Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/405

Rh invested by government with a power of waging war, against the lives of the associates under the old compact; would it not have violated the rights never surrendered by the people to the government? Do charters to a few, for waging war against the lives or against the property of the rest, differ in principle? Do not both equally violate the rights never surrendered by the people of the United States in forming governments? Where is the difference between taking away the arms or the wealth of the great nation, and giving them to the little nation? Is it not obvious, that a new association, by which either is affected, however called, overturns the old association? From that moment, no association but the new exists; because its operation makes the old association inoperative. The government which contrives, will adhere to the new compact, against the old, contrived by the nation. Those without the new society, to which the government has deserted, belong to no society; and those within it, belong not to the old society formed by the constitution, but to the new one, into w hi«h they are formed by law.

To illustrate the ease with which the principles of the society, established by the people, may be destroyed by a banking fabrick, reared by law, let us suppose Congress to create a bank, in which the state governments should receive allotments of stock, equal or superior to the state expenses. As it would be easy, by such an institution, to suppress all other banks, the capacity of this engine to produce an income adequate to the end, is unquestionable. Would it not commute the constitutional policy established by the people, for a new policy growing out of such a law? All the old checks and divisions of power would be overthrown. The pecuniary dependence of the state governments upon the people, would cease. The independence in their allotted spheres of the state, on the general government, would also cease. The state governments would become wholly dependent on Congress for money, by the disuse of the people to their taxes, which like poison administered