whether a daring robber, extorts your pro­perty with his pistol at your breast, or whether a mid­night thief secretly filches it away. Are my misfortunes palliated, because I cannot unravel the fraud by which they were brought upon me?

A wise nation and an honest man, will view with contempt an apology, founded in a distinction between secret fraud and open violence.

Miserable as the excuse is, it is not true. Labour which pays the tax, has no volition, or even agency in the transaction. It being established by law, labour must pay it of necessity, because the law enables the rich, to transmute the circulating coin of the nation, to their own paper money, bearing an interest.

The immediate dealers with the bank, do not pay the tax, as hath been proved. If reimbursement had not followed their advance of it, inevitable ruin must have ensued, and a general bankruptcy of the deal­ers, would have annihilated the traffic.

A corporation of merchants, and of the rich, pos­sessing an unlimited monopoly of the great mass of the circulating medium, can raise or diminish the price of all [Page 20] commodities, and in this enormous power is contained an unlimited scope, not only for reimbursement, but for profit. Now, labour produces, and pays for the consumption of all commodities, and out of commodi­ties both the reimbursements and profits arises. The bank is a close party in this monopolising conspiracy, because its own interest is combined with the designs of the immediate dealers, by two indissoluble links. 1st. They are the collectors of the tax the bank receives. 2d. Without reimbursement they would fail; an instant loss would thence fall upon the bank, and the crafts-men would in future loose also, the gain of printing pictures for the Ephesians.

Even a lottery has ever been considered by the Bri­tish parliament, as an article of the ways and means for raising a national revenue. The purchase of a ticket is really voluntary, but this was never urged as an excuse for bestowing its annual product on a corpo­ration, or for excluding it from the catalogue of taxes.

If the fact had supported the excuse, it might have been illustrated by a comparison. When the Pope was selling his paper indulgencies over all Europe, did it not operate as a tax? Did it not enrich the church and im­poverish the laity? And was the fraud justifiable, be­cause it was voluntarily submitted to; If so, let us join in one general condemnation of our ancestors, for rid­ding themselves of the imposition. If not, shall we tolerate a political papacy, which is eternally selling its paper indulgencies to our ruin, and their own emolu­ment! Especially as it is easier to detect a fraud, pre­tending to be the dispenser of temporal advantages, than to explode a promise of eternal happiness. The priesthood in both cases put on mystery, the vail of priestcraft, and in both call in the aid of excom­munication. In one an opponent was branded with the epithet of heretic, and excluded from the pale of the church; in the other, antifederal is vociferated, drowns argument, and excludes from civil offices.

[Page 21] But the falshood of the excuse will appear, from an assimilation of the bank tax to the impost. The merchants who advance the impost, do not pay it. Re­imbursement, and often with a profit on the advance, is received by them from labour. Is the impost a vo­luntary or a necessary tax? The bank-tax is higher upon the capital, than the impost. The capitals of all the banks now operating, probably exceed the whole a­mount of foreign articles imported, and their annual profits, the whole amount of the annual impost. Had the mercantile interest exclusively borne the burthen of the impost, would it not have been unjust and ruinous? Does this interest bear a heavier tax, without complaint or ruin? If not, who does? Both constitute national burthens indistinguishable in their effects, for neither can be paid but by a national effort; yet more than half of the total is received by private individuals. If no occasion for the impost had existed, could it constitutionally have been imposed for twenty years, and bestowed upon private persons, for the blessed national purpose of creating an aristocracy?

All taxation is limited by the ability of the nation to pay. Ability is labour. Whatever of it fruits be­yond its sustenance, labour can spare, is ability. An honest policy leaves to labour which earned it, as much of this ability, as is not rendered indispensable by a real national necessity. A dishonest policy comprises its principles in its motto. It exclaims "A national debt is a national blessing," and it filches all it can get. In private life, an individual is deservedly detested, who grinds the face of the poor, for the purpose of buying power, influence or splendour. Airy trifles, weighed against moral rectitude! What can be said of a policy, which grinds a nation for such objects? It says for it­self, "A nation cannot pay too much for an aristo­cracy."

Can a minister create a national ability to pay taxes, by paper slight of hand, or cunning contrivances? If [Page 22] he can, such taxes may not fall on labour. If he can, a poor nation may pay as much as a rich one, or more if its minister is most cunning. If he can, taxation has no boundary, but may be multiplied as indefinitely as human artifice. Then the best conjurer is the wisest minister, and it would be right to collect all the tum­blers, slight of hand men, and shifters of cups and balls in the nation, into an academy or corporation, for the instruction of a diplomatic corps, who will be matter of astonishment in the present times, and of wonder in future ages.

Suppose it had been proposed to Great Britain, when she commenced the subjugation of America, to erect a debt in the very same mode, equal to the present amount of circulating bank-paper in America, to have bestowed upon her a monopoly of the circulating medi­um—and to have invested her with the profits of the contrivance to all eternity. Would not Great Britain have closed with the proposition? Would not the pro­fits of the banking business have been to her a conquest? What did she fight for? Tribute. If it had been paid in this way, would it not have impoverished America, and enriched Britain? Is not this the direct operation of a tribute? America has defeated a nation, but is subdued by a corporation. She defended her property against open violence, to be cheated of it by private fraud. She was too hard for her enemies, but a junto of false friends are too hard for her. The bank with­out a pretence of claim upon the community, has found means to occupy the station precisely, which Great-Britain was striving to fill.

And if America had submitted to pay a tribute to Britain, such a mode of raising it, would have been the worst possible tax, which could have been imposed. No check upon the quantity of paper circulated would have existed, except the extent of the national ability to pay for it; and the tax might have been secretly in­creased, by increasing this paper. So stands the tax [Page 23] paid to the corporation. Its books are placed by law beyond the reach of legislative inspection, and an intire union of interests, among every member of the junto, is a motive strong enough to produce an increase of the tax, and a concealment of its extent.

The people have not intrusted the Senate of the United States, with a power of originating money-bills, from a jealousy in the tender case of taxation, against the least degree of aristocratical ascendency. But this aristocratical corporation, containing no representative feature, can increase or diminish a tax at pleasure, without the assent or knowledge of the people. They possess this important legislative power, subject to one only restraint. The quantity of paper is unavoidably limited by the national ability to pay for it. How came this limit to exist, if the profits of the bank arose out of paper slight of hand, and were not burthensome upon the national ability? Scepticism itself, will no longer deny that they are a tax.

Is this a system of national charity? To filch from the poor principalities for the rich, whence princes themselves naturally sprout up. Is the religion of re­velation, or the religion of nature, acting as it does by an hidden impulse upon the mind, satisfied with such charity? Is the tribute due to Cesar, or are the scanty, uncertain, occasional donations of ostentation, a reim­bursement for a permanent and growing oppression? Is the conscience of this system satisfied, by the substitu­tion of hard gotten private alms, of a penny for each pilfered pound, in the place of political justice, which filches nothing?

The maxim "that an individual had better suffer a misfortune, than a whole community," is reversed, since the community is sacrificed for the emolument of a few individuals. Morals and maxims withdraw from the defence of the contrivance, and a misconstruction of the scripture which saith, "unto every one that hath [Page 24] shall be given, and he shall have abundance, but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath," is the only remaining subterfuge.

SECTION VI.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

AND yet its continuance shall not be commensu­rate with the frauds of a bank. I would not im­pose on my readers an endless task. It is only design­ed to select and exhibit so many of its mischiefs as will illustrate the administration. For this a pamphlet will suffice, whereas a simple vocabulary of its tricks and sins would fill a volume.

The contrivance is now to be exhibited in a point of view yet more alarming. 'Tis the summit of a climax, sufficient to strike a whole community with consterna­tion.

If a number of the members of Congress are stock-holders, or bank directors, then an illegitimate interest is operating on the national legislature—then the bank hath seduced away from their natural and constitutional allegiance, the representatives of the states—and then, even foreigners—our late most malignant and inveterate enemy—have obtained an influence on our national councils, so far as they have obtained bank stock. The English who could not conquer us, may buy us. Foolish English, to expend an hundred millions in fighting for the power of legislation, when a twentieth part of the money, will peaceably obtain it by purchase! But you have seen your error, whereas we are entering into ours.

But suppose for argument sake, that a majority of such members did not exist. It is owing only to the curtesy of the scheme, since in addition to the stockholders, the bank could elect all its directors out of Congress, of which it regularly gives us six samples, three in each house. And more it would elect, if more it needed, for [Page 25] there is no constitutional or legal restraint upon its oc­casions. To what an humble station hath the American legislature dwindled down, within four years of its crea­tion; its independency is held by curtesy of a corpora­tion: And an administration will call itself federal, and a lover of liberty, when it has destroyed its fundamental principle.

An exclusive private interest, too often outweighs a common public obligation. What we can enjoy alone we value most, and are most eager to attain. Each man's share of liberty, is held in so general a partnership, that it is often disregarded, under a stronger inducement. It cannot be deposited in a vault, nor will it produce him an enormous annuity in hard money.

Hence when paper men get into Congress, or mem­bers are metamorphosed into paper men after they get there, it is obvious that they will be influenced by their personal private interest, producing them an immense profit in cash, rather than the public good. If the latter suffers, they will consider their own acquisitions in money, as a kind of boot, compensating them abundant­ly for their portions of the common loss. One partner may thrive and the rest be ruined. And upon such prin­ciples it is, that exclusions from the legislature are justi­fied.

That an abundance of paper men have been in Con­gress, can never be denied. An unnatural alliance exists between certificate and stockholders; unnatural, as I shall take occasion to shew. But the interposition of a third power will often reconcile contradictions, and a sovereign hath been known to manage two kingdoms, of different languages.

The public money is lodged in the bank. The higher the taxes are, the more of this money is therein deposited. The more of this money is deposited in the bank, the more paper the bank can circulate on its credit, and the [Page 26] greater will be its profits. If the bank will stick by a mini­ster, a minister may stick by a bank. The amount of taxes and loans are proposed by the minister's estimates. When these get into Congress, they meet with a great number of paper men, who have a private interest in the accumulation of public burthens, and thus escape the strict discussion, to be expected from unbiassed represen­tatives. If a minister should in this way douceur the bank and member-stockholders, the bank and such mem­bers may in some other douceur him and his friends. Occasional accommodations of money, operating to ac­quire an influence in Congress, may be easily obtained by means of a good understanding, and a good under­standing is easily formed between good friends, united by the strongest of all ties—mutual support.

And mutual support is necessary. The egregious impositions of a bank, cannot expect a long continuance, but by the help of ministerial influence; and ministerial influence rests, for its support, on paper evolutions. They are partners in a game, knowing each other's hands, and playing into them. Let us win the public money, says the bank, and you shall certainly win an ari­stocracy out of the stockholders. Besides you may scatter the public money in the bank and its branches, from Boston to Charleston, so that it never can be counted; perplex your statements, so that nobody can understand them, and we can always bring you off without detection, by boasting of an intuitive knowledge, or inward light, making the whole matter as pellucid as the meridian sun. Our votes in Congress count as well as others.

It is to be observed, that possibilities are here stated. When facts are asserted, they result from the statute book, or are of public notoriety. Apprehensions are hazarded, for the purpose of submiting it to the public mine, whether it will remain exposed to the most imminent danger, or rid itself of so disquieting a situation, by subjoining new checks for the recovery of [Page 27] violated rights, and the restraint of unconstitutional de­signs. Such would be only an exposition of the consti­tution, which never contemplated a system striking at the root of liberty.

A nation risks too much, by laying heaps of public wealth in the way of her servants, which they may take up, and put in their pockets, without being seen, and without account. Such trials of integrity, involve too serious and fatal consequences for national amuse­ment.

A part of the paper system, as the minister hath pub­licly announced, contemplated the introduction of foreigners into the American speculations—Consider the effect of this. Paper men get into Congress, and go­vern the legislature—The bank governs the paper men—A majority of stockholders govern the bank—And foreigners may constitute this majority—Therefore fo­reigners may guide the legislature of America. Every great national question may be influenced by them. Is a treaty to be made respecting commerce or territory—are regulations concerning trade under consideration—or is a proposition for abolishing banks and stockjobbing to be decided upon, and a British influence may possibly give the casting vote in every question. If the question should relate to a war with Britain, the public situation would be absolutely farcical. Specie being expelled by bank paper, a war could not be carried on, but by the help of such paper. A majority of the stock may be held by British subjects, who would be more likely to embarrass public measures, by demanding the debt due to the bank, into which the nation is already plunged, than to furnish the means of attacking them­selves. What a train of humiliating reflections are suggested by this idea? Forbear to indulge your grief. Let an effeminate impression be suppressed by a manly resolution, to lend your aid in destroying a system, by which even Britain may be better represented in Con­gress, and have more influence in the great question of peace or war, than any single state.

[Page 28] The paper system possesses more than a presidential or tribunitial veto. These were only powers of prevention, or suspension. Whereas the paper system in its majo­rity, hath acquired that tempting power, for which Britain wasted her blood and treasure in vain, "of bind­ing us in all cases whatsoever."

