FOR THE AURORA.

NONSENSE FROM NEW YORK.

from the Philadelphia Aurora, August 23, 1804.

The following absurd and extravagant publication entitled “Reflections,” is copied from Lang’s N. York Gazette, of July 27. I send it you, accompanied with some remarks.

“The loss of gen. Hamilton (says this writer) cannot be considered by those who knew his extraordinary worth in any other light than as a severe judgment upon the United States. This being the case (it happens not to be the case) it becomes every one seriously to reflect on the cause of the displeasure and the only method for its removal. (Now for it.)

“The primary source, says he, of all the evils appears to be the conduct of the citizens at the last presidential election. From that moment discontent, division and confusion began to take place; and unless a speedy remedy be applied more afflicting scenes may be expected. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr were elected, each having an equal number of votes. — (Burr was not voted for with the idea of his being president.) The public are now dreadfully convinced (this is another severe judgment) that the election of Mr. Burr was improper; and they have seen fall by his hand their first citizen and one of the most enlightened and honest statesmen in the world. — Language fails to express (that is, the writer has not wit enough to do it) the extent of his talents, and of the services which he has rendered.

“But the principal error was the election of Mr. Jefferson, and what the nation has the greatest reason to fear is his re-election, The objections to him are well known and need not be repeated. If in opposition to former warnings, and the calamities which have been felt, the electors will vote for him, then ruin will most probably ensue; embittered with consideration that the people have drawn it down upon themselves.

“It is understood that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Clinton are to be the candidates, at the next election. If there should be no other candidate the preference ought clearly to be given to Mr. Clinton for president, though a more suitable man than either might be found, yet of the two the election of the latter would avert those frowns of Heaven under which the country labours. Every serious and reflecting person should look forward with anxiety to the event.” (The writer signs himself INVESTIGATOR.

(He means Instigator or lnfestigator.)

Remarks on the foregoing publication.

The poor unfortunate feds of New York, appear to be drawn from folly to insanity, and the foregoing piece is a proof of it. — The meaning of the first paragraph, if the writer was capable of having any meaning, is that God to shew “a severe judgement” upon the United States had Alexander Hamilton shot in a duel!

He then goes on. “The primary source says he, of all this appears to be the conduct of the citizens at the last presidential election. From that moment (O terrible to tell!) discontent, division, and confusion began to take place,” (among the feds he must mean, for the republicans are contented and happy at the event of the last presidential election, and united for the next) and “unless, (says he) a speedy remedy is applied more afflicting scenes may be expected.” That is, all the feds will certainly shoot one another. This will be a severe judgment! upon the republicans, for they will have — to bury them!!!

But the principal error, (continues our unfortunate author, for he is quite beside himself) was the election of Mr. Jefferson, and what the nation has most to fear, is his re-election, (Yes, it will be the death of the feds!) The objections to Mr. Jefferson, continues he, are well known, and need not be repeated. Yes, we know what the objections are. He turned some of them out of office that were not fit for it, and broke up a gang of blood-suckers that were living by useless offices on the public, of which, most probably, our unhappy author was one.

“It is understood, continues he, that Mr. Jefferson and Clinton are to be the candidates at the next election. If there should be no other candidate the preference ought clearly be given to Mr. Clinton for president.” (This quackery monger might have the manners to let the electors make their own choice.) “Though, says he, a more suitable man than either might be found, (he means more suitable to his own purpose) yet, says he, of the two the election of the latter would avert those frowns of Heaven under which the country labours”!!!

Can this whining hypocrite suppose that this sort of cant will have any influence? — To pretend to write, and have nothing to say, is the worst of nonsense, because nonsense ingeniously done, may afford a momentary amusement; but there is something in this hypocritical cant that is tinctured with impious ingratitude. We have been favored with a fine season, with plentiful crops of grass, grain, and fruits, for man and beast; we are blessed with peace abroad and at home; we have acquired Louisiana by negociation, without bloodshed, and without the addition of any new tax; no symptoms of the yellow fever have appeared at New York, nor elsewhere in our country that is publicly known; — we have every cause to be thankful; yet this murmurer of discontent and in gratitude talks of the frowns of Heaven under which the country labours because the poor feds were defeated at the last presidential election, and because Alexander Hamilton, though a man of some private merit, has died, “as a fool dieth,” 2, Sam. chap. 3, v. 33.

Another writer of Rodomontade (one Mason) has made his appearance in a funeral oration on Hamilton; to let you know it is a catch-penny, the copy right is secured. No man who writes from principle, and wishes that principle to spread through the world, secures a copy right for small works. It is only in large and expensive undertakings, & to prevent other printers committing robbery, that this is prudent to be done.

“When Washington was taken (says our wild goose orator!) Hamilton was left — but Hamilton is taken and we have no Washington, we have not such another man to die.” This might be true if we had no better men than our orator. “Bereaved America! (cries he) Thou art languishing beneath the divine displeasure.” The orator has certainly got a crack in the brain; a touch of what they now call in England the King’s Evil, or he would not rave thus. — This short specimen of our orator’s work will serve to shew what this catch penny oration is, of which, to catch every penny, the copy right is secured. It is a mean and despicable trick. He might think himself well off if people would read his wild goose nonsense gratis.

