Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/326

316 which was never thrown into the scales, by those who made them; can it be thrown in by law, and leave the division of power between a nation and its government, unaltered?

In another view, the patronage created by banking^ spreads out in the United States, far beyond any influence capable of being produced, by creating offices of the value just mentioned. The general government may influence the whole fabrick, by means of a power to regulate the pieces of deposite of the general taxes, and by regulations as to the paper which may be received in payment, This influence may reach state legislatures as stockholders, and convert the best barrier devised by the principle of division, against usurpation and consolidation, into an insidious and secret instrument, for the ends it was intended to obstruct.

A slight interest is a bad mirror for reflecting justice, but a great one is a camera obscura inverting right and wrong. Through this medium, stockholding legislators will discover, that it is just to retain their annuities, by any compliances for which the people, not themselves, suffer; and a silent revolution, which will secure or increase these annuities, will appear to them to be necessary for the publick good,

Against this obvious danger, we are consoled by being told, that the separate banking interest, is not a tilled order; that if titles were added to its wealth, our constitutions, like the walls of Jericho, would be overset by the noise; but that unless the aristocracy shall discover its progress by its shouts, they are safe.

On the contrary, a separate interest is more dangerous, if it can create, sustain and enrich itself without being designated, than if it cannot: if it assails by mine and sap, than if it assails by the sound of drums. If Lords could create and enrich Lords by law. the government would soon become a feudal aristocracy. If bishops could create and enrich bishops by law, the government woulh presently become an hierarchical aristocracy. So if stockholders can