Pause reader, and awfully recollect, that the govern­ment is in the hands of speculators. Is an inordinate love of money, a proper principle for legislators or ma­gistrates of any kind? Does history record the benefits which such a political principle hath procured for man­kind? What author hath celebrated this new species of government—this money-cracy? What ought to be the predominant principle of a politician? Ought the chief spring of government, to derive its movements from the engine of corruption itself, or from the immutable principles of moral rectitude?

SECTION VII.—THE FOREGOING FACTS APPLIED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE INVESTIGATION.

BUT it is necessary to unload the memory, before we proceed farther, by an application of the facts which have been disclosed and impressed, to the text which was selected as a guide for our enquiries.

It was assumed as a position, "That the constitution contemplates a republican form of government, flowing from, and depending on the people, and that a mode of administration destructive of such dependence, and introductory of monarchical ingredients, innovates upon, and subverts the constitution."

Now let me ask, whether an aristocracy, is not only an ingredient, but the harbinger of monarchy? In this view it is unimportant to decide, whether the profits of the bank, are actually a tax upon the people or not. It is enough for our purpose, that the institution tends [Page 29] to accumulate great wealth in the hands of a few indi­viduals; and that it is only calculated for the admission of the rich. Nor is it necessary here to contend, that it acts with double force, in continually reducing the poor, whilst it is exalting the rich.

Let me further demand, what constitutes a real aris­tocracy? Names, or wealth united with exclusive pri­vileges. America recoils against titles. A consciousness of this, hath arrested a proposition in the Senate for their introduction, which, it is said, came from a mem­ber of Virginia, in violation of the sentiment of that state, and remains yet, to be decided upon when occa­sion shall be ripe. Though the Senate did not dare to pass it, they could not bear to reject it. Is it not puerile to spurn at the shadow, whilst we erect by law the sub­stance? Which is most to be dreaded; titles without wealth, or exorbitant wealth without titles? Have the words, prince, lord, highness or protector, a magical in­fluence upon our minds, or can they lay a spell upon our exertions? The most honorable and best earned title existing (and to the propriety even of this, I do not mean to subscribe) is that of the Cincinnati. This title does neither influence the legislature, nor plunder labour. Who are most to be dreaded, the nominal or real lords of America? It is evident that exorbitant wealth constitutes the substance and danger of aristocra­cy. Money, in a state of civilization is power. If we execrate the shadow, what epithet is too hard for an administration, which is labouring to introduce the sub­stance? The shadow is an ugly, yet harmless picture, fit only to frighten children; the fell monster itself is good cause of alarm to men. In a land of liberty, the picture disgusts, though incapable of doing mischief, and is therefore excluded. Shall we consult our sensa­tions, and yet neglect our safety? Whilst the constitu­tion inhibits a nobility even nominally, are its principles permissive of its erection in reality? Does it reject the term "murder," and yet allow the crime to be perpe­trated?

[Page 30] A democratic republic is endangered by an immense disproportion in wealth. In a state of nature, enor­mous strength possessed by one or several individuals, would constitute a monarchy, or an aristocracy—in a state of civilization, similar consequences will result from enormous wealth. But the deity seems to have indicated his will in favour of liberty, by equalising the one, and limiting the other. The acquisitions of an honest industry can seldom become dangerous to public or private happiness, whereas the accumulations of fraud or violence, constantly diminish both. And providence visibly expresses its disapprobation of such attempts, by raising up an extravagant heir to dissipate ill-gotten and disproportionate wealth; a natural effect, of which aris­tocracies are so sensible, that they constantly counteract it by artificial regulations, establishing perpetuities.

Tyrants and slaves—an aristocracy enormously rich, and a peasantry wretchedly poor, approximate in morals. Is it from a society thus composed, that the blessings of political morality are expected to result? The compo­sition is stealing upon us like death. The bank is the time of the body politic. It will lead it immaturely to the decrepitude of old age, and desert it in the hour of dissolution. Is this a direction for a wise people to pro­ceed in? If the community will madly press forward to this goal, the sooner she arrives the better; there Phoe­nix-like she will expire, with a consolatory hope that a sounder offspring will arise out of her ashes.

A minister intoxicated with influence, will exclaim, "Public debt is a public blessing," for taxes are an in­citement to industry. Where does the constitution con­template an influential character in the person of a Secretary of the Treasury, entitling him to prescribe to Congress political dogmas? Or whence arises the right of the federal government, to apply stimulants to indus­try? Does the constitution invest it with such a power; if so, what is become of the liberty of labour? A whore will administer provocatives to lust, by the rule of her [Page 31] own insatiable appetite, and not the ability of her para­mour; and when his strength and health are exhausted, will desert him with contempt. Did labour intend to plan itself under the whip of an avaricious, insatiable, and luxurious aristocracy?

Labour, in the erection of a government, after deduc­ting the necessary expence of supporting it, designed to secure safety to itself, in the enjoyment of its own fruits. The stimulating system frustrates this object, and changes government into its master, brandishing the lash of legis­lation, and leaving to labour what measure of sustenance it pleases. Instead of the owners sparing to government, government spares to the owners. The system it is true, will make men less industrious in the preservation of liberty. An urgent pressure for food and raiment, is un­likely to instil into the mind the liberal sentiments of freedom. A beast of burthen is more remarkable for its patience than its spirit. An aristocracy, therefore have good reason to exclaim "a national debt is a na­tional blessing," and in pursuance of their maxim, to create one that is fictitious, payable to themselves out of the hard earned fruits of labour. To them it is a mine, yielding gold without work. By loading labour with stimulants, a coinage for their use is continually proceed­ing, and a tame and broken spirited submission to the im­position, will be effectually secured.

A nation oppressed by debt, real or fictitious, is a na­tion of slaves.

The plebians of this age are too wise to be individually cozened by the patricians, so that the latter are obliged to create a fictitious debt, by the help of law, imposing generally upon the former, both an usurious and com­pound interest. It is time to retreat to the sacred mount, if no other expedient is left, and there assert the rights of justice.

But perhaps benevolence is at the bottom of this bank­ing contrivance, and though the aristocracy are spurring [Page 32] up labour to industry, by large annual draughts from its product, they may entertain a secret purpose of making an unexpected restoration of these draughts to the true owners. A surprise so agreeable, would create a day of jubilee, and perhaps the community, in its hour of good humour, might present the several banks with a continuation of their charters, provided they would thenceforward pay all the expences of government.—But what a degree of prodigality would it be, to farm out a revenue for half its annual product?

The second proposition assumed, was, "that Congress can impose taxes for the common defence and general welfare of the United States, but not for the benefit of individuals, or their own private emolument."

Although in applying the facts to the first proposi­tion, it was not necessary to assert, that the profits of the bank are substantially a tax, yet we must now re­collect the arguments urged to prove it, and rely that they have left on the mind of the reader an indelible conviction.

And then it follows, that the most alarming infringe­ment of the constitution, in the most dangerous and tender point, exists in the bank law.

To those recollected, subjoin another argument. Banks, all confess, banish specie. It is the nature of specie to equalize itself throughout the commercial world, and therefore whatever is banished from any country, creates a necessity pro tanto. This necessity can only be supplied by some substitute, and bank paper is with us the only substitute. The nation therefore, by the contrivance, is compelled either to suffer the necessity or resort to the substitute. If the loss resulting from the want of a circulating medium, is greater than the price demanded by the bank for its paper, people are impelled by the motive of interest to buy it. A want is artifici­ally created, producing an alternative, consisting, on both sides, of evil; the bank calculating, that of [...] [Page 33] evils, the least would be chosen. When all the circulating specie is banished, the nation must pay for the whole of its circulating medium. If a part, they must pay for so much as will supply that part. In proportion as a bank can inflict on the community, the misfortune of losing its circulating specie, will its profit accumulate. A total loss, the depth of misfortune to the one, is the summit of prosperity to the other. In an affair of the utmost national consequence, the interest of a corpo­ration, and the interest of the nation, are precisely in opposition, and the affair is managed exclusively by the corporation. So long as there is specie enough for the national occasions, bank paper will bear no price, or but little can be sold. Is not a pressing need, a tax? An impost is founded on a need for imported articles. Home manufactures or forbearance, may evade it. Which will press most, the need for imported articles, or for a circulating medium, and how is the latter to be evaded?

Life and property, are the two great objects of hu­man solicitude. Government seldom delights in hu­man blood, and hence our safety on that score. But its bowels often yearn for human wealth. Checks against this unhappy inclination, are considered as the most important, and are the most numerous in our con­stitution. It exhibits a degree of caution, amounting to suspicion.

Of what avail are these checks, if they are to be evaded by mere names? Instead of using the word "tax," the word "bank," is resorted to. Suppose the title of the law had been, ‘An act for raising an annual supply of money for public purposes, by the esta­blishment of a bank.’ Would the money raised have been a tax? Or, suppose the law had been en­titled, ‘An act for taxing the community by the esta­blishment of a bank, and dividing the money so raised, [Page 34] among sundry members of Congress, and certain other individuals therein named.’ This title precisely fits the law as it stands, and as it operates.

What then has become of the constitution? The rai­sing of money is the essence of a tax law; this act raises money, possessing the essence, though not the name. Sundry members of the legislature who impose the tax, receive a portion of it, and private individuals the re­sidue. How does this redound to the common defence, or general welfare of the United States?

In a stamp act, the word "tax," might be avoided, and that contrivance might be as constitutionally re­sorted to, for the emolument of Congress and com­pany.

And if a deposit should be necessary, permit me to suggest an admirable hint. By the bank law, three fourths of the deposit, might consist of certificates, which are evidences of a deposit, heretofore made for public service. When a deposit of these is made in the bank, an evidence is received of this second deposit. Let this second evidence be deposited, as stock in the stamp-office, and a third evidence taken out. Erect a new contrivance, where this third evidence may be deposited as stock also, and so on ad infinitum. For the one fourth specie deposited in the bank, the proprietors do not probably now gain a profit, of above cent. per cent. Whereas one or two other depositories of evidence as stock, will produce an appreciating effect, the reverse of the depreciating operations during the late war. Or the idea will be better exemplified, by reminding my readers of doubling the grains of corn, for every nail on a horse's shoe. This similitude will fit at both ends. It exhibits the stock necessary to set out with, and also the gainfulness of such operations.

SECTION VIII.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

IT was farther assumed, ‘that the right of legislation resided and yet resides, in the people of the United States. That this right is periodically delegated by election to their representatives. That the right of election is a substance and not a form, and that a le­gitimate representation implies, an existing principle, operating upon the representing, impelling them for the good of the represented. And that whenever this principle ceases to exist, government is converted into an usurpation.’

Can you possibly, reader, comprehend a difference between the good of bank directors and stock holders, and the good of the community? Are the burthens and profits of this corporation, the burthens and profits of the nation? May not the good of the one, be the harm of the other? And may not a stockholding bank-direc­ting member of Congress, legislate har [...] [...] the one, that he may share in the good with the other?

Reasoning, to prove self evident propositions, though apparently superfluous, may yet be necessary by way of parapet, to defend them against the assaults of overbear­ing wealth and power.

The constitution, thoroughly impressed with the opi­nion, that a similitude of interests, of burthens, of be­nefits, and even of habits, between the people and their representatives, was essentially necessary for the mainte­nance of liberty, and the dispensation of civil happiness, resorts to numerous precautions for its attainment.

Having this end in view, it prescribes,

1. That no person shall be a representative, who has not been seven years a citizen of the United States.

2. That each representative, must be an inhabitant of the state in which he is chosen.

[Page 36] 3. That the representation shall be in proportion to numbers.

4. That no representative shall be appointed to any office created, or the emoluments whereof have been increased, during the period for which he was elected; and that no person holding an office shall be a repre­sentative.

The purpose of these fundamental rules, was to se­cure a legitimate legislature, by excluding every species of undue influence then foreseen.

The idea of a bank, does not appear to have been contemplated or discussed in the minutest degree by the convention which framed the constitution. And not a trace of such an idea, is to be found in the instrument resulting from their deliberations.

Those who argue in favour of the constitutionality of the corporation, are reduced to the narrow ground of asserting, that a power is tacitly implied, conflicting and subverting the most fundamental principles, earnestly and loudly expressed.

Constructive powers, are like constructive treasons. Have we secured our lives against the latter, and left our property, which supports life, exposed to the for­mer?

From the bank contrivance, the following infractions of the clearest constitutional principles, obviously ensue.

1. Members of Congress may vote for the erection of a gainful project, and be the receivers of the gain.

2. They may impose a tax on the community or a a part of it, and instead of sharing in the burthen, share in the plunder.

3. The higher and more unnecessary the taxes and loans are, the more public money will be deposited in the bank, and the greater will be the profit of the bank-members [Page 37] of Congress, who nevertheless vote for taxes and loans.

4. A member of Congress, debauched by a profit­able banking interest, ceases to be a citizen of the U­nion, or an inhabitant of the state which chooses him, as to the purposes of the constitution. He becomes a citizen, and inhabitant of Carpenters Hall.

5. Being a member of a corporation, consisting chiefly or in part of foreigners, he is more under the influence of foreigners, than of those who elected him.

6. The constitution aims at a real representation of the states in proportion to numbers, making no pro­vision for members from corporations; and yet if the members of this corporation keep their seats in con­gress, it is moderate to assert that it will be better re­presented than any state. For surely it will be admit­ed, that a man possesses as much fidelity to his own interest, as to the interest of his constituents. And hence the evident struggle in the constitution to secure a common interest.