Should no yellow fever afflict New York this summer, and we hear of none at present, the New York clergy, if they do as they did the year before last, will have to return thanks to heaven for its bounty to New York. Our revered orator will then have to unsay all that he now says. We shall then hear of nothing but the smiles of heaven.(1) Now we are told of its frowns and “divine displeasure.“

There is a marked inconsistency in every thing the feds undertake. Their praise of Hamilton is a satire on themselves — they extol his wisdom, now he is dead, and they despised his advice when he was living; for he strongly opposed putting Burr in nomination for the governorship of the state of New York, and the duel in which he fell, grew out of that circumstance. They are themselves the cause of the loss they deplore, and their manner of deploring it is an additional disgrace. “We have not” (says our orator) “such another man to die.” Then they have nobody left they can put up for President at the next election. This is a good reason for declaring off, and we give the orator credit for the truth of it, for it is the only truth his oration contains. It is however an ill bird that befouls its own nest.

COMUS.

Number VI. (Editor’s Note: Numbers (I-IV) can be found at Letters on the Bank. Number V at On the Affairs of The State.)

from the Pennsylvania Packet, November 7, 1786

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Paper Money, Paper Money, and Paper Money! is now, in several of the states, both the bubble and the inequity of the day. That there are some bad people concerned in schemes of this kind cannot be doubted, but the far greater part are misled. People are got so bewildered upon the subject that they put and mistake one thing for another. They say Paper Money has improved the country — Paper Money carried on the war, and Paper Money did a great many other fine things.

Not one syllable of this is truth; it is all error from beginning to end. It was CREDIT which did these things, and that credit has failed, by non-performance, and by the country being involved in debt and the levity and instability of government measures.

We have so far mistaken the matter that we have even mistaken the name. The name is not Paper Money, but Bills of Credit: But it seems as if we are ashamed to use the name, knowing how much we have abused the thing. All emissions of paper for government purposes is not making of money, but making use of credit to run into debt by. It is anticipating or forestalling the revenue of future years, and throwing the burden of redemption on future assemblies. It is like a man mortgaging his estate and leaving his successors to pay it off. But this is not the worst of it, it leaves us at last in the lurch by banishing the hard money, diminishing the value of the revenue, and filling up its place with paper, that may be like something to-day and to-morrow nothing.

So far as regards Pennsylvania, she cannot emit bills of credit, because the assembly which makes such an emission cannot bind future assemblies either to redeem them or receive them in taxes. The precedent of revoking the charter of the bank, established by a former assembly, is a precedent for any assembly to undo what another has done. It circumscribes the power of any assembly to the year in which it sits; that is, it cannot engage for the performance of any thing beyond that time. And as an assembly cannot issue bills of credit and redeem them within the year, and as it cannot by that precedent bind a future assembly so to do, it therefore cannot with the necessary security do it at all; because people will not put confidence in the paper promises or paper emissions of those who can neither perform the engagement within the time their own power exist nor compel the performance after that time is past. The politicians of the project for revoking the bank charter (and it was besides most wantonly done), to use a trite saying, aimed at the pidgeon and shot the crow — they fired at the bank and hit their own paper.

As to making those bills what are called legal tenders, we have no such thing in this state, which is one reason they have not depreciated more: But as it is a matter which engrosses the attention of some other states, I shall offer a few remarks on it.

The abuse of any power always operates to call the right of that power in question. To judge of the right or power of any assembly in America to make those bills a legal tender, we must have recourse to the principles on which civil government is founded; for if such an act is not compatible with those principles, the assembly which assumes such a power, assumes a power unknown in civil government, and commits treason against its principles.

The fundamental principles of civil government are security of our rights and persons as freemen, and security of property. A tender law, therefore, cannot stand on the principles of civil government, because it operates to take away a man’s share of civil and natural freedom, and to render property insecure.

If a man had a hundred silver dollars in his possession, as his own property, it would be a strange law that should oblige him to deliver them up to any one who could discover that he possessed them, and take a hundred paper dollars in exchange. Now the case, in effect, is exactly the same; if he has lent a hundred hard dollars to his friend, and is compelled to take a hundred paper ones for them. The exchange is against his consent, and to his injury, and the principles of civil government provides for the protection, and not for the violation of his rights and property. The state, therefore, that is under the operation of such an act, is not in a state of civil government, and consequently the people cannot be bound to obey a law which abets and encourages treason against the first principles on which civil government is founded.

The principles of civil government extend in their operation to compel the exact performance of engagements entered into between man and man. The only kind of legal tenders that can exist in a country under a civil government is the particular thing expressed and specified in those engagements or contracts. That particular thing constitutes the legal tender. If a man engages to sell and deliver a quantity of wheat, he is not to deliver rye, any more than he who contracts to pay in hard money is at liberty to pay in paper or in any thing else. Those contracts or bargains have expressed the legal tender on both sides, and no assumed or presumptuous authority of ant assembly can dissolve or alter them.

