Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/265

Rh the reality or delusion of an idea usually annexed to anticipation. If it did not powerfully and instantaneously enrich and impoverish existing people, how could Walpole so suddenly and effectually have debased a landed, and exalted a monied faction, by its means? The capacity of anticipation to act suddenly upon an existing age, manifests both the delusion of considering it as an engine for drawing up wealth from futurity, and also, that as an engine for producing an oppressive government, it is no delusion. All paper systems, are in fact, indirect laws of confiscation, used for the purposes which induced the French revolutionists to transfer more directly, a great mass of landed property from their antagonists to themselves. These purposes simply were to enrich themselves and establish their power. It was to enrich, and establish the power of the whigs, at the expense of the tories, that Walpole used a paper system. In America, a paper confiscation system, conferred wealth and power on a monarchical party at the expense of the whigs. In both countries, those who furnished the riches, lost much of their power and property; and those who received them, gained it. The French confiscations went boldly to their object, like a direct tax. The English and American confiscations, secretly and circuitously effected their design, by the complication of a paper system; like an indirect tax. One seized and transferred the land itself. The others, mortgaged it; artfully leaving to the owner an appearance of property, whilst he is only a receiver of the profits for the benefit of the mortgagee. Is one mode of confiscation reprobated, because it is an open robber, which quickly ends the pain of its victim ; and the other suffered, because it lies hidden under deceit and complexity, and inflicts slow and lasting tortures? Or is one reprobated, like a small criminal who robs an individual; and the other flattered, like a great one who plunders a nation? Can violations of private property be rendered just or unjust by their modes? Between the modes we have been comparing, there is one difference. Direct confiscation is always pretended to be