Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2). Benton Thomas Hart
them to be twenty millions. But of these twenty millions, we do not know how much should be reimbursed to one State or how much to another. No matter; we will guess. And so another scramble was set on foot among the several States, and some got much, some little, some nothing. **** This measure produced the most bitter and angry contests ever known in Congress, before or since the union of the States. **** The great and trying question, however, was lost in the House of Representatives. So high were the feuds excited by this subject, that on its rejection business was suspended. Congress met and adjourned, from day to day, without doing any thing, the parties being too much out of temper to do business together. The Eastern members particularly, who, with Smith from South Carolina, were the principal gamblers in these scenes, threatened a secession and dissolution. **** But it was finally agreed that whatever importance had been attached to the rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union, and of concord among the States, was more important; and that, therefore, it would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded; to effect which, some members should change their votes. But it was observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them. There had before been propositions to fix the seat of government either at Philadelphia, or at Georgetown, on the Potomac; and it was thought that, by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure alone. So two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their votes, and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point; and so the assumption was passed, and twenty millions of stock divided among the favored States, and thrown in as a pabulum to the stock-jobbing herd. * * * Still the machine was not complete; the effect of the funding system and of the assumption would be temporary; it would be lost with the loss of the individual members whom it had enriched; and some engine of influence more permanent must be contrived while these myrmidons were yet in place to carry it through. This engine was the Bank of the United States."
What a picture is here presented! Debts assumed in the mass, without knowing what they were in the gross, or what in detail – Congress in a state of disorganization, and all business suspended for many days – secession and disunion openly menaced – compromise of interests – intrigue – buying and selling of votes – conjunction of parties to pass two measures together, neither of which could be passed separately – speculators infesting the halls of legislation, and openly struggling for their spoil – the funding system a second time sanctioned and fastened upon the country – jobbers and gamblers in stocks enriched – twenty millions of additional national debt created – and the establishment of a national bank insured. Such were the evils attending a small assumption of twenty millions of dollars, and that in a case where there was no constitutional impediment to be evaded or surmounted. For in that case the debts assumed had been incurred for the general good – for the general defence during the revolution: in this case they have been incurred for the local benefit of particular States. Half the States have incurred none; and are they to be taxed to pay the debts of the rest?
These stocks are now greatly depreciated. Many of the present holders bought them upon speculation, to take the chance of the rise. A diversion of the national domain to their payment would immediately raise them far above par – would be a present of fifty or sixty cents on the dollar, and of fifty or sixty millions in the gross – to the foreign holders, and, virtually, a present of so much public land to them. It is in vain for the bill to say that the proceeds of the lands are to be divided among the States. The indebted States will deliver their portion to their creditors; they will send it to Europe, they will be nothing but the receivers-general and the sub-treasurers of the bankers and stockjobbers of London, Paris, and of Amsterdam. The proceeds of the sales of the lands will go to them. The hard money, wrung from the hard hand of the western cultivator, will go to these foreigners; and the whole influence of these foreigners will be immediately directed to the enhancement of the price of our public lands, and to the prevention of the passage of all the laws which go to graduate their price, or to grant pre-emptive rights to the settlers.
What more unwise and more unjust than to contract debts on long time, as some of the States have done, thereby invading the rights and mortgaging the resources of posterity, and loading unborn generations with debts not their own? What more unwise than all this, which several of the States have done, and which the effort now is to make all do? Besides the ultimate burden in the shape of final payment, which is intended to fall upon posterity, the present burden is incessant in the shape of annual interest, and falling upon each generation, equals the principal in every periodical return of ten or a dozen years. Few have calculated the devouring effect of annual interest on public debts, and considered how soon it exceeds the principal. Who supposes that we have paid near three hundred millions of interest on our late national debt, the principal of which never rose higher than one hundred and twenty-seven millions, and remained but a year or two at that? Who supposes this? Yet it is a fact that we have paid four hundred and thirty-one millions for principal and interest of that debt; so that near three hundred millions, or near double the maximum amount of the debt itself, must have been paid in interest alone; and this at a moderate interest varying from three to six per cent. and payable at home. The British national debt owes its existence entirely to this policy. It was but a trifle in the beginning of the last century, and might have been easily paid during the reigns of the first and second George; but the policy was to fund it, that is to say, to pay the interest annually, and send down the principal to posterity; and the fruit of that policy is now seen in a debt of four thousand five hundred millions of dollars, two hundred and fifty millions of annual taxes, with some millions of people without bread; while an army, a navy, and a police, sufficient to fight all Europe, is kept under pay, to hold in check and subordination the oppressed and plundered ranks of their own population. And this is the example which the transferrers of the State debt would have us to imitate, and this the end to which they would bring us!
I do not dilate upon the evils of a foreign influence. They are written upon the historical page of every free government, from the most ancient to the most modern: they are among those most deeply dreaded, and most sedulously guarded against by the founders of the American Union. The constitution itself contains a special canon directed against them. To prevent the possibility of this foreign influence, every species of foreign connection, dependence, or employment, is constitutionally forbid to the whole list of our public functionaries. The inhibition is express and fundamental, that "no person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State." All this was to prevent any foreign potentate from acquiring partisans or influence in our government – to prevent our own citizens from being seduced into the interests of foreign powers. Yet, to what purpose all these constitutional provisions against petty sovereignties, if we are to invite the moneyed power which is able to subsidize kings, princes, and potentates – if we are to invite this new and master power into the bosom of our councils, give it an interest in controlling public opinion, in directing federal and State legislation, and in filling our cities and seats of government with its insinuating agents, and its munificent and lavish representatives? To what purpose all this wise precaution against the possibility of influence from the most inconsiderable German or Italian prince, if we are to invite the combined bankers of England, France, and Holland, to take a position in our legislative halls, and by a simple enactment of a few words, to convert their hundreds of millions into a thousand millions, and to take a lease of the labor and property of our citizens for generations to come? The largest moneyed operation which we ever had with any foreign power, was that of the purchase of Louisiana from the Great Emperor. That was an affair of fifteen millions. It was insignificant and contemptible, compared to the hundreds of millions for which these bankers are now upon us. And are we, while guarded by the constitution against influence from an emperor and fifteen millions, to throw ourselves open to the machinations of bankers, with their hundreds of millions?
CHAPTER XLV.
DEATH OF GENERAL SAMUEL SMITH, OF MARYLAND; AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER
He was eighteen years a senator, and nearly as long a member of the House – near forty years in Congress: which speaks the