Another branch of this principle of civil government is, that it disowns the practice of retrospective laws. An assembly or legislature cannot punish a man by any new law made after the crime is committed; he can only be punished by the law which existed at the time he committed the crime. This principle of civil government extends to property as well as to life; for a law made after the time that any bargain or contract was entered into between individuals can no more become the law for deciding that contract, than, in the other case, it can become the law for punishing the crime; both of those cases must be referred to the laws existing at the time of the crime was done or the bargain made. Each party then knew the relative situation they stood in with each other, and on that law and on that knowledge they acted, and by no other can they be adjudged — Therefore all tender laws which apply to the alteration of past contracts, by making them dischargable on either side, different to what was the law at the time they were made, is of the same nature as that law which inflicts a punishment different to what was the law at the time the crime was committed: For in all cases of civil government the law must be before the act.

But there was no illegality in tender laws, they are naturally defective on another consideration. They cannot bind all and every interest in the state, because they cannot bind the state itself. They are, therefore, compulsive where they ought to be free; that is, between man and man, and are naturally free where, if at all, they ought to be compulsive: for in all cases where the state reserves to itself the right of freeing itself, it cannot bind the individual, because the right of the one stands on as good ground as that of the other.

Common Sense

*Philadelphia, Nov. 3, 1786.

NUMBER V. (Editor’s Note: Numbers (I-IV) can be found at Letters on the Bank. No VI Attack On Paper Money Laws.

ON THE AFFAIRS OF THE STATE.

from the Pennsylvania Packet, September 21, 1786

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At the commencement of the present constitution, it was strongly opposed, and as strongly contended for. This gave existence to two parties, which have since maintained nearly an equal contest, sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, prevailing at elections.

Among those who at that time opposed the alteration of the constitution, I bore my share, in a number of publications, entitled “A serious address to the people of Pennsylvania on the present state of their affairs.”

Whether a single legislative Assembly, or a legislature composed of two branches, is best suited to support the just principles of equal liberty, is a point I never touched upon in any of those publications. My aim was to quiet the dispute, and prevent it from entangling the country, at a time when the utmost harmony of its powers was necessary to its safety. The constitution was upon experiment, and the manner in which a single House would use such in abundance of power would best determine whether it ought to be trusted with it. — Besides this, the constitution very prudently held out, in the forty-seventh section, the probability of its own defects, by appointing the means (by a convention) at the period of every seven years, of adding new articles or amending defective ones. The words in the said section are: — “The Council of Censors shall also have power to call a convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appears to them an absolute necessity of amending any article of the constitution which may be defective, explaining such as may be thought not clearly expressed, and the adding such as are necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people.” Therefore, any alteration which experience or circumstances shall prove necessary or proper is consistent with the constitution itself.

But the causes or reasons which then operated for not altering the constitution, could not be conclusively taken as causes or reasons for confirming it. With many people, those reasons went no further than to give the constitution a fair trial, or, rather, to give a single legislature a sufficient opportunity to shew with what degree of wisdom and prudence, impartiality and moderation, it would act. With others, the attempt to alter appeared to be ill-timed. And there were many who held an opinion, that has always prevailed among the political part of mankind, which is, that the form of government best calculated for preserving liberty in time of peace, is not the best form for conducting the operations of war; and that as the government of a single house had a considerable resemblance to the government of a single person, the present form, on account of the quickness of its execution, was preferable during the war to the proposed alterations.

There is, however, one fact very clearly deduced from experience had, which is, that a single legislature, into the hands of whatever party it may fall, is capable of being made a compleat aristocracy for the time it exists: And that when the majority of a single house is made up on the ground of party prejudice, or fitted to be the dupes thereof, that its government, instead of comprehending the good of the whole dispassionately and impartially, will be that of party favor and oppression. To establish the present form as the best, it was absolutely necessary that the prejudices of party should have no operation within the walls of the legislature; for when it descends to this, a single legislature, on account of the superabundance of its power, and the uncontrouled rapidity of its execution, becomes as dangerous to the principles of liberty as that of a despotic monarchy. The present form was well intended, but the abuse of its power operates to its destruction. It withstood the opposition of its enemies, and will fall through the misconduct of its friends.

At the commencement of the revolution, it was supposed that what is called the executive part of a government was the only dangerous part; but we now see that quite as much mischief, if not more, may be done, and as much arbitrary conduct acted, by a legislature. In establishing the Executive Council, the constitution took care to prevent its being subject to inconsistent and contradictory conduct, and sudden convulsions. This is done by providing, that the periods their elections shall not all expire at once. By this means, says the nineteenth section of the constitution, “there will in every subsequent year be found in the council a number of persons acquainted with the proceedings of the foregoing years, whereby the business will be more consistently conducted, and, moreover, the danger of establishing an inconvenient aristocracy be effectually prevented.”

The council are as much the choice and representatives of the people as the assembly are, and have the, same common interest in the community; and if it is necessary to guard against such events in the council, it is equally so in the legislature; and this would undoubtedly have been the case, could the convention have foreseen the capricious and inconsistent conduct of assemblies.

By the whole legislative power being entrusted to a single body of men, and that body expiring all at once, the state is subject to the perpetual convulsions of imperfect measures and rash proceedings; as by this means it may happen (as it has happened already) that a number of men, suddenly collected, unexperienced in business, and unacquainted with the grounds, reasons and principles, which former assemblies proceeded on in passing certain acts, and without seeking to inform themselves thereof, may precipitate the state into disorder by a confused medley of doing and undoing, and make the grievances they pretend to remove.

