Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/319

This plain fact enables us to compare accurately, our system of monopolizetl and transmissible credit, Avitb a system of monopolized and transmissible wisdom. By this comparison it will be divulged, that the pecuniary oppression of privileged credit, is far greater than that of privileged wisdom; and hence it is a just inference, that its avarice is also greater. Avarice breeds the treacheries of privilege against liberty. Unprivileged or national wisdom is its friend, because such wisdom can see no object to betray, for the gratification of avarice or ambition; privileged or corporation wisdom is its foe, because this species of wisdom can see such an object. We will select an expensive system of monopolized wisdom, to illustrate these ideas. The king of England receives for his wisdom, one million of pounds sterling, equivalent to the annual labour of fifty thousand men. The labour of fifty thousand men, is equivalent to the subsistence of two hundred thousand people. For the subsistence of two hundred thousand people, this man renders the "publick service" of a king, and pays also the salaries of sundry other publick servants. His exclusive emolument therefore, however exorbitant, is within the principle of the constitutions lately quoted. The banks in the United States receive for their eredit, at least five millions of dollars annually, equal to one million one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds sterling; to the annual labour of fifty-six thousand five hundred working men; and to the subsistence of two hundred and twenty-five thousand people. They are neither publick servants, nor do they pay the salaries of publick servants. Confining the payers for the king's wisdom to Britain, the expense is divided among twelve millions, and extending the computation to all his dominions, it may possibly reach to twenty. Therefore the proportion of subsistence drawn by the king's privileged and monopolized wisdom from labour in England, is less than that draws from labour by privileged and monopolized credit in America.