7. The bank can only gain its representation, by se­ducing the representatives of the states from their natu­ral allegiance; thus a state may be deprived of the whole or a part of her representation, and the appor­tionment according to numbers is defeated. It would be better to allow the bank members, than to permit it to plunder the states of their several quotas.

8. It was evidently designed, that the Senate as judges of impeachments, should be constitutionally preserved in a state of impartiality. Impeachments originate in the house of representatives, and the crimes to be re­strained by this process, will mostly be comprised in a misapplication of public money. But if those who are to inquire into such misapplications, to impeach, and to decide upon impeachments, may in consequence of [Page 38] banking and paper systems, be gainers by the misappli­cations, it is obvious that the check provided by this article of the constitution, upon a species of criminali­ty, so dangerous as to have attracted the particular attention of a general convention, is intirely defeated. If accomplices are to set enquiries on foot,—to accuse—and to decide, no prophetical spirit is necessary to foresee the decision. Can a contrivance be constitu­tional, by which a judiciary, the power of which ex­tends even to the punishment of undefined crimes, may be influenced out of its integrity and independence? The fountain of justice ought to be pure and uncorrupt. An influence which may sway a fearful tribunal, not only for the acquital of the guilty, but for the condem­nation of the innocent, was never contemplated by the constitution. Bank directors, stock holders, and a pa­per interest, may be more likely by their judgments to disqualify honest patriots from holding, "any office of honour, trust or profit under the United States," who shall obstruct peculations from public labour in any shape, than to remedy frauds favouring a monied in­terest in general, and accruing to their own emolument in particular. A tribunal, which may try a president, ought to be as free from suspicion, as Caesars wife.

But leaving an endless enumeration of constitutional violations, we will adventure a general observation; that the contrivance is a vehicle of undue influence, ope­rating sensibly, and often irresistibly, upon almost every important question which can occur in Congress. It remains with the community to decide whether the impulse tends to their good, and whether, if it does not, government is not converted into an usurpation, in one of its most essential qualities?

Members of Congress, who are also members of the bank, are under a triple bondage. If they displease the minister, he may not only lessen the trade in public mo­ney, which the bank now monopolises, but he may re­move [Page 39] the money to another place of deposit, and he may refuse the institution his supporting influence, when its constitutionality is questioned. The minister is by law, let into a considerable portion of bank secrets. This knowledge is a conjurer's wand, with which the spirits may be raised or exorcised, just as the magician pleases. Such representatives, whilst they are making laws to govern a nation, are themselves liable to laws enacted by a corporation; for the bank can make bye laws. And if the national laws do not please the cor­poration, it may revenge itself through the medium of its bye laws, upon the national representatives for en­acting them. But a collision of this kind is not likely to happen, as a common interest guides the corporation collectively and individually. A third master, the pub­lic interest presents itself. It does not offer the influ­ential elastic, which the others can liberally bestow, and is to maintain a combat at the odds of two to one. No bondage is so seldom rebelled against, as one which produces money. Mankind daily sell their best services and exertions, and the highest bidder is usually the pur­chaser.

The bank realizes the doctrine of transubstantiation upon a member of Congress. He goes one thing, and by administering to him quantum sufficit of paper, he is converted to another. A transubstantiated or vir­tual legislature, was just what the English designed to impose on America. In what part of the constitution is a doctrine sanctioned, which justifies the epithet of rebel, bestowed during the war by the enemy, upon those who opposed such a legislature?

If the bank—the paper system—and the minister, can influence a majority of the members of Congress, or even a single member, where are such representa­tives of the states, as are clearly contemplated by the constitution? Against the evil not a single check exists. Influence is a courtly term for corruption. It is never [Page 40] necessary to induce a national representation, to pursue the national good. And although it is only used, for the purpose of obtaining exclusive benefits for the few at the expence of the many, yet the few, counting up­on the reconciliation to abuses, produced by habit, will soon begin to insinuate, that influence, alias, corrup­tion, is an indispensable attribute of good government.

Even school boys ridicule and contemn the corrup­tion which guides the British parliament, according to the will of a minister. They have sufficient penetra­tion to discern, that the system is a cheat, exhibiting the picture of liberty, in lieu of the substance. Com­pare the two cases, and point out, if you can, a differ­ence.

Antient and modern tyranny have resorted to differ­ent modes for effecting the same end. The former, unpractised in the arts of dissimulation, used open vio­lence. The latter, skilful in deception, has changed the old system, and resorts to the wily tricks of private influence. One depended upon downright fighting, and an action in the open field, generally proclaimed the tyrant; the other prefers the generalship of fiscal ambuscade, and the tyrant is often concealed from pub­lic view, long after he is despotic. A defeat could on­ly destroy the one, but a detection may overset the o­ther. Search, and you will inevitably find a present acting usurpation; for if the proceedings of govern­ment are inconsistent with the principles of the consti­tution, there is nothing to justify them.

Slavery, when imposed by antient ambition, was softened by a military generosity of disposition; but from the modern sordid, money-loving meanness of mind, what melioration can be expected?

SECTION IX.—THE FUNDING SYSTEM.

IT hath passed, irrevocably passed. Being compound­ed of materials originally honest, and consisting at this time in a great measure of such materials, it is pro­bably impossible to unravel and remedy the intermedi­ate fraud.

It remains however an indelible hieroglyphic of the principles and designs of administration, and in that view deserves to be decyphered.

The person who framed the system, was certainly ca­pable of contemplating, and of guiding its effects. Had a motive of impartiality and public good presided at its formation, the several states, the commercial, the a­gricultural, mechanical and professional interests, all of which are too busily engaged in a variety of useful oc­cupations, to hunt out ministerial secrets, would have been plainly forewarned of the design, and publicly cautioned to preserve their paper property. But this would have violated the ministerial designs. It would have obviated the contemplated intention, of erecting an enormous aristocracy or monied interest, because the public debt, like other property, would have remain­ed considerably dispersed.

It was and is the fashion of thinking, that a public debt unequally held, gives permanency and weight to government. That is, to use plain terms, it will ena­ble government to controul the will of the people, by counterbalancing it with the weight of wealth. The constitution is compiled upon a principle precisely in op­position to this idea. The sovereignty of the people gave it birth, and it acknowledges their parental au­thority. This is a design of a few individuals, exclu­sively to appropriate to themselves the management of the national offspring, that they may change its nature, and debauch its affections from the great object of its [Page 42] political duty. It is an attempt to transplant the consti­tution from democratic ground, in which it might flou­rish, to an aristocratical soil, in which it must perish.

And hence the funding system. It was so contrived as to enable speculators and monied men, to defraud the great bulk of the community of their paper proper­ty. As to transfer it, from those who earned it, to those who pilfered it, either by suggesting falsehoods or concealing truths. As to concentrate it in a few hands, so that it could be applied with impression, and possess activity as a political machine. And as to leave the true owners, by way of retribution for their pro­perty, a burthensome tax.

Speculators could calculate events in Congress. They had leisure to pry into accounts. They could even interpret the silence of a minister by watching indica­tions. Silence, was a negative consecration of the un­informed multitude to the lust of rapacity. A general, taking a city, condemns it to be plundered, if he does not actively interpose for its protection.

The nation, but just emerged from the unforeseen misfortunes of paper money, are suddenly overwhelmed by the ruin of a paper policy. The accidental bril­liancy of paper acquisitions, gave the hint for a system. It set out with the plausible pretence of curing an evil, and it applies a worse evil. As if fire would cure a burn. The wounds suffered by individuals, from paper money, were healing; but an accidental misfortune is now converted into a system, by which a few individuals speculate on a nation; the old wounds are made to bleed afresh, and new ones are indiscriminately inflict­ed.

Of this system, the assumption is a striking feature. For this there was no general petition from the people. No urgency pressed it. But it favoured the object of [Page 43] administration. State debts sold at a low rate, and therefore might easily be monopolized. To dissolve all money relationship, between individuals, and the sepa­rate states, would on the one hand diminish the state power, and tend to consolidation, and on the other cre­ate an undue influence, by which the consolidated pow­er might be managed.

If the payment of public debts had been an object, accident had already effected, that which such a mo­tive would have dictated. Congress possess the power of indirect, and the States that of direct taxation. Hence the public debt could have been diffused upon the re­sources of the nation, so as to have been less burthen­some upon an exclusive branch of those resources, by leaving the States respectively to provide for State debts. And an impost might have been equivalent to those of the union.

A recurrence to direct taxation by Congress, will swallow up the little sovereignty, now left to the once sovereign individual States; and every accumulation of the debts of the union, is an impulse towards that end.

Hence all assumptions, and hence the enormous loans which have been negociated. In the power of money, is the confidence of administration placed. By assuming all money negociations, a face of business, and activity, will be bestowed on the Federal govern­ment. The exclusive payment of debts, and imposition of taxes, will exhibit it as the only political object, to interest the attention of individuals; whilst the state governments will become only speculative common­wealths, to be read for amusement like Harring­ton's Oceana, or Moore's Utopia. Without pulsation, without elasticity they will dwindle gradually into a tale that has been told, and their parts will crumble and dissipate, like a corporation of beavers, whose waters have been drained away.

[Page 44] Does this system comport with the constitution, where it guarantees to each State a republican form of govern­ment: If the term "form," means shadow, it does; but if the guarantee extends to substance, we may bold­ly assert, that it does not.

A money system may be called the natural enemy of State constitutions—of State laws—of State police (for we dare not aspire to an higher expression) and of State dispositions. Accumulations of enormous wealth in a few hands, by legal legerdemain, is destructive of that equality among citizens, which the State constitu­tions contemplate—is worse than limited sinecures, which they reprobate—defeat the effects of State laws for the division of property in cases of intestacy—and wound our feelings, by converting our equals of yester­day, into our lords of to-morrow. A few dwarfs are suddenly metamorphosed into giants, by a paper necro­mancy, and the rest of the community whom it makes more dwarfish, both really and comparatively, are in­chanted by syren notes, into an insensibility of their dan­ger.

If many individuals in four years, have acquired from 100,000 to 1,000,000 of dollars, how much will they gain in twenty years? What has been, and will be the impression upon the community? Which is most to be deplored; Great Britain, oppressed for the support of her royal brood, or America, fleeced by her brood of speculators?

A lineament of the system, is also exhibited in the sinking fund. Even its name was a fraud upon the community. It ought to have been denominated "the raising fund," for it was designed to raise the price of certificates. It is the pap of paper, upon which the child was to subsist, until it was old enough to be wean­ed. This artifice is so gross, that it will at once be seen through a few plain facts.

[Page 45] The sinking fund was erected in 1790, consisting of about 1,300,000 dollars, which the minister then re­ported, as a surplus of revenue, beyond the public oc­casions. Less than 1,000,000 of it had been applied in January 1793; between which time, and the erection of the fund, nearly that sum was expended in periodical purchases of certificates. In 1790 also, the minister commenced the borrowing of money in Holland, and drawing it to this country, without law, and without the sanction of the President; by which means, continu­ed even to the present year, monies have been obtained to a much greater amount, than the whole sinking fund.

Apply to these facts, the following questions.

If the surplus of revenue existed, why was the mo­ney borrowed, and drawn illegally hither from Hol­land? If not, why was the fact officially asserted? How was the debt sunk, by the erection of a fund, producing the necessity of incuring a new debt, to a greater amount than the fund itself? If sinking the debt was the simple object, why is it that the sinking fund has not been sooner applied? Does the paying in­terest in Holland for monies to replace this fund, whilst the fund is lying dead here at a loss of interest, contri­bute towards sinking the debt? Was the minister so wide of the truth, when he called the sinking fund "a surplus," as to have been obliged to divert both that, and monies borrowed, for the prescribed purpose of pay­ing the French debt, to current governmental occa­sions? or were no certificates to be purchased?

But if keeping up, or raising the price of certificates be considered as the primary object, all these difficulties are solved. The occasional recurrences to the sinking fund are explained. And the ministerial financierings, shrink to political artifices, which incurred an enormous national expence, in the purchase of the aristocratical [Page 46] desideratum. Artifices, turned into laws, by an illegiti­mate legislature.

The resemblance between monarchical or aristocra­tical contrivances, and the administration of the govern­ment, is not lessened, by playing off upon America, the English bubble of a sinking fund. When theirs was established, their debt was moderate, but since this spe­cies of fund hath been operating, it has swelled to a­bove three hundred millions of pounds sterling. Under the operation of our sinking fund, the public debt, has been continually accumulating also, and a proportional augmentation, will undoubtedly in less than a century, enable us to contend with England itself, for the first rank among the honourable society of national spend­thrifts.

The aera when the government began to act, was the moment of least suspicion. At that unwary moment, an usurping system could be most safely introduced, and precedents for expounding the constitution established, which might be afterwards quoted. Relying upon the unlimited national confidence which then existed, the system dictated an attempt to bind future legislatures, and to secure perpetually to the nation the blessing of a public debt, by rendering a great proportion of it ir­redeemable. The constitution limits the power of Con­gress "to the payment of the debts of the United States," and whilst the echo of the mandate is yet vi­brating in our ears, the funding system declares that they shall not be paid. What barrier, will not rapaci­ty and ambition overleap?