Of this kind was the attack made by a late assembly on that most useful and beneficial institution, incorporated by a former assembly,* The Bank of North America*. The proceedings on this business are a stain to the national reputation of the state. They exhibit a train of little and envious thinking, a scene of passion of arbitrary principles and unconstitutional conduct; and the disgrace is filled up by assigning an untruth (which themselves have since acknowledged to) in the preamble to the act for annulling the charter of the Bank, as a cause for doing it. Such a disreputable circumstance in government could scarcely have happened, but from the cause I have already stated. For the Assembly which did it was newly formed, and elected on one of those sudden caprices which often happens in a free country, and there was not one man amongst them fully acquainted with the nature of the business they were going upon.

Public Banks are reckoned among the honors, privileges and advantages of a free people, and are never found among those under a despotic government. It is the confidence which people have in the measures and principles of government, and the strict observance of faith and honor on the part of government, which encourage people to put their money into circulation by means of a public Bank. A faithless or arbitrary government cannot be trusted, and therefore in free countries only are Banks established. In this state it has been the means of restoring that credit and confidence among individuals, which for many years was lost, and without which, agriculture, commerce, and every species of business, must decline and languish.

As gold and silver are not the natural products of Pennsylvania, we have no other hard money than what the produce of the country exported to foreign parts brings in. This being the case, the interest of the farmer and the merchant, the one being employed to raise the produce and the other to export it, are as naturally connected, as that of sowing the grain is connected with reaping the harvest; and any man must be held an enemy to the public prosperity, who endeavours to create a. difference, or dissolve the mutual interest existing between them. The Plough and the Sail are the Arms of the state of Pennsylvania, and their connection should be held in remembrance by all good citizens.

As blood, tho’ taken from the arm, is nevertheless taken from the whole body, so the attempt to destroy the Bank eventually operated to distress the farmer as well as the merchant; for if the one is prevented in the means of buying the produce of the country, the other, of consequence, is deprived of the opportunities of selling.

I shall conclude this paper with remarking, that so long as it shall be the choice of the people to continue the legislature in a single house, the circumstances of the country and the importance of the trust (being greater than that committed to any single body of men in any state in the union) evidently require, that the persons to be elected thereto be men freed from the bigotry and shackles of party, of liberal minds, and conversant in the means of increasing the riches of the state, and cultivating and extending the prosperity thereof.

Common Sense. Philad. Sept.15, 1786.

For the FREEMAN’S JOURNAL.

from the Freeman’s Journal, May 1, 1782

Tho’ I do not think it worth while altogether on my own account, to take notice of a piece in the last Freeman’s Journal, in which a very unwise and unkind allusion is made to a publication of mine in the later end of the year 1780, entitled PUBLIC GOOD, yet as that allusion is connected with a public measure, I shall for that reason, more than for myself, give it an answer.

The piece I refer to in the Freeman’s Journal is signed “Caractacus” and the writer introduces it with the following paragraphs, viz.

“The public may be imposed on, when the condition and intention of the author is concealed, but when this is discovered, we may easily see the influence of twelve thousand acres of land, in causing a man to use all his talents to defraud the United States of their landed property, and at the same time unjustly incense them against a sister state.

“Few knew that the design of publishing a pamphlet, intitled Public Good, was to wrest out of the hands of the United States, a tract of land called Indiana, and appropriate it to the use of a sett of men, who can scarcely be called friends to the United States, excepting a few characters: but the design was evident to some, before the bribe was uncautiously published. Through a prospect of receiving no opposition, the company committed a little blunder in being rather premature in the publication of their present.”

If Caractacus is really an honest man and sincerely means to support the right of the United States, to the vacant western territory, against all encroachments either from Virginia or else where, he will gladly make himself known to me, because I can and will assist him; but if he is privately interested in the encroachments which Virginia has made, and is only making use of the name of the United States as a cover, he will conceal himself from me.

It certainly can be nothing to Caractacus, or even to the public (only a matter of curiosity) how I came by the facts and materials which enabled me to write the pamphlet Public Good. It is sufficient to the public that I obtained them, and made use of them to prove their right to the western lands by, and that without putting them to any expence. But as I never do anything that I wish to conceal, I shall relate the whole transaction, and all the material circumstances belonging to it.

In the pamphlet Common Sense published in January 1776, I mentioned the vacant western lands, as a fund which at the end of the war would redeem the expences of it. And in the arguments used in Congress in favour of independence, those very lands were pointed out for the same purpose. But to the astonishment of every reasonable man the state of Virginia set up a wild unfounded claim to the best part, and opened an office for the sale of them. By which means she has exhausted and weakened herself, and done much injustice to all her sister states, without even performing her quota of duty.

But it was impossible for me to pursue the subject, from the want of materials and information. I was struck with the general magnitude of the wrong done to the states, but could not enter as an advocate on their behalf, because, as I have already stated, the papers and proofs necessary to proceed upon were not in my possession, neither did I know where to obtain them. Another difficulty I found, or rather felt, was, the disagreeableness of taking up a subject of controversy against any state in the union, and particularly against Virginia, whose character I had, on every former occasion accustomed myself to esteem, and with many of whose principal citizens I continued on terms of intimacy, and friendship. And this nicety carried me so far as to decline a proposal, from the executive council of Pennsylvania, or some of them, in the year 1779 to attend on the commission for settling the boundary line between this state and Virginia; because I would not interfere between two states. But the interest of the United States makes another question.

