mankind, the approbation or
displeasure of the great Judge, or the happiness or misery consequent
upon their conduct, in this and a future state can move them,--then let
them be assured that they deserve to be slaves, and are entitled to
nothing but anguish and tribulation.... Let them forget every duty,
human and divine, remember not that they have children, and beware how
they call to mind the justice of the Supreme Being.

* * * * *

=_Alexander Hamilton, 1757-1804._= (Manual, pp. 484, 486.)

From "Vindication of the Funding System."

=_66._= CHARACTER OF THE DEBT.

A person who, unacquainted with the fact, should learn the history
of our debt from the declamations with which certain newspapers are
perpetually charged, would be led to suppose that it is the mere
creature of the _present_ government, for the purpose of burthening the
people with taxes, and producing an artificial and corrupt influence
over them; he would, at least, take it for granted that it had been
contracted in the pursuit of some wanton or vain project of ambition or
glory; he would scarcely be able to conceive that every part of it was
the relict of a war which had given independence, and preserved liberty
to the country; that the present government found it as it is, in point
of magnitude (except as to the diminutions made by itself), and has done
nothing more than to bring under a regular regimen and provision, what
was before a scattered and heterogeneous mass.

And yet this is the simple and exact state of the business. The whole of
the debt embraced by the provisions of the funding system, consisted of
the unextinguished principal and arrears of interest, of the debt which
had been contracted by the United States in the course of the late war
with Great Britain, and which remained uncancelled, and the principal
and arrears of interest of the separate debts of the respective States
contracted during the same period, which remained, _outstanding, and
unsatisfied, relating to services and supplies for carrying on the war_.
Nothing more was done by that system, than to incorporate these two
species of debt into the mass, and to make for the whole, one general,
comprehensive provision. There is therefore, no arithmetic, no logic,
by which it can be shown that the funding system has augmented the
aggregate debt of the country. The sum total is manifestly the same;
though the parts which were before divided