Funding, banking, assuming, loaning, have compi­led a fiscal and political perplexity. The fiscal, which could most easily have been explained, since figures can exhibit an account of money, is not even understood by the members of Congress. And the political, though better understood, is still a capital auxiliary towards the [Page 47] general obscurity. Perplexity in money statements is ground enough for suspicion. Detection would expel suspicion to make room for certainty. And the want of simplicity in politics, is ever a badge of design.

The funding system was intended to effect, what the bank was contrived to accelerate.

• 1. Accumulation of great wealth in a few hands.
• 2. A political moneyed engine.
• 3. A suppression of the republican state assemblies, by depriving them of the political importance, resulting from the imposition and dispensation of taxes.

And hence the tone of this instrument also, in its se­veral vibrations, harmonizes with the perilous design, radically to destroy the constitution, and to erect upon its ruins an usurpation, not sanctioned by the national will, or acknowledging the fundamental principle; that the people are the only legitimate fountain of civil government.

SECTION X.—THE REMEDY.

TO determine whether a remedy to these threatening evils is necessary or not, the inquiry ought to be brought to the following simple point. Whether Ame­rica is now governed according to the system of the con­stitution, or the system of an administration.

This latter system is indeed a riddle, but its effects furnish the solution. By its fruits shall it be known. Effects are the language in which a political design speaks, and furnish a construction, surpassing professions in veracity, as far as the permanency of things, ex­ceeds that of words.

If the constitution meditates the producing of great [Page 48] inequality of wealth among citizens—the enriching of a favoured few at the public expence—the imposition of an enormous tax for private benefit, and not for the ge­neral welfare—the establishment of corporations, with gainful rights and privileges, which necessarily dimi­nish the general stock of rights and privileges, from whence they are deducted—the transferring of the pa­per property of the citizens into a few hands without value received—the erection of a fund, under a pre­tence of sinking the public debt, whereas its true de­sign was to raise the value of that very paper, thus filch­ed from the real owners, at the public expence—the rendering the debt of the United States irredeemable by law—the giving to foreigners an immense, indirect and secret influence over our national counsels—and above all, the introduction of a monied and undue influence into the legislature; an influence which subsists at the public expence, instead of being actuated by the public good; if the constitution meditates such designs, then the point is determined one way, and it must be conce­ded that America is governed according to the constitu­tion; if it does not, candor will acknowledge, that A­merica is governed according to a system of an admini­stration.

To come at the truth, search our political scripture, consider it text by text, and discover where these designs have been so covertly concealed, as to have escaped the penetration of every convention which sifted and consi­dered the instrument; and as to remain a monument of a treasonable intention in the general convention, to de­ceive and impose upon their constituents.

If we rely on the united integrity and wisdom of Ame­rica, we shall reject overstrained constructions, tending to impeach these qualities, and seek for the plain and consistent meaning.

After having ascertained the principles of the consti­tution, let it be considered, whether the system of the [Page 49] administration may not be overturned, and the constitu­tion still remain unhurt? If so, is not that system a vi­olation of the constitution?

Then it ought to be destroyed. America has assum­ed a character upon the theatre of the world, which ho­nour—fame and political philosophy, call upon her to support. She is the inventor of principles, asserting the equal rights of man, and exploding king-craft, priest-craft, nobility-craft and minister-craft. It is in­cumbent upon her to prove by example, that her the­ory is practically sound. Otherwise she betrays man­kind, after having constituted herself the vindicator of their rights. Instead of honour, she will then deserve reproach; and her future fame will be that of a gene­ral Arnold for instance, who has betrayed the cause he undertook to defend, and deserted over to the ene­my he engaged to defeat.

A division of power among king, lords, and com­mons, is setting out in government with an allotment of parties. It is providing the materials for civil dissen­tion. Power will fluctuate like wealth, if it is proposed as the subject of controversy among three contending interests. And every fluctuation must disorder the fanciful idea of the balance. A precise equipoise among these three interests, from which only the pub­lic good is expected to result, could not exist above a moment in an age. Whereas by taking the people as the only genuine and legitimate fountain of power, and by avoiding legal artifices producing an inequality of wealth or privileges, we escape the black train of evils recorded in history, as having been in most ages and governments, engendered by combinations of nobles to oppress the people; and by more justifiable combina­tions of the people to reduce the nobles. Evils, which are the natural effect of the whimsical balancing notion, and which invariably end in despotism. Nobility is the cause of these evils, and of course the seed of tyranny.

[Page 50] As a rivalship for power, is the uniform consequence of three branches of government, it must inevitably de­stroy the balance, and produce a continual political fermentation. And the contest will not be allayed by reflecting, that those for whose good the scheme is said to have been invented, are sure of being degraded to the despicable state of a mere tool, to be used by ambi­tion and artifice, for the attainment of their own selfish purposes.

The people are the natural body politic; king, lords and commons, are artificial structures. Those who fa­vour art at the expence of nature, consider the people as a mere mass of matter, upon parts of which they ex­ert a plastic political-craft, and form a sort of intaglio. The residue of the mass is considered only as a store­house of materials, to mend, patch, and support the se­lected or secreted parts, as they happen to impair each other by their collisions.

King, lords and commons are a fleet, consisting of an admiral ship, first rates and frigates, and the people are the forests, out of which this fleet is built and re­paired; to be cut, hacked and hewed, as the occasions of the fleet shall require. Further by way of accommo­dating myself to those poising ideas; the people in such a system, may be likened to a balance master, stag­gering about with a ladder upon his chin, a chair mounted on the ladder, and a sword on the chair. Can the equilibration be long sustained? Instead of such mountebank pantomimes, is it not advisable, lest they fall upon you, to slip from under them, and so let all three fall to the ground. And then, a natural posi­tion, which only can produce stability, may be resum­ed.

This balancing whim hath been tried by many nations, and if all have failed either to find or maintain the ba­lance, it is time to conclude, that it is an attempt to put [Page 51] fetters on air, or a search after the philosopher's stone. That it is founded in speculation and not in principle. That the idea of forming a government by the help of a pair of scales, constructed for weighing power, is more fanciful than solid. And that the multiplied examples of those who have failed, ought to deter the slightest degree of prudence, from renewing an experiment, invariably unsuccessful.

By adhering to the idea, that the people are the only genuine fountain of power, a constitution is immortal; for if a change is made in its parts by the public will, it only proves that this fundamental principle continues unimpaired. Such would be a plain constitution, not poi­soned by the drugs of a speculating policy. A change of times, temper, and circumstances, may often require a change of political regulations. By clinging to this simple principle, a peculiar situation may be gratified, without internal commotion; whereas a mixed prin­ciple—a political salmagundi, is seldom brought back to its primitive parts but by a civil war.

Who is to superintend the political tripod? If a member of it is from time to time to adjust the weights, he will be for ever filching from the other two, to add to his own scale. Thus the equilibrium is lost and then the effects of the machine are wide of every calcu­lation.

The perplexity of this mechanism requires frequent repairs, and yet its delicacy makes it unsafe to mend it. Whereas from simplicity, both strength and duration, are most likely to result.

The precise adjustment of these balances, is an at­tainment, surpassing human intellectual powers, as far as the precise ascertainment of the true religion. As to both, no two persons would hardly agree in every par­ticular, and when there are as many opinions as there [Page 52] are men, what is the chance for stumbling on the right? Sincerity in political [...], will not render its conse­quences to society less baneful.

The doctrine of the graces—the graces, may be per­petually rung in our ears, but conveying no perspicu­ous idea, the manners it will produce can never be foreseen; and if one in a thousand succeeds, all he ac­quires is a species of ceremonious tinselled frippery of gesture of little worth either to himself or others; whereas a deportment, founded in moral rectitude, is the basis of individual happiness, and the dispenser of blessings to others. The balances—the balances, are the graces—the graces of government. They are a confused assemblage of notions, conveying no distinct idea, and composed by the rule of fancy. The prin­ciple, ‘that the people are the only legitimate foun­tain of power,’ and of course the only safe corrector of its abuse, is a political guide, surpassing the one in point of public safety, as far as true morality exceeds the other in respect to private manners.

Obvious is the vanity of an expectation, that one equal constituent member of a government, is a sufficient and safe check upon two others; as is the folly of deposit­ing all social and natural rights, under a steward-ship, as unrestrained, as if the proprietors had travelled into a far country. Whether is it most likely, that one member will enter on the perilous undertaking of con­trouling the wicked designs of the other two, or that motives of interest and safety should dictate to all, the policy of a triple alliance? The example of Great Bri­tain carries this idea beyond conjecture.

Can the majority of the people design to oppress? Does history exhibit such a case? The writers in favour of monarchy are reduced to the miserable shift, of sub­stituting the mobs of cities in the place of nations, in order to conjure up the idea of a popular despotism, which cannot, as America is situated, exist. The many [Page 53] have no motive to oppress the few. Temptations to fraud are in an inverse proportion, to the multitude who are sharers in the plunder, and the diminution of the booty to be divided. A combination of the great bulk of the community, to erect a despotism over an in­considerable number of individuals, though it would not exhibit the extreme case, of a tyrannic nation, do­mineering over one man, would yet present the ridi­culous object, of an hundred persons, owning a single slave.

But whither are we going? Did America fight for a revolution of dominating families, or of principles? If of principles define and compare them with the senti­ments now avowed, by words, in books, in news­papers, and by actions, all evincing a concerted design. Seriously concerted as the design is, I will believe that America is not sufficiently regenerated, for the intro­duction of king, lords and commons. She yet knows well, that established religions—bishops—tythes—and standing armies, being scions of the same stock, ine­vitably sprout up together with aristocracy.

The people are the only safe guardians of their own liberty, and the social jurisdiction, the only impartial corrector of unconstitutional political designs.

SECTION XI.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE people are the only safe guardians of their own liberty. The component parts of government are the creatures of the constitution. A subjection of the cre­ator to the created, is a reversal of the course of nature. The constitution is a limitation to legislative power. It insulates arbitrary designs, and continually pronounces, "thus far shalt thou go." But suppose a legislature should go further. Is the veto abortive? Is it only an empty [Page 54] echo of a nation's last dying words? or is it to be en­forced and by whom?

Without legislative encroachment or connivance, no infringement upon the constitution can happen. The laws will act upon and restrain individuals, by the en­forcement of the courts of justice; but the constitution only can act upon the legislature, by the enforcement of the social jurisdiction. The laws being competent to every other object of good government, the consti­tution must have been exclusively designed for the case, to which it is now applied. Until a violation of the principles of the constitution appears, no occasion for resorting to the remedy exists; and when it does ap­pear, to assert that there is no mode of getting at the remedy, or that the body presupposed by the violation, to be vitiated, are yet to enforce it upon themselves, is making the constitution a dead letter.

Therefore if liberty is a national object, the nation itself must watch over the constitution, preserve it from violation, and supply its defects, or admit it to be the Lethe of the community, producing an intire forgetful­ness of the rights of man.

The national judgment or will may be brought to act in two modes, without recurring to a general con­vention.

1. By cautiously electing members of Congress, of a similarity of interests—of burthens—of benefits—and of habits with the electors. For an unbiassed judgment upon good information, will correct political abuses, and invent new checks against their repetition.

2. Through the organs of state legislatures.

The first will operate slowly. The people may be deceived by professions, and a representative though sound at first is sometimes debauched. But yet as the [Page 55] people when informed, are almost invariably right, and as a representative is often firm, it deserves the most sedulous attention.

The second is a security for liberty of the happiest texture which could have been devised.

The state legislatures are the people themselves in a state of refinement, possessing superior information, and exhibiting the national suffrage in the fairest and safest mode.

They are annual conventions, subject to no undue in­fluence, not participating of loaves and fishes, and actua­ted by the motive of public good.

Holding their power by an annual tenure, they are frequently accountable to the people, often changed, and incapable of forming combinations for their private emolument, at the public expence.

Being more immediately within the view of their con­stituents, should they misinterpret the doings of the national government, or misrepresent the public mind, a detection, or a contradiction, would be almost instan­taneous.

As electors of senators, they constitute a chief link connecting the general and state governments, through which the conduct of the former may be better under­stood, and the will of the people reacted; so as to fill up in some measure, the great space between Congress and the people.

They may operate decisively upon the general govern­ment, by constituting the senate according to a republican standard.

And finally the state legislatures have at least as good a right to judge of every infraction of the constitution, as Congress itself.

[Page 56] The alarming mode of thinking avowed by the aristo­cracy, ‘that they are only responsible to God and their own consciences,’ instead of weakening the argument, is an additional reason for clinging to every means, tend­ing to produce an effectual responsibility in the mem­bers of Congress, to the constitution, and to the people who made it. Whilst the avowal goes to the subver­sion of every principle of liberty—to the annihilation of the constitution—and is in fact a rebellion against the first principles of liberty, the act of shutting the senate doors accords with the doctrine, and exhibits one of its effects, by obstructing the evidence upon which a re­sponsibility can only be enforced. If a jurisdiction is compelled to decide upon incomplete evidence, a power to impose such a necessity, instead of being amenable to that jurisdiction, is superior to it; and by concealing a part, assumes a right of with-holding the whole testimo­ny. Of what avail is a right of decision, when the grounds upon which to exert human reason and reflec­tion, are with-held either completely or partially?