Some time in the summer 1779, major Trent and other gentlemen of the Indiana Company came to me and stated the exceeding injuries they were likely to sustain, and the distress which several families were exposed to by the unkind conduct of Virginia, in endeavouring to wrest from them a tract of land which had been ceded to them by the Indians as a compensation for injuries which they, or some of their tribe, had committed, and to obtain a ratification of which, the company had been put to very great expences. They asked me for my assistance in behalf of the sufferers, and offered me any compensation I would require. Private justice is undoubtedly due to all men, and where that fails, public justice can have but a slender foundation.

However I might be inclined to wish them redress, my answer was short and decisive, which was, that I never had nor ever would have any thing to do in private affairs. And here the conference ended.

In the latter end of the year 1780, col. George Morgan and other gentlemen came again to me and endeavoured to make me understand, that whatever might be the event of the company’s affairs, they were in possession of certain papers, which might be rendered exceedingly useful to the public, and proposed leaving them in my hands for perusal, which they did.

Here I got the very materials I had long wished for. The industry of the company, in prosecuting their own affairs, had collected together papers and documents in which the public, or in other words the United States, were exceedingly interested. I saw by those papers that the claim of Virginia to the western territory was ill founded either in right or reason, and that I could render a very essential service to the country by disentangling the matter from the obscurity in which it was then involved.

On a second interview I informed the gentlemen of my opinion respecting the papers they had left with me, and that I could make a very good use of them for the public interest; but that I would on no account mix the matter with any thing relative to the private affairs of the company, which as they were then before Congress would likewise be improper. They agreed to my proposition, and left them in my hands to do as I pleased with. From these papers and materials I compiled and finished the pamphlet PUBLIC GOOD, in which there is not a line or syllable respecting the company and every argument in it is in support of the public right of the United States. I was glad to get at the papers, and I made the same use of them as if there was no such body as the Indiana Company. But if the public have derived any service from the publication, and have acquired by it a better knowledge of their rights than they had before, they undoubtedly are under some obligation to the company for lending the materials, as well as to me for making use of them. And altho’ the pamphlet has been published above a year and a half, it has never yet been answered by the advocates for the Virginia claims. I know it cannot be answered with success. I have ever kept a clear head and an upright heart, and am not afraid of being replied to. I never took up a matter without fully believing it to be right, and never yet failed in proving it so. But in this case I am the friend of Virginia as well as of the United States; because it is evident from her present circumstances, that her claims and her conduct have tended to impoverish her.

That the pamphlet was of service to the company is certain; but this is a natural consequence. The encroachment of Virginia extended over the company’s lands as well as over those of the United States; and the company and the public standing thus in the same predicament with respect to Virginia, were reciprocally benefited by the endeavours of either to detect and eject her encroachments; and it was because the interest of the company was thus bound up with that of the United States, that made the acceptance of their present agreeable to me.

Caractacus says that “The design of publishing the pamphlet entitled PUBLIC GOOD was to wrest out of the hands of the United States a tract of land called Indiana.”

Let the pamphlet speak for itself. There are yet some remaining copies which may be had at Mr. Claypoole’s Printing office in Market street. The design of the pamphlet was to wrest, if I may copy the expression, the whole western territory from the unjust and enormous claims of Virginia. But Caractacus has I believe confessed more than he was aware of, for when he says that it was to wrest Indiana out of the hands of the United States, the declaration goes to prove that Indiana is within the dominion of the United States and not within that of Virginia. And consequently all the other western territory must be in the same situation. This is the very fact which the company are labouring to establish, and they certainly must be right, because their opposers cannot avoid occasionally declaring the same thing.

Thus much for the pamphlet. Now for the twelve thousand acres of land.

As soon as the pamphlet was published I returned the materials which the company had put into my hands, and they unanimously ordered a deed to be made out to me for what they call a voters share, which is, I suppose about the quantity mentioned. But so little effect or influence had this upon me, that I let off for France without ever applying for the deed, and returned again, without ever thinking about it, or taking the least notice of it, and it was not until the matter was mentioned to me again about three weeks or a month ago, that I gave myself any concern respecting it. And as to the paragraph in the newspapers which Caractacus refers to, of the company presenting me with a quantity of land, it was my own proposition that it should be made known, and I think it a reputation to the company that they have done that which those who were infinitely more obliged and indebted to me have neglected to do. From me the states have received the unremitted service of seven years, and to them I have not been the expence of a private soldier. I have done every thing of myself and from myself. The interest of the heart alone has carried me through a thousand things which others would have failed in or staggered at; and therefore the less Caractacus says up on this matter the less dishonor he will bring to light.

But as it ever was my disposition to acknowledge any return of kindness or friendship, from whatever quarter it came, I shall, in this place take the opportunity of mentioning a circumstance respecting the disposition of the present house of assembly of this state.

