Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/406

396 in honey, would be too pleasant for ignoraftce to resist. Congress would see and use the influence thence arising, and the state governments would be such checks upon the general government, as those receiving salaries at his will, are upon a king. A charter of the general government would give money to the state governments, to gain a power inconsistent with the charters by which both were created. The political consequences of a proposal to subject the state governments to a pecuniary dependence upon the government of England, would be at once perceived. Ip there more danger that they will merge into the English government, than into the general government? Would political or constitutional changes grow out of the remote cause, and none out of the near one? Let us suppose that the general government should be made dependent for revenue upon bank stock under state law charters, and the people to be thereby trained into the habit of paying nothing towards its support. Would it have an influence upon our constitutional policy and endanger that government? If such would be the effect of placing the general government under a pecuniary dependence upon state charters, the effect of the converse of the proposition is certain.

If a foreign government should acquire such a pecuniary influence over the state governments, the considerations, that no political or pecuniary connexion existed between it and our people, and that it did not procure money for the state governments at their expense, by spreading a corrupted faction among them; would present a feeble resistance to its destructive effects upon our policy; but no considerations equally consolatory occur in the case of a similar influence, possessed by the general government. The state governments being bribed to favour the minority nation created by the general government, a triple combination necessarily becomes the real government, and representation would be used as its instrument, just as it is used in England. Corruption would settle down from the head to the foot of the nation.