Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/388

378 law, to general or exclusive interest, as the result shall indicate which of the two is the purest legislator.

Genuine publick credit is enthroned, not upon gold gathered by law into a bank, but upon property distributed by industry. It is greatest, where national debt is least. It flows from national wealth and prosperity, not from the wealth of corporations enriched by exclusive privileges. It creates gold by industry, not by magick; and saves it by valour, not by hiding; it is a healthy moral being, because it is formed of good moral principles; and bold, because it is honest. It flourishes under a commonwealth, and dies under a monarchy. Hostile principles cannot live in union and friendship. National credit and corporation credit must consort each with its like. They are respectively killed and revived by monarchy and a commonwealth. because a government founded on the principle of minority accords with one, and that founded on the principle of majority, with the other. Corporation credit, artificially created by law and orders, unite and cohere, from an identity of origin and. nature. National credit, arising from fair industry and national wealth, can only unite with a free and equal government.

All partial interests, capable of procuring or sustaining a law, belong to the family of this virgin described by Mr. Addison. Of the two sisters of this family which have appeared in the United States, funding and banking, one only is now heaping up gold by magick, and figuring in legislatures. She is adored as a beauty, and the other execrated as a hag; although the family likeness is so strong, that they pass for twins. As the fate of the general interest, depends upon this amour between the government and the twin sister of Mr. Addison's virgin, the consequences of endowing her with the privilege of passing consecrated laws or law charters, as her English sister has been endowed, are referred to the reader's consideration. Liberty was nearly smothered in the embraces between our government and Mr. Addison's virgin the amour going or with her sister will hardly re-