When the office of register of wills (a place worth six or seven hundred pounds a year) was likely to be vacant, and which has since happened, the speaker of the house, the hon F. A. Muhlenberg, informed me, that, from the knowledge he had of the house, the members had often expressed a wish of shewing me some instance of their respect and that if I thought the office of register would be convenient to me, he would present me with it, without any application on my part.

I expressed to the speaker my sense of his friendship and of the good intentions of the house, and at the same time signified to him, that the necessary attendance on an office, or being any way charged with the duties of one, would unavoidably ingross my attention and take me out of the only line of service in which I could be generally useful, and therefore declined giving him the trouble of mentioning me on the occasion. I at the same time acquainted him with the present the Indiana Company had made me.

Yet after this and several other instances I could mention, comes some unknown person sheltered under the machinery of a printer, and tells the public, that because the Indiana Company, of their own accord had presented me with a quantity of land, and which I desired might be made known, and which was made known to all the papers of this city, about a week before the deed was made out, that I had accepted a bribe; when if there is any one circumstance in my character which distinguishes itself from the rest, it is personal disinterestedness, and an anxiety to serve a public cause in preference to myself. I never sought place, office, nor reward, since I have been in America; nor ever suffered resentment or disgust, nor the ins and outs of parties to warp me from the line of public good. And I have the pleasure of seeing, by the experience of every day, that the consistency of my character and the disinterestedness of my conduct have made almost every man my friend.

As to Caractacus I ought to be obliged to him for forcing me into the opportunity of saying what otherwise would not have been known, and I am persuaded that a thousand such little and unjustifiable insinuations will answer no other purpose than to procure me as many new friends. I have stood through too many tryals to be affected now either in fame or feeling by anonymous hints and insignificant falshoods; perfectly satisfied that the public are satisfied with me, and that among other things for the pamphlet in question, I shall take my farewel of Caractacus, and leave him to pursue at pleasure or at random whatever he likes best, for I have something of more consequence to attend to than minding either him or his squibs. I would not give a farthing to know who he is, nor care whether he writes or holds his tongue. And I farther assure him, that so far as justice goes, I shall endeavor to assist the company in any thing which I conceive to be right, and no farther. For it would be very extraordinary, that I should serve a whole country seven years for nothing, and refuse it to those who have served me.

COMMON SENSE.

TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA.

from the Pennsylvania Packet, April 4, 1782

CASTING my eye over a former publication (the Crisis, no. 9) on the loss of Charlestown, I was tempted to introduce this address by a quotation from the first paragraph of that number, as appeared to me exceedingly applicable to the present circumstance of the country.

“Had America pursued her advantages with half the spirit she resisted her misfortunes, she would before now have been a conquering and a peaceful people; but lulled in the lap of soft tranquility, she rested on her hopes, and adversity only could convulse her into action.”

This hath been the character of America in every part, and in every state and stage of the contest. Warmed by a love of liberty, and provoked by a sense of injuries, she encountered danger without fear, and misfortune without despondency: But no sooner was the point accomplished, then she returned with folded arms to rest, and seemed to wait with patience for new disasters. — Yet there is one reflection to be drawn from this character and conduct that is worth attending to, which is, that it is the sign and the natural effect of right principles, but not of right policy. Misfortune ever separates man in a bad cause, and unites them in a good one. The former are industrious only while they are prosperous, the latter while they are distressed. The one acts from impulse, the other from contrivance; and the whole mode and progress of their conduct, and their times of rest and action, are the reverse of each other.

But, as we have learned knowledge from misfortune, let us likewise learn from mistakes; and wisely add for once, if we never do it again, the ardour of adversary to the strength of victory. Let us combine the glowing powers of resolute resistance to the tranquil advantages which conquest bestows; and render the present year as superior in system, as the latter was splendid in success.

The progress and revolution of our domestic circumstances are as extraordinary as the revolution itself. We began with paper, and we end, with gold and silver. We sat out with parties, and we are approaching to unity. The strength, the property, and even the fashion of the country, are confederated in her support. Like robust and healthy youth, she hath shook off the agues of the winter, and steps forward with constitutional bloom and vigour. By suffering distresses, she has learned both to bear and to prevent them; and the experience of every day whether drawn from good fortune or from bad, whether from wisdom or mistake, have added something to her cause, and much to her judgment.

From this general state of circumstances I shall proceed to more particular matters.

In my last publication I stated the yearly expense of the war, namely, eight millions of dollars; the nature of the union by which the States are bound together; and the propriety of keeping the taxes for the defence of the country separate from the expences of government; the right of the people to be regularly informed of the monies received and expended; and the duty of the country to provide its several quotas. — Government and the people do not in America constitute distinct bodies. They are one, and their interest the same. Members of Congress, members of Assembly, or Council, or by any other name they may be called, are only a selected part of the people. They are the representatives of Majesty, but not majesty itself. That dignity exists inherently in the universal multitude, and, though it may be delegated, cannot be alienated. Their estates and property are subject to the same taxation with those they represent, and there’s nothing they can do, that will not equally affect themselves as well as others. If they call for supplies, they call on themselves in common with the country. The situation enables them to know the more secret circumstances of things, and that such or such revenues are necessary for the security and defense of their constituents, and the accomplishment of the great object for which they are chosen. And here the distinction ends.

