But let us look at this principle
in its original form, and its copy will then be equally understood.
'A public debt is a public blessing.' That our debt was juggled from
forty-three up to eighty millions, and funded at that amount, according
to this opinion, was a great public blessing, because the evidences of
it could be vested in commerce, and thus converted into active capital,
and then the more the debt was made to be, the more active capital was
created. That is to say, the creditors could now employ in commerce the
money due them from the public, and make from it an annual profit of
five per cent., or four millions of dollars. But observe, that the
public were at the same time paying on it an interest of exactly the
same amount of four millions of dollars. Where then is the gain to
either party, which makes it a public blessing? There is no change in
the state of things, but of persons only. A has a debt due to him from
the public, of which he holds their certificate as evidence, and on
which he is receiving an annual interest. He wishes, however, to have
the money itself, and to go into business with it. B has an equal sum of
money in business, but wishes now to retire, and live on the interest.
He therefore gives it to A, in exchange for A's certificates of public
stock. Now, then, A has the money to employ in business, which B so
employed before. B has the money on interest to live on, which A lived
on before: and the public pays the interest to B, which they paid to
A before.
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