to another for subsistence?  Every one will say no:  that the soil is the gift of God to the living, as much as it had been to the deceased generation; and that the laws of nature impose no obligation on them to pay this debt.  And although, like some other natural rights, this has not yet entered into any declaration of rights, it is no less a law, and ought to be acted on by honest governments.  It is, at the same time, a salutary curb on the spirit of war and indebtment, which, since the modern theory of the perpetuation of debt, has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burthens ever accumulating.  Had this principle been declared in the British bill of rights, England would have been placed under the happy disability of waging eternal war, and of contracting her thousand millions of public debt.  In seeking, then, for an ultimate term for the redemption of our debts, let us rally to this principle, and provide for their payment within the term of nineteen years, at the farthest.  Our government has not, as yet, begun to act on the rule, of loans and taxation going hand in hand.  Had any loan taken place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax.  For the loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should now set the example of appropriating some particular tax, sufficient to pay the interest annually, and the principal within a fixed term, less than nineteen years.  And I hope yourself and your committee will render the immortal service of introducing this practice.  Not that it is expected that Congress should formally declare such a principle.  They wisely enough avoid deciding on abstract questions.  But they may be induced to keep themselves within its limits.

I am sorry to see our loans begin at so exorbitant an interest.  And yet, even at that, you will soon be at the bottom of the loan-bag.  We are an agricultural nation.  Such an one employs its sparings in the purchase or improvement of land or stocks.  The lendable money among them is chiefly that of orphans and wards in the hands of executors and guardians, and that which the farmer lays by till he has enough for the purchase in view.  In such a nation there is one and one only resource for loans, sufficient to carry them through the expense of a war; and that will always be sufficient, and in the power of an honest government, punctual in the preservation of its faith.  The fund I mean, is the mass of circulating coin.  Every one knows, that, although not literally, it is nearly true, that every paper dollar emitted banishes a silver one from the circulation.  A nation, therefore, making its purchases and payments with bills fitted for circulation, thrusts an equal sum of coin out of circulation.  This is equivalent to borrowing that sum, and yet the vendor, receiving payment in a medium as effectual as coin for his purchases or payments, has no claim to interest.  And so the nation may continue to issue its bills as far