The furnishing ourselves with right ideas, and accustoming ourselves to right habits of thinking, have a powerful effect in strengthening and cementing the mind of the country and freeing it from the danger of partial or mistaken notions. It is not all the ardour which the love of liberty can inspire, nor the utmost fortitude which the most heroic virtue can create, that will of themselves make us successful conquerors. We must come down to order, system and method, and go through the cool and judicious, as well as the animating and elevated parts of patriotism. Method is to natural power, what flight is to human strength, without which a giant would lose his labour, and a country waste its force.

At the commencement of the war much political wisdom was not absolutely necessary. The high spirit of the country in a great measure supplied its place, and the printing-presses furnished the means. They became our Peru and Mexico, and as we wanted we drew them forth. Any body of men might at that time have carried on the war, who had resolution enough to proceed; because the difficulties of finance were then unknown, and the money came created to their hands. But those times are changed, and there is now a call on the wisdom and judgment, as well as on the firmness and patriotism of the country. Our situation is such, that the mort is understood the better it will appear; and with the means at our power, we want nothing but the united disposition to employ them.

When America resolves on Independence, and determined to be free, she naturally included within that resolution all the means, whether of manner money, necessary to effect it. She had laid herself out for greater sufferings, and the more expence and loss, that she has hitherto experienced, except in Carolina and Georgia. The idea of getting rich had not in those days in existence. While she expected was to live, and all she hope for was to be free. She had resolved to abandon her habitations, to desert her towns, and to form new settlements in the wilderness, rather than submit. There was no condition to which her imagination could extend, that was not preferable to the oppressions that threatened her; and the experience of several years has shewn her opinion just, and proved her resolution firm.

Yet while the war was carried on by the massive general opposition, the business of the country got deranged. Agriculture, trade and commerce became neglected, and something like poverty began to appear. Yet the resolution suffered no abatement, and their losses serve to provoke them the higher. But experience has shewn that the way to enrich a country, and render it systematically formidable, is to give every possible rest to the inhabitants, that they may follow their various occupations undisturbed. A man who is harassed about, either by the inroads of the enemy, or by marching to oppose them, soon suffers more by loss of time and the collect of his affairs, somewhat a portion of taxes sufficient for his defence would amount to. And therefore it is to the good of the whole, as well as to the interest of the individual, that everyone, who can, sets himself down to his business, and contributes his quota of taxes is one of the first duties he owes to his family, to himself, and to his country. Every amusement ought to be dispensed with, every indulgence curtailed, and every possible economy practiced, both public and private, until a revenue sufficient for the protection and good of the country is obtained, and the debt to public justice satisfied.

I have no idea that kind of policy which ends in expence, disappointment and disgrace; and those have ever been and ever will be the consequence of deficient and unequal revenues. America has resolved to defend yourself, and support her independence at all hazards and events. Every man’s portion of that charge becomes his debt of honor, interest and happiness; and see anyone indulging himself at home while that portion is unpaid, and the soldier who defends him suffering in the field, is the highest dishonour man can undergo.

It is pity but some other word beside taxation had been devised for so noble an extraordinary occasion, as the protection of liberty in the establishment of an independant world. We have given to a popular subject and on popular name, and injured the service by a wrong assemblage of ideas. A man would be ashamed to be told that he signed a petition, praying that he might pay less than his share of the public expence, or that those who had trusted the public might never receive their money; yet he does the same thing when he petitions against taxation, and the only differences, that by taking shelter under the name, he seems to conceal the meanness he would otherwise blush at. Is it popular to pay our debts, to do justice, to defendant injured and insulted country, to protect the aged and the infant, and to give to liberty a land to live in? then must taxation, as the means by which those things are to be done, the popular likewise.

But to take a more local view of matters. Why has the backcountry been ravaged by the repeated incursions of the enemy and the Indians, but from the inability of the revenue to provide means for their protection? And yet the inhabitants of those countries were among the first to petition against taxation. In so doing, they eventually prayed for their own distraction, and, unhappily for them, their prayer was answered. Their quota of taxes would have been trifling, compared with their losses, and, what is still worse, their domestic sorrows. Alas! how unwisely, how unfeelingly, does a man argue, when he puts the safety of his family in competition with his tax.

There is so much of the honour, interest and independence of America staked upon taxation, that the subject must to every reflective mind make a strong impression. As we are now circumstanced, it is the criterion of public spirit; the touchstone over good affections; and he who pays it the instant it is called for, does more for his country’s good than the loudest talker in America. In vain are all our huzzas for liberty, without accompanying them with solid support. They will neither fill the soldier’s belly, nor cloathe his back, they will neither pay the public creditors, nor purchase our supplies. They are well enough in their places, and though they are the effusions of our hearts, they are no part of our substance.

The assembly of this State, Pennsylvania, have unanimously gone through the bill for raising the sum of 1,120,000 Dollars, being there quota for the year: And as an example worthy both of notice and imitation, the oppressed and distressed State of South Carolina, notwithstanding the severity of its fate, has already done the same. Those persons know, by woeful experience, the value of defence, and that the inconvenience of struggling with attacks for the protection of the country is not to be named, in competition with the losses they have borne, and the sorrows and sufferings they have undergone.

