strength, as compared with that of antiquity, is more
signally displayed, than the well-organized credit-system of a
prosperous State: the system which makes men not only willing, but
desirous, to forego the actual possession of that darling property which
has been the great object of desire through life,--which they have
sought by all honest and, unhappily too often, dishonest means, to gain
and accumulate,--provided only they can receive a fair equivalent for
its use. By the wise application of this almost mysterious principle,
the members of modern civilized States are not only, for the time being,
much more effectually consociated in the joint life and action of the
country than would have been possible without it, but even distant
generations--men separated from each other by years, not to say
ages--are brought into a noble partnership of effort in great and
generous undertakings and sacrifices.

Dr. Johnson somewhat cynically says, that

"Mortgaged States, in everlasting debt,
From age to age their grandsires' wreaths regret."

This may be true of debts incurred in wars of ambition and conquest; but
what citizen of the United States, at the present day, would not, with a
willing mind, if it were still necessary, bear his part of the pecuniary
burdens of the American Revolution?

It is a well-established law of public credit, that it can be carried to
any length to which it is sustained by an efficient system of taxation.
So long as provision is made to secure in this way the regular payment
of the interest on the sums borrowed, the Government holds the
purse-strings of the capitalist, and has nothing to do but to call for
whatever amount is needed for the public service. This, however, is the
essential condition, and nothing else will, for any length of time,
produce the desired result. In the first fervor of a great popular
movement, and in confident reliance that effective provision to sustain
it will eventually be made, a large loan may be obtained from the banks,
from capitalists, or the mass of the people; but this will be a
temporary, probably a solitary, effort. No Government can permanently
sustain its credit, but by providing the means (independent of credit)
to pay the interest on its public debt. To borrow more money in order to
pay the interest on that already borrowed is bankruptcy in disguise.

With these general principles established and clearly borne in mind, we
perceive the absurdity of