A disavowal of every species of responsibility to social obligations, is a disavowal of all claim to social confi­dence.

SECTION XII.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL designs have been demonstrated; the corrective power is found; and it now remains to specify the remedies.

The natural interest of every country, ought exclu­sively to legislate. A complete transfer of this power to an artificial interest, is a thorough legislative corrup­tion. A partial transfer, is a legislative taint. The na­tural interest of a country includes whatever may sub­sist, without the direct aid of municipal law, as agricul­ture, [Page 57] commerce, manufactures and arts. An artificial interest, whatever is immediately created by law. As public debt, public officers, and private banks.

If this idea is not a principle of the constitution, and a necessary [...] for the preservation of liberty, upon what grounds were public officers excluded from Con­gress, and a variety of precautions introduced for the purpose of preventing an undue influence from creeping into that body? No admission of an artificial interest in­to the legislature, is recognized by the constitution, and unless the principle of the exclusion, and not the exam­ples adduced, is considered as fundamental (the gift of prescience not having presided at the formation of the constitution) then the legislative branch may evade it without restriction, by creating an artificial interest not foreseen or contemplated, and bestowing upon it a legis­lative influence.

For example. Congress impose taxes and borrow money. The higher the tax, and the more they bor­row, the more they may receive as stock-holders. Which violates the principle of the constitution most sorely, the case it states, of excluding a member because he receives a fixed salary as an officer of government; or the case unforeseen, of a member's receiving uncer­tain and unlimited gain from the public labour, and in part from the public purse, depending on his own vote?

Again. Public monies are to be accounted for to Congress. Suppose they should be employed in favori­tism to the bank, or in keeping up the price of certifi­cates. Will certificate or stock-holders, who receive the money, be very inexorable in detecting and punish­ing such a misapplication? Or being bound by number­less ties of the strongest interest, in the closest alliance with a minister of finance, is not an explanatory and en­lightening effect upon their minds rather to be expect­ed, [Page 58] if incomprehensible accounts of public monies should be exhibited.

It is the chief principle of the constitution, that the natural, and not an artificial interest, should be repre­sented in the legislature. They are usually in opposition to, if not at enmity with, each other; because the lat­ter constantly subsists upon the former. Therefore the lat­ter, ought to be limited and restrained by the simple rule of the public good. But if it legislates, it is subjec­ted to no restraint or limitation.

Slavery is only a domination of an artificial, over the natural interest of a nation. In whatever shape that ar­tificial interest appears, the effect is the same. And if the artificial interest possesses a power of erecting itself, and of legislating to preserve and support itself, the na­tion is already enslaved.

Public creditors and stock-holders ought to be ex­cluded from Congress, upon the same principle as pub­lic officers are excluded, because all may acquire pub­lic monies by their own votes, and the acquisiti­ons of the two former being behind the curtain, are most to be apprehended. Would such characters have been fit persons to form a constitution for America, and if not, are they proper guardians, of that which they could not have been entrusted to enact?

Suppose for instance, whilst the funding and assump­tion laws were under discussion, members of Congress had held paper, the value of which was to be greatly enhanced by funding and assuming. Would such mem­bers have been impartial judges of the propriety of these measures? or of the proposition to make some re­tribution to the original holders for their loss, leaving still to the purchasers a handsome gratuity? Could not members of Congress upon that occasion have been in­terwoven by speculators, with their projects? Or whilst the questions were under consideration, if members had [Page 59] drawn the wages paid by their country for impartiality, and invested them in the purchase of a personal interest on one side of the question, could a greater degree of legislative corruption have been conceived? When the bank law was before Congress, were certificate holders impartial legislators, since an effect of it, was to increase the interest on 7,500,000 dollars of certificates, from six to at least twelve per centum?

Illustrations resulting from an actual state of things, and drawn from laws, so important in their conse­quences, enable us to look forward for future effects, upon better grounds than conjecture, and bring the question to this issue. Ought Congress to decide upon the most important national regulations, from motives of public good, or ought they to be governed, or even biassed by those of private interest?

Natural deafness would be considered as an unan­swerable objection to a candidate for a seat in Congress, and yet it would be preferable to an artificial deafness, as far as an equal chance of doing right, is preferable to an automaton member, whose motions are governed by a secret impulse, when that impulse is self-interest.

Laws then ought to be made by the natural or gene­ral interest of a nation, and every artificial, local and particular interest, ought to depend upon the justice and integrity of that which is natural or general, be­cause of this every individual participates, whereas a few persons only are concerned in the others; because the smaller the number, and the more exclusive the in­terest, the greater the temptation to injustice and par­tiality; because national confidence in the important matter of legislation, can only reside in the nation itself; and because, when a power to legislate, is the offspring of legislation and not of the constitution, legislation which gave, can resume the power, can transfer it from one exclusive interest to another, and can cause politi­cal [Page 60] principles, intended to be made constitutionally per­manent, to fluctuate. The power of legislation, by the several paper laws, is in fact and substance (for we are regardless of form) transferred from the nation to a paper junto. And if the bank and certificate artificial interests, were in a state of warfare, legal transfers of this power, and fluctuations of political principles, would presently exemplify the objects of a legislative power, flowing in fact, though not in form, out of le­gislation.

If this is not the principle of exclusions from the le­gislature, upon what basis do they rest? Admiting it to be so, is not the artificial, exclusive, private paper in­terest completely embraced by it?

When such an interest seduces a part of the repre­sentatives of the general or national interest, into its views or designs, liberty is dangerously wounded; but when a majority of such representatives is thus se­duced, liberty is theoretically annihilated.

An unanswerable illustration of this doctrine results from the recollection, that the paper interest is transi­tory. It is a bird of passage, regardless of climes, in­capable of national feelings—of national attachments—or of that amor patriae, which is the most tender pledge of legislative kindness. Instead of possessing perma­nency, it may connect itself occasionally with French, Spanish, Dutch, or English politics. Are these such supports as the constitution solicits? And what must be the views of an administration, which has selected an itinerant, unfeeling visitant, as the guardian of its de­signs? Of the public good, paper is a most unnatural guardian. It is a rapacious calculator of interest, whose conscience is seared by its acquisitions and its hopes. In Congress, it is an inexorable creditor, with an execution or a deed of trust in its hand, ready to seize and sell—with a power to borrow money for its [Page 61] own purposes, at any loss to the debtor—and able to perplex its demands and add to its usury, by sly tricks or legislative contrivances.

Hence the depositing of certificates in the national bank, by which the paper more than doubled interest—hence the enormous loans made of the bank, carry­ing interest, whilst it possessed and used an enormous sum of public money, carrying no interest—hence the continual foreign loans, whilst the nation is amused with a sinking fund, with compliments to the trade of financiering, and with official recommendations from the minister, conveyed through the purest channel, to commence the discharge of the public debt—and hence that assemblage of contrivances, placing the people in a state of utter darkness, as to the disposition of their money.

If we tempt men's desires, by hopes of boundless ac­quisitions, the constant incitements of private interest, will leave no interval of time or reflection, to be ap­propriated to the public good; a reflection, out of which, if it is just, arises a strong argument for expel­ling every species of private undue influence out of Congress, that the attention of this body may be bent to the national welfare.

The expulsion of paper men out of Congress would bring these observations to the test of an impartial le­gitimate legislature. Is such an event desirable? An­ticipate it, and behold its effects. If the paper interest would be expelled from Congress—if the incorporating usurpation, and all constructive contrivances, violating republican principles, would be restrained—if any other misconstrued or doubtful expressions in the constitution would be explained, and new securities for liberty de­vised—and if simplicity in the finances would be en­forced; such decisions would prove the truth and just­ness of my arguments. I challenge the aristocracy to [Page 62] submit to this fair and honest trial. A decision by pa­per in its own favour, is no proof at all. If they shrink from so unexceptionable a proposition, and will continue both judge and jury in their own cause, it can only flow from a consciousness, which will not escape the notice of the community, in considering whether real reforms are desirable, and whether it will stop at ima­ginary anticipations of its wishes. Such a legislature would also repeal the bank law.

What! exclaims the appalled aristocracy, will you also invade rights of private property, as by law esta­blished? Yes, If they are interdicted by the principles of the constitution, they are wrongs, and not rights.

This subject deserves a further examination. It may illustrate and unravel the unconstitutional designs of a monarchical faction.

We hear on all hands of the sacredness of private property, held by legislative sanction; of the inviolabi­lity of legislative faith; and it is even asserted, that Congress ought never to repeal a law, by which they have bestowed a valuable boon upon an individual. Congress have themselves plainly expressed their suf­frage in favour of these doctrines, by pledging the pub­lic faith, that the exclusive privileges of the bank shall be enjoyed for twenty years unrivalled, and by making a portion of the public debt irredeemable, in virtue of their constitutional power to redeem. It is evident that these doctrines are invented to prop the laws, and the laws grounded in a contemplation of the doctrines. Whence both the doctrines and the laws are clearly a­scribable to a common source.

A legislature influenced by private motives, will ex­alt legislative sanctions, and debase constitutional barri­ers. Those who invent wrongs for their own use, will also invent doctrines to support those wrongs.

[Page 63] Combining the doctrine and laws, they engender a di­rect claim by the legislature, of a power to usurp upon the rights of the nation, Provided, the depredation is sold or given to an individual or a corporation. It is a doc­trine which prostrates every constitutional fence, devi­sed, or capable of being devised for the preservation of liberty and property, at the feet of a legislature. They may parcel out public property and public rights, which are the only wares they deal in, until none worth having remain. They may endow an aristocracy at the nation­al expence, and if the inviolability of legislative faith is to obviate a reclamation, then the aristocracy is per­petual. Congress may even distribute among their bas­tards the revenues of cities, countries or states in perpe­tuity, through the medium of paper, banks, coals, or any necessary of life; and an example for it is to be found in a system, which is obviously the polar star of the politics of government. Nay they may divide the fruit of the national labour among themselves, not for twenty years only, but for ever. The limitation of the bank tax was merely arbitrary; and if the inviolability of legislative faith, is to sanction the contrivance for twenty years, a precedent exists for conveying the whole national ability to a single corporation, in tail successional, for all eternity.

This legal immutability, supposes constitutional mu­tability. Congress are mounted by it to a pre-emi­nence over a national convention. It goes to the pre­servation of legal wrongs, beyond a revolution itself. It is an assumption of a power, not actually possessed by any existing generation of mankind, and which the na­tion itself could not bestow even on a general conven­tion. It renders constitutional rights violable, by as­serting that legal rights are inviolable; thus in a man­ner repealing political gospel, by form of law. And is indeed a doctrine so replete with evil and absurdity, as to have been avowed but seldom, since the times of the Medes and Persians.

[Page 64] But the Medes and Persians were more consistent than Congress. Immutability was a concomitant of their laws universally. Whereas with us the whole doctrine is monopolised by those, who can strip the nation of its wealth or rights by form of law. Laws of this kind are called deeds, and the sign, seal and deliver of Con­gress, closes the conveyance for ever. As if all laws did not in some way affect private persons. As if to se­cure the nation individually, they must be plundered col­lectively. As if it was a consolation to a man, whom you are about to destroy on one score, to declare him safe as to another.

The constitution empowers, Congress to make laws, not to make deeds. Mutability is attached to legisla­tion. Otherwise each successive Congress would have its power narrowed by the preceding, though derived from the same source, and held by the same tenure. To keep faith to the bank law, we must be guilty of a breach of faith to the constitution.

To return more immediately to the subject. The constitution in the fifth article, recognizes the state le­gislatures, as state conventions, and Congress as a ge­neral convention. Congress, united with two thirds of the state legislatures, may alter the constitution. Con­templated, as they are in this important instance, as the organs of the people, can it be improper for them to make known the public will, or to reconsider emenda­tions of the constitution, of which they are ultimately to judge? The power of forcing Congress, by the man­date of two thirds, immeasurably transcends a mere re­commendation.

A genuine, impartial, unadulterated legislature, would fairly consider, and impartially determine questions of a national magnitude, exceeded by none. Therefore, the remedies presenting themselves are;

1. In all elections, to exclude paper men of every de­nomination, [Page 65] and also every species of artificial interest created, or to be created.

2. To compile the Senate by a republican standard.

3. To recommend, through the medium of state le­gislatures, explanations of the constitution, according with its spirit—its construction when adopted—its un­strained construction now—and with republican princi­ples.

SECTION XIII.—THE SUBJECT OF THE BANK RE­SUMED.

IT is resumed to evince the integrity of the observa­tion, intimating the existence of numerous frauds in this contrivance, not yet adduced.

National wealth, and national rights, tottering on the brink of perdition, irresistibly solicited our first at­tention; and all possible haste was made to exhibit their danger, without distracting the public attention, by compelling it to view the Proteus in too great a variety of shapes.

This important duty being discharged, it may not be amiss to continue our enquiries concerning the public or private morality of this institution.

