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n to depart from the true principles of taxation, or at least to do so without any very serious or ruinous consequences. Now, however, when the public expenditure is about to be vastly increased, and when it will be for the first time really felt by the people, it will become the first duty of our rulers to study the extent and true character of our resources, and to adjust the burdens of taxation, with all practicable fairness, to the respective capacities of all classes and interests. We may expect to have a system stable and permanent in its principles, if not in its details; and the basis of this system will be a wise arrangement of duties on imports, which must, from various reasons, ever form the great bulk of our taxes. It is not an American maxim that a great public debt is a public blessing; nor is it likely that an educated and eminently practical people like ours will ever accept that mischievous paradox. Yet if it be desirable that our large public debt should be widely scattered among the people, so that every man may be directly interested in maintaining the public credit and the stability of the Government, the present system, now but imperfectly adapted to that object, might easily be made to accomplish it fully. If the Treasury notes recently issued were the only paper circulation in the country--that is to say, if the banks were prohibited, by taxation or otherwise, from making any issues of their own--the Government might increase their amount to at least five hundred millions, with even less than the present depreciation, and would thus enjoy the benefit of a loan to that amount without the payment of any interest. As it is now, the banks get the advantage of a great part of this extensive loan, and at the same time perform a function which properly belongs to the Government--that of furnishing a currency for the people. By the proposed system, the entire community would be interested in this part of the public debt, and would doubtless find the circulating medium much safer and better than that now manufactured by the numberless banks chartered by the States. The issue of these notes by State institutions was always an evasion of that clause of the Constitution which prohibits the States from issuing bills of credit, and is plainly against the spirit and intention of the instrument. If our public debt should, in this way, eventually drive all bank notes out of circulation and banish them forever, it
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