Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/652

political arithmetick would probably in a state of peace, exhibit an expenditure of about twenty millions annually, by all our governments, state and continental, partly for necessary purposes, and partly to feed parties of interest; and a gross income to banks of about five millions annually. This total exceeds a moiety of our exports, and yet the system, discontented with this proportion of them, may possibly propose to be let loose upon exports more directly. Twenty five millions of income at six per centum, require a principal of four hundred and fifty millions. Supposing the lands of the United States to be of the average value of four dollars an acre, this income covers above one hundred and twelve millions of acres. If a moiety of it is received by funding and banking, then these two parties of interest, have already attached upon more acres of land here, than the whole family have been able to lay hold of in England. The question to be determined is, which is best for mankind a government for advancing the prosperity of an entire nation, or one for selecting, by law, sundry minor nations out of the great one, and extracting as much money as possible, in straight and crooked ways, under honest and fraudulent pretexts, from the entire nation, to enrich these legal selections. If the united interest of the king, nobility, priesthood, stockjobbers, placemen, chartered companies, army and navy, with their associates, governs the British government, then the national association (if there is or ever was one) has no government. There is no British nation, except a combined minority of interests, distinct from the general interest. It might with equal propriety be asserted, that the servants and drudges who enrich the East India company, were members of that company, as that British people, not belonging to the association of exclusive interests. but serving and enriching it, were members of the British nation. The first species of government does good to a multitude of people, without injuring one; the second, does good to a few people, by injuring a multitude. The latter is the principle of every species of political oppres-