The bank may buy and sell lands including their ca­pital to the amount of 15,000,000 of dollars. But if they exceed their capital, who is to know it? They are not to disclose the extent of their landed estate, even to the minister; and no power, can require such a dis­closure of them. If an excess is discovered, and could be proved, which is almost impossible, no penalty is sub­joined or forfeiture incurred; and the effect of such a discovery would have been easily frustrated, had a for­feiture followed it, by a fraudulent exercise of the pow­er [Page 66] to sell. In this view the bank law is a statute of mortmain, and the lands of the community may be gra­dually swallowed up by a corporation, which does not propose in exchange for them, either political or eter­nal salvation. Perpetuities of landed estates, devolving by succession, are established, to the discouragement of commerce and industry; to the impoverishment of the laity; and to the aggrandisement of the bank mili­litant ministry. It is an incorporated feudal tenure, and the community is subjected to homage and fealty, for their circulating medium, as well as their lands.

The bank dividends are not to be coextensive with the real profits, but are to be regulated by the directors. Hence the extent of the imposition is concealed from the public. The community lose the chance of having all they pay thrown back into circulation, by the extra­vagance or luxury of individuals. An accumulating fund, which may make the corporation richer than the nation, and of course more powerful, is a branch of the scheme. It may constantly retain, what the nation a­lone supplies. Thus the amusements of mathematici­ans, in calculating the effects of compound interest, are to be realized at the national expence; and a fund is secured for extending the mortmain business, or with which to buy a new charter at the end of twenty years by public or private negociations, if the bank should not then have members enough in Congress to give it to it­self. The body corporate can either extend or diminish its profits. This is a kind of lash capable of being ap­plied to their refractory bodies natural, either in or out of Congress, to whip them in, to the incorporated mea­sures. The supremacy of the body politic over its mem­bers is by this means effectually established, and a uni­ted impetus secured to it. In this part of the scheme is also to be discerned an unnecessary precaution, as expe­rience has evinced, in case things should go badly. In this event, the corporation by its directors, had nothing to do, but to declare an exorbitant dividend, and then [Page 67] to sell out individually to the unwary, the bank stock, thus enhanced in price.

The debts are not to exceed 10,000,000 of dollars, over and above the money deposited in the bank for safe-keeping, and over and above 5,000,000 worth of lands. Diffi­cult as it is to ascertain what may be the stock, property and debts of the bank by law, yet no penalty exists for enforcing obedience to the law, except that if the bank incurs debts beyond 10,000,000, they shall actually pay them. The profit of the bank arises out of paper, money, or debts, bearing no interest. Where is the pe­nalty of paying £100, and receiving £106 for so doing? The traffic of the bank is under no limitation, but the national ability to bear it. The partial power of in­spection, conferred upon a member of the coalition, by way of national security, might have been exemplified by a common proverb, except for the indelicacy of the terms.

Why does the law hold out an idea of limiting the acquisitions of the bank? If they are honest, to limit them was unjust; if dishonest, it should acquire nothing. If the gain came from abroad, it was restraining a na­tional good; but if the restraint admits that it was to come out of the nation, it is a tax when not a penny was due, and not a penny of public money could Congress bestow, in liberality to the rich. If the gain was not like to be so enormous, as to endanger the common-wealth, it required no limitation, If it was, why erect a mischief in order to restrain it—why extend it so enormously—or why restrain it with fetters of sand? This pretence of a limitation tells a tale. It confesses that the gain is enor­mous—that it is paid at the public expence—and that the contrivance contains some lurking mischief.

But the law provides that the bank may lend to go­vernment to any amount. Its acquisitions in this mode are rendered indefinite, if any definition could before have been discerned. And here the contrivance, ex­panding [Page 68] its views, exhibits an unlimited scope of designs, and contemplates a direct operation on government it­self. Bank people in Congress, may in this case, vote that government should make unnecessary loans of them­selves, for the purposes of extending their capital—en­creasing their profits—and acquiring an influence. The eagerness to put this part of the system into a train, hath already explained its objects. Two millions four hundred thousand dollars have been already borrowed by government of the bank upon interest, and a further loan of 800,000 dollars was sanctioned at the last Con­gress, although above 1,300,000 dollars of public mo­ney was at that time lying dead in sundry banks. By a similar trick, the bank of England has indissolubly con­nected itself with that government, and a perpetual re­newal of its charter is insured. Although its dividends have never been lower than five and an half per centum, it hath also gotten more than cent. per cent. on its capital in a government debt. Great as this property is, it is far outstripped by the American bank, as will presently be shown. In that country, an enormous profit, and an undue legislative influence, have flowed from the contri­vance. In this, the use of similar means, clearly indicates an intention to attain similar ends. With this difference, that our institution exceeds enormity itself.

The twenty five bank directors may be paid by the corporation much or little as they choose; and whether paid or not, the whole of them may be taken out of the Senate, which consists of thirty members. Even the president of the United States may be chosen, and act as a bank director. In what part of the constitution is the flaw to be found, permiting infractions of its own principles, so egregious? If bank directors serve the bank without wages, whilst they demand wages of the nation, their affection for or interest in the one, must be greater that their affection for, or interest in, the other. And if wages are their object, they will be pro­portioned to their earnings. Something beyond, "Well [Page 69] done those good and faithful servants," will be expected for doubling the talents.

The intimation that the profits of the bank are ex­travagant, deserves an exposition by items. Premising, that a person out of the secret, is confined to such items only, as are of public notoriety, so that those of a pri­vate nature, will remain uncalculated.

Three fourths of the bank deposit, are to consist of certificates, and one fourth of specie. Suppose £100 thus deposited. The dividend at the end of the year was was eight per centum. The £75 of certificates were gaining an interest of six per cent per annum, so that the whole profit is made out of the £25 specie, which is all the person making the deposit loses the use of. Up­on this sum the profit in one year is above thirty per centum. But the bank began to operate when only one fourth of the stock subscribed was deposited, four in­stalments of six months each being allowed, and yet the dividends have been made upon the total stock subscri­bed. Hence only £12 10 0. actual cash for each £100 stock, was deposited during the whole of the first year, and this received and usance of £8, as regu­lated by the directors, exclusive of the gain in lands, debts, speculations, and loans for the incorporated be­nefit. Are not the talents doubled? and may not the bank exclaim, "Well done thou good and faithful ser­vants?"

Though the six per centum upon certificates, consti­tuted a portion of the total gain, made by the corpora­tion, yet there was gain enough to constitute the divi­dends, exclusive of this six per centum.

It would hardly be asserted, that the profit of a bank, favoured of government, would be only two per centum, supposing the stock to have consisted of specie, so as not to get an interest, both by circulating paper on its cre­dit, and also as a debt due by government.

[Page 70] But the fact should not rest upon a supposition which can be denied.

Exclusive of the dividends, and all other gains, the bank had already lent to government on the first of Ja­nuary 1793, 2,400,000 dollars, for which it was then receiving interest.

Therefore the profits, supplying not only this loan, but also the dividends, it follows obviously, that the interest upon the certificates was more than doubled at the national expence; and consequently that the 7,500,000 dollars of public debt deposited, was instan­taneously conjured up by what is called financiering skill and federation, to between fifteen and thirty millions.

The precise amount cannot be ascertained, because both the item of lands acquired, and that important ar­ticle of private debts due to the bank, are left out of the calculation; both being of a secret nature.

As the republic did not deposit her two millions of stock, all the specie of the whole bank subscription, supposing every shilling paid, amounted to 2,000,000 of dollars; and out of it the directors have not only made a dividend of eight per centum on 10,000,000 which is a gain of 800,000 dollars per annum, but have also lent the government 2,400,000 dollars. The ta­lents are trebled in two years. It is not said, that the bank had sold its certificates previous to January 1793.

The capital of the bank of England was £10,000,000 sterling. It has only been able to lend to that govern­ment from its institution, about £.12,000,000, and its dividends have long been as low as five and an half per centum. The specie capital of the United States bank was only 2,000,000 of dollars, and in less than two years, it lent 2,400,000 to government, and divided eight per [Page 71] centum on 10,000,000. How far, arithmeticians, does the copy outstrip the original?

Did or did not the bank lend to the public 2,000,000 in actual specie, to deposit for the public stock. If it did, ignorant as we are of the other items of profit, its enormity is sufficiently evinced. If it did not, the re­public was defrauded in a variety of ways.

1. Had actual cash been borrowed elsewhere and de­posited, the bank might have extended its business, to the increase of the profits, of which the public would have received a fifth part; whereas 60,000 dollars are now annually paid for no advantage, four-fifths of which are divided among the private subscribers.

2. The credit of the bank rests upon the credit of the republic, as to 7,500,000 dollars of certificate stock, and whilst individuals are depositing the credit of the republic for three-fourths of their subscriptions, the republic is prohibited from depositing her own cre­dit, for any proportion of hers.

3. Further, although the credit of the bank rests up­on the credit of the government, yet the government is made to borrow 2,000,000 of bank credit, which itself erected, sustains and can annihilate, and for these nothings, to pay annually 60,000 somethings. When this is done upon an assertion, "that the credit of the bank is necessary to support the credit of the nation," precisely the reverse of the truth, may it not be pronounced, that there is verity in the charge, "that the public good is sacrificed to this institution."

4. But that which carries the imposition to the most extravagant degree, is, that the public (if the bank did not lend actual cash) pays interest for the credit of the bank, whilst the bank pays none, for the money of the public. The secretary reported, that on the 1st of [Page 72] January 1793, 1,229,517 dollars 20 cents, of public money, in the bank of the United States, exclusive of 614,593 dollars 2 cents, which he reported to be due for bills drawn for foreign loans, negociated by that bank; and exclusive of 158,778 dollars 25 cents, de­posited in other banks. And on that day the public was paying interest to the bank of the United States for 2,400,000 dollars.

If the bank advanced this large sum to the public in actual cash, whilst it was hourly lending to individuals also, it must either have been drained of its cash, or its profits must have exceeded imagination; it is therefore probable, that it was discounting from the use of the 1,229,517 dollars 20 cents of public money, whilst it was receiving interest of the public. If it lent only 2,000,000 of credit, and laid out the 2,000,000 of cash which it ought to have lent in certificates, and deposi­ted the certificates as a fund upon which to circulate paper, what would be the annual gain upon the same 2,000,000? Answer. 60,000 dollars interest for the credit lent, 60,000 for the certificates bought, and 120,000 for 4,000,000 of paper circulated on the de­posit. Excluding the idea of certificates, eighteen per centum per annum is paid. The resources of no body must be very great. I acknowledge that one fifth of these gains constitute an article of those resources.

Let the fact be either way, the enormity of the im­position is evinced by less than a moiety of the items. Suppose we had the rest? It is not surprising, that the public, thought one fifth owners of the machine, are allowed no directors. For what would come of it, if the whole secret was known?

And this is a contrivance for erecting "an active ca­pital." It is indeed an apposite expression. In activity it is a perpetual motion, collecting wealth for an aristo­cracy, and impoverishing all other classes of the com­munity. How does the filching annually an enormous [Page 73] sum from their capitals, to constitute annual dividends for a few rich individuals, and to erect an incorporated monster, secretly and constantly ingulphing real proper­ty, and national resources, in the abyss of perpetuity, favour agriculture, commerce or manufactures?

It would be better for the community, if such con­tributions were thrown into the sea. Though the pro­perty would be lost, liberty would be preserved. Now its wealth fosters its natural enemy, whilst the general welfare is impoverished, and the common strength, dis­abled. The sinew of defence is transfering to those, from whom we have most cause to fear offence. And the dust of a few new terms, interspersed with the jargon of a system, whose principle is perplexity, and whose design is treachery, is expected to hide from the public view, the ambuscade which lurks behind.

The bank having the monopoly of the bulk of the circulating medium, may occasionally increase or dimi­nish the quantity. It may diminish the quantity, thus enhance its value, and purchase with its own paper, cer­tificates or other property, which are depreciated, in the same proportion, as the medium is appretiated. It may then increase the quantity of this circulating me­dium, lessen its value, appretiate certificates or other property of course, and then sell a portion of the same certificates or other property, to take in the paper which the whole cost. If the law prohibiting this incorpora­ted traffic in certificates, could even discover the fact, yet the traffic would still have open to it, the endless list of whatever is valuable. And the individual mem­bers are not even nominally restrained.

This is a compleat commercial despotism. Every mer­chant is secured beyond the reach of government, and yet the bank can ruin almost any merchant, without even a power in government to save him. A respecta­ble class of citizens, are thus cajoled by a few of its mem­bers, [Page 74] who enjoy some exclusive fruits from the contri­vance, into an approbation of the most unrestrained spe­cies of indirect and secret power over their property; whilst the same men would spurn at the same thing, if exhibited in a simple incorporated society, for enriching or impoverishing, whomsoever it might please the direc­tors. Honesty, industry, and punctuality, are no lon­ger a security for success. Profit is to be made by su­perior cunning and intrigue in finding out bank secrets. The profits of trade will no longer be an honourable compensation, for supplying the mutual wants of distant nations. They will consist chiefly of mean pilferings from our next neighbours. The reputable and useful society of merchants, will dwindle into a dishonest asso­ciation of speculators, for tricking each other, as well as the whole community, of their money, by a trade in ideas.

