Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/316

306 required a knowledge of the amount paid, from its own re- presentatives; now it pays an amount unknown, to corporations in which it is not represented. Then the publick received five or six per centum of individuals for paper currency; now it pays ten or twelve per centum to individuals for the same currency. That species of paper currency could not corrupt legislatures or nurture aristocracy; this must do both. That being dealt oat by the publick interest? and not by the interest of monopoly, circulated through a nation like coin, liable to no artificial fluctuation, and begat fair, useful and honest competition ; this being regulated by a separate interest, is made to cause prices to fluctuate with a view to personal and local emolument. That did not monopolize and expel specie; this commences with the first measure, and terminates with the second, so as to make itself indispensably necessary.

But it is said that the Pennsyivanian species of bank currency will fail in its credit. It is never to be forgotten, that credit is an ally of safety and factions, and not of peril and nations. That it is bold and flourishing in security, and fearful and withering in danger, A small degree of danger being about to assail the credit of the bank of England, the corporation influenced government to protect it against the payment of its debts to the nation; a protection, which would not withstand the shock of war, invasion, superior force and disaster, as long as did the currency of national credit in France and America.

National credit includes the credit of every individual; a part cannot be more solid than the whole; and if the whole is lost, the parts must also be lost, A calamity which threatens to overwhelm a nation, destroys confidence among individuals. Bank credit depends upon bonds given by individuals. Pennsylvanian credit was supported by the same pledge, and by the additional guarantees of landed security and national faith. A calamity, capable of destroying the bonds, mortgages and national faith, three sponsors for Pennsylvanian bank currency, will destroy the single spon-