Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/329

Rh knows that its paper is a tax, subject, like other taxes, to the limitation of national ability, and it wishes to exhaust this ability itself; but the proposed bank wishes to come in for a share of it; yet neither, even when under the obligation of legislative responsibility, is ever heard to make to the people these honest confessions.

This true ground of quarrel between established and proposed banks, confesses the correctness of the opinion, which supposes that funded stock and bank stock, are both national debt ; and that interest and dividends are both paid by taxing the nation. By new stock, the evil in both cases is cured in the same way. So long as national ability to pay interest or dividends suffices to meet the new stock, it is an additional tax upon that ability; whenever either species of stock exceed this ability, either will depreciate. Both, therefore, equally imply a debtor and creditor. But in a legislature made up of old stockholders, and intended stockholders, such an idea of the subject will be suppressed, and a compromise effected between the parties upon selfish grounds, not upon principles of national interest.

It is easy to comprehend the possibility of a form of government, capable of being correctly denominated, an elective aristocracy; and to predict, without much foresight, that the decay of the principles of our policy, will commence with that form. It is produced by whatever will defeat an honest and faithful sympathy between a nation and its representatives. Such a case is illustrated by the house of commons of England. That house gains a power by its paper system, which is able to proclaim its corruption, and to defy reform. Such a case is the natural offspring of an union between an elective legislature and a separate interest. Can a stronger cement for this union than banking be discovered? It gratifies the avarice and ambition of the confederates, without expelling from the senate house, disclosing acquisitions, or attracting punishment.

The division of powers is all essential quality of our policy and constitutions. That between the people and the