The circulating medium is the soul and food of com­merce. A corporation, possessing a power over the soul, can animate, or annihilate the body at pleasure. By with-holding its food, they may starve commerce; by glutting it, they may produce a mercantile pletho­ra. A foreknowledge of these effects, is an unlimited power of taxation. In a civilized society, the circula­ting medium, is also the soul of agriculture, arts and manufactures. All the faculties of the nation are sub­ject to the regimen of an incorporated quackery, in­stead of pursuing a natural impulse, in search of their own subsistence. If the physician was honest, yet an artificial regimen in a state of health, produces debility, and hastens dissolution; but when his fees depend on the irregularity of his prescriptions, and when he is a mere Hiccius Doccius of a fellow, he will soon destroy the soundest constitution.

A monopoly of the circulating medium, is an uni­versal power of embargo, over trade, agriculture, and manufactures, deposited in the hands of a few private [Page 75] citizens. In what place does the constitution contem­plate such a power, and if the place can be found, why does it so cautiously devise checks restraining go­vernment within certain limits, whilst this power, so greatly transcending any right devolved upon govern­ment itself, is left uncontrolled?

Suppose a monopoly of gold was bestowed on one corporation—of silver on another—of the English and French trades on others; proceeding to parcel out all the branches of trade, agriculture, arts, and almost sciences, among so many similar ministerial contri­vances. It might enrich the members of the several corporations, but the public would exclaim, trade is ruined—the national happiness is destroyed. And yet such a system would be more just than the bank contri­vance, in being more general—in producing some little competition—and in being less an engine of political designs and legislative corruption. The monopoly of the circulating medium involves a monopoly of all these objects. The bank has a flush of trumps, with palm, the knave, at their head, which loos the rest of the community; and if it does not seize the whole stake at one grasp, it is on account of the obvious impolicy of destroying the hen which lays the golden eggs.

The little specie left by the system in circulation, is only a kind of small change, or a sort of permissive bank alms, as it pays them no tax, and is too inconsi­derable in its amount, to impugn a single important ef­fect, flowing from the monopoly of the circulating me­dium.

The calamities of the last war, resulting from the banishment of specie by a paper medium, were proba­bly equivalent to those produced by the sword. The banking contrivances are rapidly reducing us again, to the same ruinous and miserable situation.

SECTION XIV.—THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE tax paid to the bank as inevitably falls upon labour ultimately, as the impost does; nor has labour in either case the smallest chance of exerting any degree of volition; it can only exert its industry, to pay a debt imposed upon it by law, which it must ne­cessarily discharge.

The whole gross value of the exports from the Uni­ted States, for twelve months previous to October 179 [...], was 17,371,551 dollars. This was the product of labour, exclusive of its food. And out of this a­mount must be deducted the freight, commissions, clothing, tools, liquors, and other necessaries, which it must pay for. Conjecture that an annual profit is made by labour beyond its annual needs, even of 8,000,000. One days profit requires four day's work. Taking these data, and narrowing the profit of the bank down to its simple annual dividend, labour must toil at least forty-nine days in each year to raise the di­vidend of the bank of the United States, amounting to 800,000 dollars. And if the profits of all the banks amount to 2,000,000 annually, labour must toil ninety-one days every year to pay them. Recollect that the present annual expenditure of the nation, interest, and the expences of government included, exceeds 5,000,000 of dollars, and then consider the present state of labour. Suppose a law was proposed, a necessary effect of which would be, that a few rich men should work ninety-one days in the year for the rest of the commu­nity. Both the oppression and the gain would [...] finitely contracted. But the principle would remain unchanged, though the case would be altered greatly for the better. If the profit made by labour extended even to 10,000,000 annually, the bank of the United States would be receiving eight per centum annually, in its dividends only, out of this profit. And if the capi­tals [Page 77] of this, and the other banks, extend to 17,371,551 dollars, and their dividends amount to eight per centum upon an average, then labour pays that enormous inte­rest to banks, upon the gross amount of her exports. But if we add to the dividends, every other item of profit, and allow the community a maintenance, it is within bounds to conjecture, that forty per centum up­on her nett profit, is annually paid by the community to the several banks.

And what compensation do the banks make to the community for those enormous gains and exclusive privi­leges? Have they made a bushel of wheat or a horn tooth comb? Actual specie is but a representative of real wealth. But it is equivalent thereto, because it can transfer real wealth to us from a foreign nation; where­as bank paper can neither increase our exports, or pay for our imports, since its currency is local. The bank is therefore an incorporation of sinecures, quartered upon labour, and may be justly stiled, the Irish establish­ment of America.

Debt is service or labour, and service or labour is slavery. And so is slavery defined in the fourth sec­tion of the constitution. For money being the repre­sentative of labour, and the only medium by which debt can be paid, the creditor is in fact the master of the debtor, for the quantum of service or labour, neces­sary to discharge that debt. If so, the United States are by the bank contrivances, placed precisely in the situation of a slave, who has purchased of his master about four day's freedom in each week; because for more than one day in each week, they owe service to the bank of the United States, and for about two days, to the several banks now operating. How improperly then do we speak? Instead of saying, "the bank of the United States," it would be more proper to say, "the United States of the bank."

[Page 78] And the law enacts that we shall be the United States of the bank for twenty years. During so long a lease without impeachment of waste, the tenant will either ruin the estate, or provide for the purchase in fee. If the product of the estate, and not its improvement, had not been the object, wherefore were other tenants ex­cluded? This wise exclusion of partners in spoiling the nation, evinces the truth of the line of argument I have adopted by disclosing the design of the contrivance.

The law of primogeniture and first fruits is revived. The bank is the first born of legislation, with an intail for 20 years, and more than a chance for the reversion in fee. Or it is rather an heir apparent, in possession of the regency, on account of the parent's idiocy.

A pretence of rendering some compensation to the community, for its pre-eminent powers, and exorbitant acquisitions, was necessary to lull enquiry into a coma­tose state. And therefore it is alleged that the institu­tion enables merchants to extend commerce, to give better prices for commodities, and to encourage indu­stry. And England is resorted to, as an example pro­ving these allegations.

Merchants are brokers, honourable and useful, whilst adhering to a steady line of commerce, and supplying the wants of a nation, but pernicious and dangerous, whilst speculating indiscriminately on foes and friends for the acquisition of wealth, and aspiring to exclusive pre­vileges and prerogatives.

They are of a class unproductive, and therefore if ca­pitals are to be raised at the public expence, it would be more beneficial to commerce, to bestow them on agri­culture or manufactures, which alone create the real fund for an extension of commerce, for the purpose of enabling them to make lasting and productive improve­ments. Taking from the productive class therefore, to [Page 79] bestow upon the unproductive is inverting the course of nature, when an extension of commerce is the object.

A reaction of these capitals as an incitement to indu­stry, cannot be a permanent effect from a bank. The quantity of paper which can be circulated, is limited by the national ability to pay for it, and the employment it can find. Specie is liable to the latter limit only, and therefore more specie than paper, can find employment in a nation, because for specie there is nothing to pay. If a member of the commercial world, possesses specie sufficient for its occasions, and banks are established which emit paper equal in amount to this specie, the latter must depart for want of employment. If more pa­per is emited, a momentary and unnatural spur may be given to industry, at the commencement of the operati­on; but it would be fleeting and transitory, for the in­stant the true level of circulating medium has regulated itself, things at best, would subside to their usual course. But they will sink lower, because the community having exchanged specie for paper, hath lost a long string of advantages possessed by the former over the latter; and because worsted as it is in numberless ways by the ex­change, labour will moreover be burthened with an in­terest of six per centum on the amount of the circulating paper, whereas the national labour paid nothing for spe­cie. How compleatly is such a community jockeyed?

Again. Lasting improvements can never be produced by bank contrivances, on account of the rapidity with which bank paper, whilst it is alive, is passed from hand to hand. Lasting and productive improvements in ma­nufactures and agriculture, require the use of a capital for several years, because profit from labour flows in slowly. And such capitals our banks never furnish. The contrivance is only adapted for sudden speculati­ons; to favour a quick and rapid succession of good bargains; and to enable the bank to gain compound in­terest, by renewing its paper three or four times a year. [Page 80] The medium for such a traffic being local also, the gain resulting from it must not only be filched from citi­zens, but instead of producing, it must obstruct lasting improvements, and discourage, by impoverishing, in­dustry. And merchants, from an honourable profes­sion, will be converted in a set of contemptible gam­blers.

Suppose two or three large states, Massachusetts and New-York, or Virginia and North Carolina, for instance, should destroy banks, and inhibit the circula­tion of all bank notes by making it felony; would not such states become a reservoir for the specie of the uni­on? And would not the effects be so sorely felt by the sister states, as soon to destroy the banking systems throughout the union? The United States, as a mem­ber of the commercial world, will speedily occupy a si­milar pre-eminent station, over sister nations, by abo­lishing banks. For specie will ever flow, where it can find employment.

In lieu of this system is substituted a corporation of rich men, possessing a power of expelling the only uni­versal medium of commerce, of substituting a local me­dium in its stead, having a monopoly of this local medi­um, and thus compleatly enabled to regulate the price of every species of produce. The lower this produce can be bought, the higher are their gains; because those who buy bank paper at a premium, cannot pay the premium, and must cease to deal at the paper shop, un­less they can sell it at a higher price than they gave. The bank sells the commodity by wholesale, and are paid a wholesale profit. The dealers will then retail it, getting an advance upon the whole first cost, and since the commodity will not do for transportation, the nation as the only consumers, pay this double profit. Will the bank exert the power of regulating the price of labour, for the purpose of raising it; and is a mono­poly a good substitute for a competition? Reflect. Can [Page 81] the bank cause the price of produce or of paper, to fluctuate? What must be the effect of this power? and compare the price of wheat in 1789, when there was a partial and local scarcity in France, with the price of the same article in 1792, when a general European scar­city and warfare united to enhance it. Not forgetting that many of these contrivances, have been erected in the interim.

The truth is, that the price of our exports abroad, and not the banking operations at home, can only en­hance their value. Out of that price must be deducted, freight, profit and commission; and to these deductions are superadded the dividends and other profits of banks. Will deductions raise the price?

Mercantile or speculating people can only borrow of the bank, because of its short credit; and to lend to o­thers, so as to aid lasting improvements or encourage industry, is never a purpose of those who deal in bank paper. In no state does the legal interest for money exceed six per centum, and this interest must be paid to the bank; therefore no person will borrow of the bank to lend again, when he can gain nothing. In all states, where the legal interest is still lower, a loss would obvi­ously ensue. As would also be the case, wherever that is the legal rate; because the bank, by calling in loans several times a year, manages to gain more than six per centum per annum, which being a shift to evade, would not in a private case be tolerated by, a statute of usury. Therefore bank paper is a proper medium for sudden strokes at good bargains only. These strokes fall upon citizens only, and constitute a mode for the encourage­ment of industry, novel and incomprehensible to those who receive, but clear and conspicuous to those who inflict the stroke.

Labour is burthened with a compound interest on this bank medium, under the pretences of encouraging industry, and furnishing a capital for improvement, [Page 82] which are obviously deceitful and fallacious. If labour had received the loans of the bank, and had thus esca­ped the gain which it pays to those who do, yet it must have paid the bank profits. The dividends are eight per centum, exclusive of other great acquisitions before sta­ted. Can agriculture or manufactures afford to pay such an interest for a capital? The returns made by lasting improvements, bear no similtude to those of spe­culating rogueries. Who will lend for the purpose of encouraging industry, or to aid lasting improvements, at five per centum, when by investing his money in bank stock, he will certainly gain above eight per centum; Private loans are thus annihilated, and no substitute for the attainment of such objects proposed. A rate of bank profit, exceeding the rate of legal interest, must draw the national money to this vortex of imposition.

Banks are money brokers, receiving exorbitant com­missions. A kind of treasurers of the whole circula­ting medium, receiving annually of the nation, among whom it circulates, above six per centum on its amount. In less than seventeen years, they gain the intire total. Enough to support at least a seven years war, with 20,000 men constantly in the field. What an alarm­ing idea? Suppose government and the bank should coalesce, and form a treaty with some foreign poten­tate, to destroy what they have already united to in­fringe? Are usurpations more easily corrected in a state of maturity, than at their commencement?

It is pleasant to observe the dilemma to which Con­gress are reduced by the contrivance. The constitu­tion, in terms framed from a consideration of the mis­chiefs heretofore produced by paper mediums, strives most carefully to interdict them in future. In dealing out power to Congress relative to a currency, it permits that body "to coin money;" and in restraining the power of the states, it prohibits them from " coining money, emitting bills of credit, or making any thing a [Page 83] tender but gold and silver." In not giving the power of establishing a paper currency to the one, and in ta­king it expresly from the other, the constitution design­ed to secure the society against the frauds and vices of paper tricks. That circulating paper medium of eve­ry kind was intended to be inhibited, is obvious from the distinction, between such a medium, and making any thing a tender. Both are separately condemned; and the medium, though unaccompanied with the ten­der, is expressly forbidden. The tender is indeed an aggravation of that which is mischievous without the tender. The states being restrained from establishing a paper currency, could not empower a corporation to do it. They could not bestow, what they did not pos­sess. But, alas! poor Congress! having broken the constitution themselves, they are obliged to wink upon its flagrant breach by most of the states, which have, without any bad intention, followed their baneful ex­ample. With grief must Congress suffer their twenty years monopoly to be broken in upon, and snacks of the national plunder to fall to the share of rival corpo­rations. It must however be confessed, that the contest is unequal, since the good things redounding from the public purse, are exclusively enjoyed by the purse bear­ers. Had the states gone into the system of their own head, and not as blind transcribers of the example set by the higher powers, we should have heard clamourings, which could not now be uttered by a party of the cho­rus.

