Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/330

320 government is destroyed, by a power in the government to increase its share, by its own laws; as is that also between the general and state governments, if either distributee can increase its quota of power by law. By banks, governments may create factions, which will adhere to them against the people, or to one section oi' our policy, against another. With these instruments, the general or state governments might disorder the distribution of power between themselves and the people, and between each other. To both, enlistments by lucrative charters will furnish mercenary troops, and mercenary troops, wielding either stock or swords were never considered as good guardians of liberty. Charters and banks will become the chief objects of state legislation, and if twenty legislatures can outstrip one in this manufacture, the general government may lose its power, and the calamities of a dissolved union will, follow. These will ravage the states,until they ripen the publick mind for the introduction of a steady tyranny by some military adventurer; and the catastrophe of the drama will be the effect of exchanging our system of genuine representation, cautious division, and effectual responsibility, for the monopoly and corruption of a system of backing, charters and paper.

There is utility in these baleful auguries. They may induce the nation to examine omens, and enable it to defeat fulfilment. They deserve in this view, all the indulgence of honest intention.

States may see an advantage in excluding the currency of banks created by Congress. Large states may exclude that of small. Exclusions of this kind will enhance the value of state stock. This will be just, because no equality in the profit made by bank paper, can exist between states of an unequal size, with an equal and unlimited right to send out this tax-gatherer. The collections under the laws of each state, ought at least to correspond with the domestick fields for circulation. The same reason which induces a large state to emit rival paper, may induce it to expel rivalry from its own dominion. It would be evidently unjust