HKB
than all the others with which this or any legislature on earth is cloathed—the right of taxation or of collecting money from the people; and of raising and supporting armies.
These are the powers which enable tyrants to scourge their subjects; and they are also the very powers by which good rulers protect the people against the violence of wicked and overgrown citizens, and invasion by the rest of mankind. Judge candidly what a wretched figure the American empire will exhibit in the eye of other nations, without a power to array and support a military force for its own protection. Half a dozen regiments from Canada or New-Spain, might lay whole provinces under contribution, while we were disputing who has power to pay and raise an army. This power is also necessary to restrain the violence of seditious citizens. A concurrence of circumstances frequently enables a few disaffected persons to make great revolutions, unless government is vested with the most extensive powers of self-defence. Had Shays, the malcontent of Massachusetts, been a man of genius, fortune and address, he might have conquered that state, and by the aid of a little sedition in the other states, and an army proud by victory, become the monarch and tyrant of America. Fortunately he was checked; but should jealousy prevent vesting these powers in the hands of men chosen by yourselves, and who are under every constitutional restraint, accident or design will in all probability raise up some future Shays to be the tyrant of your children.
A people cannot long retain their freedom, whose government is incapable of protecting them.
The power of collecting money from the people, is not to be rejected because it has sometimes been oppressive.
Public credit is as necessary for the prosperity of a nation as private credit is for the support and wealth of a family.
We are this day many millions poorer than we should have been had a well arranged government taken place at the conclusion of the war. All have shared in this loss, but none in so great proportion as the landholders and farmers.
The public must be served in various departments. Who will serve them without a meet recompense? Who will go to war and pay the charges of his own warfare? What man will any longer take empty promises of reward from those, who have no constitutional power to reward or means of fulfilling them? Promises have done their utmost, more than they ever did in any other age or country. The delusive bubble has broke, and in breaking has beggared thousands, and left you an unprotected people; numerous without force, and full of resources but unable to command one of them. For these purposes there must be a general treasury, with a power to replenish it as often as necessity requires. And where can this power be more safely vested, than in the common legislature, men chosen by yourselves from every part of the union, and who have the confidence of their several states; men who must share in the burdens they impose on others; men who by a seat in Congress are incapable of holding any office under the states, which might prove a temptation to spoil the people for increasing their own income?