Ignorant as we are of the effects of banking in Eng­land, it is necessary to take some notice of an example quoted in favour of the contrivance. Bold assertions may be hazarded, when the proof is beyond our reach; and therefore the quotation. But if England may be likened unto a seigniory possessed of profitable estates, pouring into its lap their products in constant streams of wealth—if the riches of the East and West-Indies roll into her treasury—if she is the tax gatherer of Ireland [Page 84] and Scotland—if she shares in the fisheries—if she is al­most unrivalled in manufactures and unequalled in com­merce—if her labouring class of citizens are industrious and her soil exuberant, why is her prosperity (if she is prosperous) attributed to her banking contrivances. Whilst a glare of imaginary prosperity is painted by terms, the offsprings of invention, to tempt the nation, a productive cause equally false is credited for it, to mislead us. If effects, bearing a faint resemblance, to the high colourings in which they are depicted, do ex­ist, they are accounted for by an unseen speculating in­fluence, without resorting to a single obvious cause.

On the contrary, suppose we were to consider the poor rates, and the rate of luxury in England, as the ex­positors of banking schemes. Redundant wealth and pinching want, would turn out to be the effects in par­celling out the necessaries of life; and tyranny and slavery the division they make, of what they term, "civil rights." Nothing could have deprived the Eng­lish (the nation not the court) of enjoying diffusively their exclusive advantages, but a system constantly pil­laging from labour, to aggrandize wealth. Unless, therefore, America is languishing for a peasantry, wretchedly poor, and an aristocracy luxuriously rich and arrogantly proud, this English precedent has been unfortunately adduced, and more unfortunately pur­sued.

But to consider how the bank will affect liberty at its extremities, when it hath struck at its heart, by corrupt­ing the legislature itself, is really superfluous. It is therefore time to dismiss the subject.

Subjoining, that the public wealth is pillaged to the extent of the national ability, and that no food for spe­culation remains, except the public territory.

If those who have pledged this territory for the re­demption of the debt, by legislative faith, should now [Page 85] pervert the arms and treaties of the nation, to the breaking of this faith, for the purpose of acquiring principalities out of the national territory for them­selves—If those who call themselves federal, should league with Indians and foreigners, to remove the land marks of union, and to revoke a fundamental stipula­tion for the security of independency itself, it would both explode their professions, and prove the justness of my arguments.

SECTION XV.—THE PRESENT STATE OF PARTIES CONSIDERED.

FROM a collision of parties truth flashes forth, and the community is the great arbiter between them. Parties are counsel on opposite sides, capable, by argu­ment and reasoning, of enlightening, or by buffoonery, sophisms and perplexity, of insulting the judge. A song in the place of an explanation, or farcical newspaper ebullitions, instead of definitions and illustrations, must awaken the idea of a merry Andrew, entertaining a mob by his tricks and grimace, whilst his accomplices are picking their pockets.

A party however must signify, a confederation of in­dividuals for the private and exclusive benefit of them­selves, and not for the public good. If then the ob­ject of this confederation is in conflict with the public good, those who oppose it, deserve rather the appella­tion of "a band of patriots," than the epithet of "a party," they are not contending for the benefit of a part, but of the whole community.

It is of importance to the community to discern, what interest falls within this definition of a party, and what line of politics, as excluded by it, is intitled to their con­fidence.

[Page 86] And first let us find out the design of those who dis­approve of the measures of administration. Are they in search of loaves and fishes? If so, let the community demand, what those loaves are? The possessors of them can best tell. Legal salaries of office are too mo­derate to constitute an object for avarice, or to be a fund for those enormous acquisitions, which have not escaped the eye of America. Is the favour of admi­nistration lucrative, or in any mode beneficial? Tell us, in what way, and to what extent, ye who know, that we may discern the undue selfish influence, operating upon those who complain of its measures.

If the government is already a government of loaves and fishes, then the necessity of an immediate reforma­tion is admitted, because time sanctifies abuses; if not, the motives which actuate those who are striving to prevent its becoming so, must be pure and patriotic.

The bank, 'tis asserted, is unconstitutional—that it is a burthensome and fraudulent tax—that it impove­rishes all classes of the community, except a selected few—that it subverts the principles of representation—and that with other measures of administration, it pro­ceeds unerringly and infallibly to aristocracy and mo­narchy. Now what exclusive interest can a party, sou­thern or northern, compounded of States or indivi­duals, have in defeating such designs? There is no dif­ficulty in discerning an interest of immense magnitude, and of an exclusive nature, residing in a party, for sup­porting a contrivance, of so gainful a nature.

Can a majority of the people of a single state, Massa­chusetts for instance, be interested in the support of mea­sures, for amassing wealth in a few hands, and levelled at the fundamental principles of civil liberty?

The agricultural, professional, and mechanical inte­rests of the community, at whatever point of the com­pass [Page 87] they reside, are so obviously in the same predica­ment, that it is necessary to disclose the arts, by which they have been disunited.

1. Public abuses combine for mutual support, and the greatest will be selected as the patron of the rest. Hence not only stock-holders themselves, but public officers who wish for higher salaries—paper men and speculators, who will gain by an increase of the public debt, and by the dissipation of the finances—and all who languish after aristocracy and monarchy, have en­listed under the auspices of a chief. And hence the in­dustrious and vociferous cry, in favour of the measures of the administration. A list of stock and certificate holders would explain it, to be the voice of private in­terest, and not of impartial approbation.

2. A party will receive with open arms recruits of e­very character. Among others the old tories are most cordially enlisted. They naturally fall to those, who are gaining by intrigue, what they fought for in vain. They are gratifying their passions without any expence to their principles. A victory, after a defeat, is the more pleasing, as being a retalliation.

3. In this most worshipful society, an endeavour is made to associate the President. The associates assume the character of being the supporters, of that which they are undermining, because they know his attatch­ment to the constitution and good government. By geting possession of the fortress, whilst the commandant is unsuspicious of the fraud, it will be more easy to be­tray it to an enemy, or sieze it for themselves. They stile themselves "federalists," though it is obvious that they disregard the constitution, in its principles, as well as letter. The artifice is stale; the Neros and Caligulas of Rome, were perpetually vociferating the terms "re­public and republican," long after the government was despotic.

[Page 88] 4. Honest men, when deceived, are the best suppor­ters of knavery; hence the party, by a demarcation of fallacious interests, is striving to convert that cordial union, which was founded in times of distress—ce­mented by mutual sufferings, and sealed by compact, in­to the most inveterate enmity. And a concord of hearts, habits—and of interest, which really exists between the great bulk of the citizens of every state, is the devoted victim of machinations, designed to enrich and aggrandize a few. The aristocratical interest is a kind of flying squa­dron, whose object it is to divide the great mass of the people, by a geographical line, and to cajole one division, that it may live at free quarter on the labour of both.

5. The party boast of the present flourishing condi­tion of our country, and ascribe it to their own politics. Honesty though devoid of modesty, would have confes­sed, that peace, industry, and an increased population, rather than paper contrivances, were the real grounds of national prosperity. Causes, which in many Euro­pean countries, have so far surmounted political oppres­sions, as to exhibit a high degree of agricultural and mechanical improvement. But by adducing an argu­ment from a parallel between the present times, and times of war, it is confessed, that a sufficient degree of similitude exists to bear a comparison. It is admitted, that the community which is warring against monarchy and aristocracy, armed with paper only, does indeed occupy a situation, preferable to a necessity of fighting against the same enemies, armed with the instruments of death.

6. The party call themselves the government, and then demand of the public a confidence in the magistra­cy. Had they demanded a critical investigation of their conduct, it would have been a better proof of integrity. But faith, and not truth, is their political motto. King craft, like religions established by law, substitutes my­stery in the place of knowledge. It depends, not upon an enlightened conviction, but upon a blind idolatry. [Page 89] Confidence or faith, is most clamourously insisted on, when it is least merited. Watchfulness, and not confidence, is inculcated by the constitution. But if an uninformed faith is still demanded, let us know with precission, how far it is to go—how many arguments it ought to re­fute—how many proofs it can smother—and how much mischief it can justify. And the blindest faith may per­haps discover, that it is already time to open its eyes and look about.

7. An unnatural alliance between stock and certifi­cate holders has been effected; unnatural so far excep­ted, as certificates are deposited as bank stock. By this means a real debt is interwoven with an artificial debt. A constitutional demand is linked in brotherhood, with an unconstitutional contrivance. A just claim upon the public ability is rendered precarious, by burthening that ability with an unjust and exorbitant tax. Real credi­tors are decoyed into a belief, that the best means of securing themselves, is to impose on their debtor a debt to a vast amount, founded upon fiction, but yet secured by a mortgage in the nature of a rent charge for twen­ty years. Those who have the security of the present constitution, are seduced into measures, subversive of constitutional sanctions, and if they succeed, they de­stroy their own security. In short, a combination with a party, whose existence is precarious, hath been pre­ferred to an union with the whole community, whose will is law.

8. It is even pretended, that the community do not feel their taxes; and inferred, that not feeling they do not pay them. A state of political apathy is most dan­gerous to liberty. If the community can only judge by their feelings, it is better to bring them to their sensi­bility, through the medium of their understandings, than to leave them in such a state of stupefaction, until their natural, as well as their political arteries, are pier­ced by the goads of despotism. And if they are insensi­ble of the impost, because it operates only on consu­mers [Page 90] of imported articles; yet they will certainly feel the bank tax, which is moreover an excise upon labour in every article it produces.

9. A great merit is claimed by the aristocracy, on account of their being addicted to an, "energetic go­vernment." What latitude is concealed under this ge­neral expression, cannot be discovered. Judging by the extent to which they have already pushed their de­signs, we may fairly construe it thus; "a power to sup­press discontent and commotion, excited by oppression, and to sustain the oppression." For when did a go­vernment want energy to do justice, in times of peace and prosperity? "Submit quietly and peaceably to to the blessings of an energetic government," is the language of the king of Prussia, whilst he is marching an army into Poland, for the purposes of plunder and despotism.

When these arts are exploded, those who by intrigue and deception, have really formed themselves into a pow­erful party, will turn out by right and nature, to be a mere junto, operating upon a whole society, for their own selfish purposes. And however their leader, like a young prince, may be flattered with the tongue of inte­rest into a good opinion of himself; and though his de­pendants may at first pass him upon the world for pro­digious parts and astonishing integrity; yet manhood in the one, and the effects of the other's policy, will of­ten unmask the deception, and exhibit them as prodi­gies of another sort.

Raising up an aristocracy, and severing the communi­ty into the two orders of nobles and people, is provi­ding a faction to teize and torment the public mind, by perpetual tricks and artifices, for appropriating to them­selves the purse and power of the nation. This scheme has operated, and is yet operating. The wealth alrea­dy amassed by specious frauds, hath produced visibly its [Page 91] natural effects, by corrupting those principles of mode­ration and republicanism, which are the only pledge of public liberty and private happiness.

What can the people of any state gain by aristocra­tical and paper representatives? Decency and cunning in government, is the utmost possible acquisition. Will a soul be so foolish, as to trust in a band and surplice for salvation, or a body so insane, as to rely for health in a full-bottomed wig? And will a soul, a body, or a nati­on be consoled by the reflection, that it is destroyed se­cundum artem.

And what can the author gain by success? If he is poor, what is his object? If rich, what influences him? If he is an officer of government, will he gain prefer­ment? If not, does he propose to erect an office for himself? Does he favour national profusion? Or is eco­nomy the language of public rapacity? Will despo­tism contend for liberty, and legal equality? Do his ar­guments inlist him with a party, struggling for exclusive gains; or is he telling a salvation of which he can only participate with the community in general? Is he not labouring to defend the constitution against the most fatal attacks, and are not the remedies proposed of a general, and not a local nature? Whilst he deplores his want of ability and information, equal to a task, which no one else hath undertaken, and solicits a cor­rection of his errors, he boldly asserts, that he is actu­ated by no unchaste design, and that he has written in the spirit of truth.

An administration without a maxim, would be like a ship without a rudder. From the effects of the con­trivance, and not from its professions, is this governing maxim to be collected. Of the following maxims select the most apposite. ‘Honesty is the best policy? Sim­plicity and knowledge preserve liberty. Divide and conquer. A public debt is a public blessing.’

[Page 92] The model of Nebuchadnezzar's image seems to be the idol of administration; but although the head was of gold, and the feet of clay, let it be remembered, that the clay contained a mixture of iron, and that one com­mon catastrophe humbled the gold itself to the dust.

The natural interests, and the honest politics of the nation will unite, and prevent the erection of an image, which all must fall down and worship. The attempt to set it up, violates the constitution, and therefore fede­ralism will be strenuous to defend its own work. And even antifederalism will join in the good cause, since the principles it professes are also violated. The artifi­ces of a party, foment a disunion between them, in or­der to dupe and to use both.