However inconvenient tax may be, we know it can last but for time. Our expences will cease with the war, and our taxation in consequence. But while the war continues, and so great a part of every thing that is dear and valuable tool country depends upon her revenue, I shall consider entry taxation is a popular good. When the war shall be over, the case will be totally altered, and my language, if I then speak at all, will be entirely different. Besides, America is a new character in the universe. She started with a clause divinely right, it struck at an object vast and valuable. A reputation for political integrity, perseverance, fortitude, and all the manly excellencies, stand high in the world, and it would be a thousand pities that, with those happy introductions into life, she suffered the lease spot or blot to fall upon her moral fame. Never let it be said, that the country who could do what America has done, defrauded the widow and the orphan of the property, and the soldier of his pay.

The tax would be attended with some inconvenience; but what is inconvenience, when compared with the stress and the rolling and plunderings of an enemy. How many things a far greater inconvenience has America already undergone, nay, even flourished in the midst of, which she once thought impossible to be borne. I hold taxation, which is to be applied to her own defence in her own good, one of the lightest of her difficulties, when considered with those which were occasioned by the want of it. We have several times been on the crisis of destruction by the insufficiency of our public revenues, in the heart of America would have ached with concern and sorrow, could she had all times have known what her exact situation has been. It is now the only point we have to attend to, nay it is the only one that is worth attending to; for let us accomplish this, and the rest will follow; and a consolation which every man’s mind will feel, knowing that the public Treasury is furnished with inability of providing for the defence of the country will amply recompense the difficulties he may go through, and the endeavours he may take, in paying in his allotted share. We shall be freed from the just murmurs of the suffering soldier; our eyes and ears we no longer shocked with details of slighted faith and suspected credit; in the face are public, and of consequence of our private affairs, will wear a new and satisfied countenance. The idea, that the country cannot bear it, is a reproach upon her honour and firmness. She has borne ten times as much. Her fortitude and her principles have been tried in a thousand instances of severer fortune; and it is a paradox not to be explained, in which ought to be exploded, that the people whom no force or misfortune could conquer, no temptation seduce, should, at the summit of success, trepan themselves into destruction by ignoble and impolitical covetousness.

Let us be, in every respect, such a nation as we ought to be, and show to the enemy that is no more in her power to conquer us by system than by arms. The press of America, with economy, is longer than that of Britain, managed as it is by corruption and extravagance. The people of America are not a poor people, why should they appear so. We heard our credit, our honour, our reputation in the world, by proclaiming ourselves what we are not, and give encouragement to the enemy to prolong the war, by holding out an idea of our want of money to carry it on. It is easy to see by the complexion of the New-York papers, that the present spirited exertions of the country to keep her public treasury supplied have wanted the last hopes of the enemy. It is a blow they never expected America to give, and their astonishment is as great as their despair.

It is a remark, worth making, that the people here always been a step forwarder than their representatives. There never was a backwardness in the country to do its part, when the part to be done became known and understood. National money matters are naturally attended with the degree of intricacy, which renders them not so easily comprehended as those which are more simple and obvious. Those of America have, from the fluctuating state of the former currency, been involved in new and original difficulties, and it required much judicious management to bring them right, and a vigorous exertion in the country afterwards to keep them so.

The present condition of our money matters, as concisely as they can be stated, is as follows:

There is a large sum due to persons who have lent their money to the Loan-Office, and to those who have otherwise trusted the public. Those debts are to be ascertained and proved, and the money arising from the impost duty of five per cent. on all imported goods is to be applied as a fun for the payment of the interest and principal, until the whole of them shall be discharged. This is a provision made for our debts already contracted, and when once the interest on them shall be regularly drawn, and the principal put into a train for payment, they will become as valuable as bond debts.

The sum of eight millions of dollars, which is apportioned out to be raised by United States, is for the maintenance and other expenses of the Army, and to defray the government charges of the continent. If this song is compared with the immense expence was great is that, the difference will appear exceedingly striking. She is obliged to raise upwards of ninety millions of dollars in taxes and loans every year, to do what we can accomplish, with ready money and frugality, for eight millions. So great is the contrast between a country sunk in corruption and extravagance, and one whose object is founded in just principles, and her plans regulated by good management.

But the difference may be carried still further. When the war shall cease with us, our taxes for that purpose will cease with it. We know they cannot now last for any long time; whereas the taxes in Britain being late on only the purpose of paying the interest, and never the principle of her debts, must continue forever.

The publishing the sums of money received from each State, and extended on their United account, will be attended with several good effects. It will give satisfaction, which is a necessary object in national concerns. It will create emulation, and detect delinquency. The opener and fair public business is transacted, the better it succeeds. Where no fraud is intended, there can be no occasion for concealment, and it is not only necessary that measures should be just, but that every body should know them to be so.

A few days will now carry us to the period of seven years war, and so extraordinary is the case, that instead of the country becoming poorer and exhausted, she is grown rich and plentiful. There has been a singular fate attended all are once, for whenever we imagined we should be ruined, by not having something which could not be done without, it arrived, is if of itself, just time enough to prevent the mischief. The last remarkable instance was in the influx of hard money, almost at the very moment when the paper currency failed, by which the circumstances of public and private business are so materially improved, that matters cannot go wrong, if we set hardly about what is right.

Common Sense.