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Page 9
I know it must be extremely difficult to make foreigners understand
the nature and circumstances of our paper money, because there are
natives who do not understand it themselves. But with us its fate is
now determined. Common consent has consigned it to rest with that kind
of regard which the long service of inanimate things insensibly
obtains from mankind. Every stone in the bridge, that has carried us
over, seems to have a claim upon our esteem. But this was a
corner-stone, and its usefulness cannot be forgotten. There is
something in a grateful mind, which extends itself even to things that
can neither be benefited by regard, nor suffer by neglect: But so it
is; and almost every man is sensible of the effect.
But to return. The paper money, though issued from Congress under the
name of dollars, did not come from that body always at that value.
Those which were issued the first year, were equal to gold and silver.
The second year less; the third still less; and so on, for nearly the
space of five years; at the end of which, I imagine, that the whole
value at which Congress might pay away the several emissions, taking
them together, was about ten or twelve millions pounds sterling.
Now, as it would have taken ten or twelve millions sterling of taxes,
to carry on the war for five years, and, as while this money was
issuing and likewise depreciating down to nothing, there were none, or
very few valuable taxes paid; consequently the event to the public was
the same, whether they sunk ten or twelve millions of expended money,
by depreciation, or paid ten or twelve millions by taxation; for as
they did not do both, and chose to do one, the matter, in a general
view, was indifferent. And therefore, what the Abbe supposes to be a
debt, has now no existence; it having been paid, by every body
consenting to reduce it, at his own expence, from the value of the
bills continually passing among themselves, a sum, equal to nearly
what the expence of the war was for five years.
Again.--The paper money having now ceased, and the depreciation with
it, and gold and silver supplied its place, the war will now be
carried on by taxation, which will draw from the public a considerable
less sum than what the depreciation drew; but as, while they pay the
former, they do not suffer the latter, and as, when they suffered the
latter, they did not pay the former, the thing will be nearly equal,
with this moral advantage, that taxation occasions frugality and
thought, and depreciation produced dissipation and carelessness.
And again.--If a man's portion of taxes comes to less than what he
lost by the depreciation, it proves the alteration is in his favour.
If it comes to more, and he is justly assessed, it shews that he did
not sustain his proper share of depreciation, because the one was as
operatively his tax as the other.
It is true, that it never was intended, neither was it foreseen, that
the debt contained in the paper currency should sink itself in this
manner; but as by the voluntary conduct of all and of everyone it has
arrived at this fate, the debt is paid by those who owed it. Perhaps
nothing was ever so much the act of a country as this. Government had
no hand in it. Every man depreciated his own money by his own consent,
for such was the effect which the raising of the nominal value of
goods produced. But as by such reduction he sustained a loss equal to
what he must have paid to sink it by taxation; therefore the line of
justice is to consider his loss by the depreciation as his tax for
that time, and not to tax him when the war is over, to make that money
good in any other person's hands, which became nothing in his own.
Again.--The paper currency was issued for the express purpose of
carrying on the war. It has performed that service, without any other
material change to the public, while it lasted. But to suppose, as
some did, that at the end of the war, it was to grow into gold and
silver, or become equal thereto, was to suppose that we were to _get_
two hundred millions of dollars by _going to war_, instead of _paying_
the cost of carrying it on.
But if any thing in the situation of America, as to her currency or
her circumstances, yet remains not understood, then let it be
remembered, that this war is the public's war; the people's war; the
country's war. It is _their_ independence that is to be supported;
_their_ property that is to be secured; _their_ country that is to be
saved. Here, government, the army, and the people, are mutually and
reciprocally one. In other wars, kings may lose their thrones and
their dominions; but here, the loss must fall on the _majesty of the
multitude_, and the property they are contending to save. Every man
being sensible of this, he goes to the field, or pays his portion of
the charge as the sovereign of his own possessions; and when he is
conquered, a monarch falls.
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