effect and tendency of any public debt whatever is to increase and not to diminish. The history of every state in the Union that has resorted to loans proves this. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other states, their public debt has increased far beyond the expectations of those who originated them. It is questionable whether more misfortune and misery has not been entailed upon the world at large by the borrowing of money and pledging the taxes for the payment of interest than there has been good produced by the invention of money itself. This system was first introduced into England by King William, and enabled him to raise money for his ambitious prospects to a great extent. The public debt of Great Britain at his accession to the crown was but one million, and it has gone on increasing from that time to this, until it has reached the enormous sum of £900,000,000 sterling, at an annual charge upon the industry of the working and productive classes of the nation of about £40,000,000 sterling. This is the natural tendency of public debts. In monarchies, where the supreme power is in the king, public debts are said to be supports to the throne; they interest large numbers of people in the perpetuation and the support of the existing order of things, lest, by a change, they should lose their money. But in a republic, where the sovereignty is in the people, this argument, which is the only one yet adduced in favor of a standing public debt, has no force what

ever.

Guard the exercise of power as we may, by written constitutions or otherwise, experience has shown that "its natural tendency is to steal from the many to the few." The constitution, as has been well and truly observed, is the basis of the legislative authority; it lies at the foundation of all law, and is a rule and commission by which both legislators and judges are bound to proceed. The acts of a legislature cannot be supported in any other way than by reference to the constitution which created it. It has no power whatever in

dependent of that instrument. Let the convention, then, which frames our constitution, fence round and protect the interests of the people by explicit declarations not to be misunderstood or liable to be twisted to suit the purposes of mischievous and designing men. Private property should be so well guarded that not the value of a cent could be demanded for public uses except compensation, in money, be paid to the owner. A legislature without such a check might take private property for public use upon a promise to pay, and thus entail the debt upon posterity; and if authority be given to take private property without payment in money, there would be no limit to the power, inasmuch as promises can be made more abundant than money.

Having some further arguments to advance on this subject, and on the one immediately connected with that of borrowing money-taxation-we shall defer them for another article.

TAXATION-BORROWING MONEY

[August 1, 1846]

We submitted on Tuesday last a few remarks on the subject of granting the power of borrowing money to legislative bodies, pointing out some of the evils to the whole community by its delegation of this power, etc. We now propose to offer some further reflections in continuation of the subject, in connection with the one so immediately united with it, on that of taxation.

It is, we believe, admitted that when a government is instituted and salaries to its officers authorized to be paid, the power to levy and collect the necessary taxes is included. To deny this power would tend to pull down the whole fabric of government, and no position has been better settled than that every government possesses the inherent power of sus

taining itself and to raise all the means necessary to that end, until such time as it shall please the people to alter or abolish it. In nearly all our state constitutions there have been restrictive clauses introduced in regard to the exercise of the power of taxation, but these wise and prudent restrictions have been rendered nugatory by the practice recently introduced of borrowing money. The power to borrow money at will is a very important one and should be exercised with the utmost caution. With this power the legislature must necessarily possess the means of carrying it into effect. These means are nothing more nor less than transferring from ourselves to our representatives the right to mortgage every dollar's worth of property in our possession for its repayment. A wicked or unwise legislature might borrow more money than the people will be able to repay in half a century. The power of taxation may also be abused. So may all other powers granted. But there is an extent beyond which abuses cannot go. The abuse of taxation, for instance, cannot extend further than the ability of the people in any one year to pay, whilst the abuse of the borrowing [power] may be felt for ages to come. The exercise of the right of taxation has justly been called a "high sovereign power. The right of borrowing is a higher power still. The power to borrow is just so far greater than the power to tax as the whole and entire control of the fee of our lands is greater than one year's product of them. Excessive and unnecessary taxation in any one year can be corrected by the ballot boxes of the next, but a mortgage upon our lands cannot be removed in that way. If one legislature can bind successive legislatures to any extent if may deem properif one legislature can draw upon and squander the resources of the state for many years to come, and can bind not only its immediate constituents during their natural lives, but posterity, by its acts, our annual elections are so many farces. It has been denied that one legislature binds another; this may be so, but when the public faith is pledged