HKB
may be imagined to belong to the earliest ages of the world; but maturer observation will convince us that it could only come last in the succession of human history.
[These remarks upon the "instability of administration" in America, are partly correct, but partly erroneous. It is certainly true that our public men are not educated to the business of government; even our diplomatists are selected with very little reference to their experience in that department. But the universal attention that is paid by the intelligent, to the measures of government and to the discussions to which they give rise, is in itself no slight preparation for the ordinary duties of legislation. And, indeed, this the author subsequently seems to admit. As to there being "no archives formed" of public documents, the author is certainly mistaken. The journals of congress, the journals of state legislatures, the public documents transmitted to and originating in those bodies, are carefully preserved and disseminated through the nation: and they furnish in themselves the materials of a full and accurate history. Our great defect, doubtless, is in the want of statistical information. Excepting the annual reports of the state of our commerce, made by the secretary of the treasury, under law, and excepting the census which is taken every ten years under the authority of congress, and those taken by the states, we have no official statistics. It is supposed that the author had this species of information in his mind when he alluded to the general deficiency of our archives.--American Editor.]
CHARGES LEVIED BY THE STATE UNDER THE RULE OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.
In all Communities Citizens divisible into three Classes.--Habits of each of these Classes in the Direction of public Finances.--Why public Expenditures must tend to increase when the People governs.--What renders the Extravagance of a Democracy less to be feared in America.--Public Expenditure under a Democracy.
Before we can affirm whether a democratic form of government is economical or not, we must establish a suitable standard of comparison. The question would be one of easy solution if we were to attempt to draw a parallel between a democratic republic and an absolute monarchy. The public expenditure would be found to be more considerable under the former than under the latter; such is the case with all free states compared to those which are not so. It is certain that despotism ruins individuals by preventing them from producing wealth, much more than by depriving them of the wealth they have produced: it dries up the source of riches, while it usually respects acquired property. Freedom, on the contrary, engenders far more benefits than it destroys; and the nations which are favored by free institutions, invariably find that their resources increase even more rapidly than their taxes.
My present object is to compare free nations to each other; and to point out the influence of democracy upon the finances of a state.
Communities, as well as organic bodies, are subject to certain fixed rules in their formation which they cannot evade. They are composed of certain elements which are common to them at all times and under all circumstances. The people may always be mentally divided into three distinct classes. The first of these classes consists of the wealthy; the second, of those who are in easy circumstances; and the third is composed of those who have little or no property, and who subsist more especially by the work which they perform for the two superior orders. The proportion of the individuals who are included in these three divisions may vary according to the condition of society; but the divisions themselves can never be obliterated.