the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse
to large loans. A country so little opulent as ours must feel this
necessity in a much stronger degree. But who would lend to a government
that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated
that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for
paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in
their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be made
upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and
fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and at enormous premiums.

It may perhaps be imagined that, from the scantiness of the resources
of the country, the necessity of diverting the established funds in the
case supposed would exist, though the national government should possess
an unrestrained power of taxation. But two considerations will serve
to quiet all apprehension on this head: one is, that we are sure the
resources of the community, in their full extent, will be brought into
activity for the benefit of the Union; the other is, that whatever
deficiences there may be, can without difficulty be supplied by loans.

The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own
authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as
its necessities might require. Foreigners, as well as the citizens of
America, could then reasonably repose confidence in its engagements; but
to depend upon a government that must itself depend upon thirteen other
governments for the means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its
situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity
not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and
little reconcilable with the usual sharp-sightedness of avarice.

Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to
see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous
age; but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common
portion of the vicissitudes and calamities which have fallen to the lot
of other nations, they must appear entitled to serious attention. Such
men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful
solicitude, and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might,
with too much facility, inflict upon it.

PUBLIUS

FEDERALIST No. 31

The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation)

From the New York Packet. Tuesd