Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/294

284 Ancient and modern wars between civilized nations, have chiefly originated in the avarice and ambition of individuals, orders, or factions. A propensity for war, is evidently a separate interest inimical to a nation; and if this interest is contrived to derive vast accessions of wealth and power from every war, fortunate or unfortunate, from victory or defeat, it must he driven into a propensity for war, by an influence, exceeding in power, that which was sufficient to drive feudal barons into war, for their own advantage, and the oppression of mankind.

These barons were in some measure cheeked by the fear of danger. Their lives were risked in battle, and their possessions lost by defeat. But bank or debt stock shed no blood in war. To them it is a sure game. Hazarding nothing, a chance for winning of their foes, and a certainty of winning of their friends, must inspire them with principles more inimical to friends and foes, than even those of the separate feudal interest.

This system exhibits a new mode of enslaving nations infinitely more powerful than any heretofore invented. It can conquer a nation, whilst that nation is in a career of victory. Marlborough's victories created more debt, and of course destroyed more liberty in England, than any previous war. It places governments beyond the influence or scrutiny of the people. Two governments may engage in war for the purpose of obtaining power and wealth, each from its own nation. The cause of quarrel, the battles, the sieges and the peace, might be all amicably arranged before the declaration of war; and a complete victory infallibly secured to both the governments, without the transfer of an acre of territory. 'i'he system of paper and patronage would be the key to such a war, as it is to the history of England for the last century. This evident propensity for war, arising from the strongest conceivable excitement, of itself suffices unquestionably to establish the enmity of paper systems to our policy, if our policy is friendly to liberty. To that, every species of