Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/328

318 England, on account of the misery with which they are loaded by the mother of this identical whelp. Our mistake in estimating titled nobility and paper stock, is exactly that of the mouse, terrified with the cock and charmed with the cat. Representation ceases to be an effect of election, whenever a representative can draw wealth from his own laws, by means either of office, sinecure or monopoly. His income under the law, being greater than his expense, his interest is adverse to the interest of the people, who pay ihe tux or income which he receives. A power to take from a nation and give to itself, is a strict definition of civilized tyranny. A legislator cannot be guided by the interest, both of the minority and majority; of the exclusive and general interest; of the receiver and payer of the tax. He will be guided by the interest to which he belongs; if he is a receiver of the tax, he will tax.

Established banks exclaim that others would be pernicious; just as one established or chartered religion exclaims against chartering another; or as patricians disapproved of ennobling plebeians. But though the established bank contends that others would be pernicious, an application for a new bank, as loudly insists that the old one is a hateful monopoly, which a new one will destroy. Destroy in the same manner, as a noble order of fifty members would be destroyed, by creating fifty more, and as the oppression resulting from one titled sect, would be destroyed by titling another.

This falling out is managed with mutual embarrassment; the parties are obliged to conceal the true cause of quarrel, and to put it upon the ground of partialities to individuals in loans of bank currency. As if the new bank was not as capable of partiality as the old. The evil of bestowing on the quality, partiality, the distribution of national currency, is proposed to be remedied, by extending the power of partiality. Not this partiality, but the dividends or tax., is the real object of dispute. The old bank