Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/392

382 the rich agrarian law-makers have most unskilfully suffered the money thus drawn to pass into the pockets of fallacious wealth. It is nearly true, that the rich class in England pay some and receive all; and that the rich class in the United States pay all and receive some. The first, fleece labour and industry for themselves; the other, fleece themselves for paper craft. Had the landed interest of the United States, laid out the nine millions a year, which it gives to bankers and certificate buyers, in a church, an army and a navy, it would have made a provision for its younger sons, like the rich classes of other countries, according to the wisdom of this world; all other rich classes combine their own interest and prosperity with high taxes; but to combine its own decay and ruin with taxation, by paying to paper stock nine millions a year, of which it receives but a trivial proportion, is a species of acuteness in the landed interest of the United States, according to the wisdom of no world that I know of.

It is true, that if the landed interest, in creating this annuity, had kept it for itself, corruption, oppression and party spirit would have been the consequence; such being the unavoidable effect of giving away by law, a sum of money annually, eighteen times more valuable than the Yazoo speculation; but as the landed interest pays the chief part of this annuity, it had the best right to receive it; and its sons, crowned with mitres or with laurel, might have cultivated virtues which adorn or benefit society. In how many revolutions of Mercury, would stock beget subjects for a Plutarch?

Had the nine millions been laid out in official patronage, instead of stock patronage, the amount paid by the nation might have terminated there. But banking, besides its dividends, possesses a power of causing the quantity, and of course the value of currency to fluctuate, by which it may impoverish and enrich, or tax and patronise, to a vast amount beyond its dividends; of this the nation can get no account. It is a power equivalent to incessant adulterations and