Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/58

32 (but all in the same hand-writing) of the territory lately in controversy between Pennsylvania and Virginia, complaining of the grievances to which their distance from public authority exposed them, and particularly of a late law of Pennsylvania interdicting even consultations about a new state within its limits, and praying that Congress would give a sanction to their independence, and admit them into the Union. The petition lay on the table, without a single motion or remark relative to it.

The order of the day was called for—to wit, the resolution of Saturday last in favor of adequate and substantial funds.

The subject was introduced by Mr. WILSON, with some judicious remarks on its importance, and the necessity of a thorough and serious discussion of it. He observed, that the United States had, in the course of the revolution, displayed both an unexampled activity in resisting the enemy, and an unexampled patience under the losses and calamities occasioned by the war. In one point only, he said, they had appeared to be deficient, and that was, a cheerful payment of taxes. In other free governments, it had been seen that taxation had been carried farther, and more patiently borne, than in states where the people were excluded from the governments; the people considering themselves the sovereign as well as the subject, and as receiving with one hand what they paid with the other. The peculiar repugnance of the people of the United States to taxes, he supposed, proceeded, first, from the odious light in which they had been, under the old government, in the habit of regarding them; secondly, from the direct manner in which taxes in this country had been laid, whereas in all other countries taxes were paid in a way that was little felt at the time. That it could not proceed altogether from inability, he said, must be obvious; nay, that the ability of the United States was equal to the public burden, could be demonstrated. According to calculations of the best writers, the inhabitants of Great Britain paid, before the present war, at the annual rate of at least twenty-five shillings sterling per head. According to like calculations, the inhabitants of the United States, before the revolution, paid, indirectly and insensibly, at the rate of at least ten shillings sterling per head. According to the computed depreciation of the paper emissions, the burden insensibly borne by the inhabitants of the United States had amounted, during the first three or four years of the war, to not less than twenty millions of dollars per annum—a burden, too, which was the more oppressive as it fell very unequally on the people. An inability, therefore, could not be urged as a plea for the extreme deficiency of the revenue contributed by the states, which did not amount, during the past year, to half a million of dollars; that is, to one sixth of a dollar per head. Some more effectual mode of drawing forth the resources of the country was necessary. That, in particular, it was necessary that such funds should be established as would enable Congress to fulfil those engagements which they had been enabled to enter into. It was essential, he contended, that those to whom was delegated the power of making war or peace should, in some way or other, have the means of effectuating these objects; that, as Congress had been under the necessity of contracting a large debt, justice required that such funds should be placed in their hands as would discharge it; that such funds were also necessary for carrying on the war, and as Congress found themselves, in their present situation, destitute both of the faculty of paying debts already contracted, and of providing for future exigencies, it was their duty to lay that situation before their constituents, and at least to come to an éclaircissement on the subject. He remarked, that the establishment of certain funds for paying would set afloat the public paper; adding, that a public debt, resting on general funds, would operate as a cement to the Confederacy, and might contribute to prolong its existence, after the foreign danger ceased to counteract its tendency to dissolution. He concluded with moving that it be resolved,—

"That it is the opinion of Congress that complete justice cannot be done to the creditors of the United States, nor the restoration of public credit be effected, nor the future exigencies of the war provided for, but by the establishment of general funds, to be collected by Congress."

This motion was seconded by Mr. FITZSIMMONS.

Mr. BLAND desired that Congress would, before the discussion proceeded further, receive a communication of sundry papers transmitted to the Virginia