Kitabı oku: «A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings», sayfa 25

No. XXVIII

The following iz part of an "Essay on the Dets of the United States," written in 1787, but never before published. The question haz been ably discussed in Congress, and the proposition for a discrimination between original and purchasing holders of certificates, which I had started, without the prospect of support, haz been maintained by very powerful arguments in our federal legislature. Az the question now appeers to my mind, I should vote against the proposition, yet merely on the ground that from the manner in which the certificates were issued, it iz impossible to discriminate, without multiplying the instances of hardship and injustice. But I hav no more dout, that legislatures hav a right to interfere, in certain extreme cases, and suspend or counteract the operation of legal principles, than I hav of any reveeled truth or intuitiv proposition; and were it possible to ascertain the original holders of certificates, I conceev our legislators could not hav neglected a provision for their losses, without violating their oaths, the constitution and public faith. The following extract iz published, because I am desirous my opinion on this subject should be known and recorded.

HARTFORD, MARCH, 1790.

On a DISCRIMINATION between the ORIGINAL HOLDERS and the PURCHASERS of the CERTIFICATES of the UNITED STATES

Objection 1. It iz said that public faith requires the payment of the certificates, according to contract; that iz, to the bearers. Let me ask the men who contend for promise, what they meen by public faith? Did the public ever promise to do rong? The money waz du to men who erned it; the money waz not paid. The full valu expressed on the certificates waz du, and the certificates were worth but a fourth, or perhaps an eighth part of that valu. The public promised the creditors their full demands; but theze promises, at the time of issuing the certificates, were actually worth but a small part of that demand. Ought the creditors to be dismissed with this part of their money, and then compelled to pay the full valu of the certificates to their nabors, who purchased them at their current price? If this iz right, my ideas of justice are rong. Public faith iz suppozed to be founded on justice. The public engaged to do justice to its creditors; but this justice haz not been done; and it appeers to me az plain az the shining of the sun, that if the certificates should be paid to the bearers, justice wil not be done. The creditors at the time of contract, expected to receev gold and silver, or something equivalent; they hav receeved neether the one nor the other. They receeved articles which were worth but a fourth part of their demands; for the remainder of their money, the public iz stil their detor. Public faith therefore requires, that the full valu of the alienated certificates should not be paid to the bearer. It appeers to me that the principles of equity, rather than of law, should decide this important question. It iz the design of the contract, not the words, which should be pursued; for it must be remembered, that the design of the public haz been counteracted. The intention of the public, expressed on the certificates, haz been defeated by the public exigences; and to pursue the words of the engagement, wil now produce an effect which waz not designed, viz. extensiv injustice.

In this situation the public haz an undouted right to call in the evidences of the det, and form a system that shall be effectual in the distribution of justice. If the public suppoze that any arrangement for this purpoze can be made, they certainly hav a right to attempt it; for the object of the attempt would be public justice. The sticklers for paying the det to the present holders, hav the same object in view, national faith; but their ideas of this faith, seem to be derived from the practice of other nations, the situation of whoze dets bears very little analogy to that of ours. They therefore advance an argument against their own cauze; for the faith of the public iz prezerved by fulfilling the intention, rather than the words, of the contract.

Every dollar of old continental currency, promises a Spanish milled dollar. This promise waz founded on the supposition that the valu would be neerly the same, or waz designed to prezerve the valu. But the depreciation of that currency, by the enormous sums in circulation, rendered the fulfilment of the promise impracticable; and had it been attempted, it would hav thrown the united states into confusion. The redemption of the bills, at their nominal valu, would hav done justice to a few, whoze money had depreciated in their hands, but would hav ruined fifty times the number. Thoze who lost their property by continental bills, ought to be indemnified, if the persons and sums lost could be ascertained; but this iz impossible. The case of the certificates iz different. Theze are promissory notes, expressing the sums du, and the persons names to whom they were given. If in some instances the purchasers hav returned alienated certificates to the office, and taken out new ones in their own names, stil the public books may remedy this inconvenience.

2. But it iz said the creditors of the public parted with their certificates voluntarily. It waz at their own option, whether to keep them or not; and if they choze to alienate them at a discount, the public iz not responsible for the loss. A owes B 100l. he cannot make immediate payment, but haz property to secure B, who takes a promissory note. B wants the money, and rather than wait for A's ability to pay it, he assigns the note to C for 50l. In this case, A cannot refuse to pay the full sum of 100l. because C gave but fifty for the note. This reezoning iz applied to the case of the public det; and yet a skool boy ought to be ashamed of the application. The case iz not parrallel, and the reezoning iz defectiv and inapplicable in every particular.

In the first case, it iz not tru that the alienation of the certificates waz a voluntary act; but in most cases, waz an act of necessity. Most of the original creditors were ether rich men who loaned money, or poor men who did personal service. In many instances, thoze who loaned money, loaned all their estates; and when they found no provizion made for paying the interest, or when the interest waz paid in paper of less valu than specie, they were left destitute of the meens of subsistence. Some of theze hav been obliged to part with their certificates at a great loss. But a large number of creditors were poor peeple, who had little or no property, but their certificates, who had performed service, and were under a necessity of negociating them on az good terms az they could. Most of the alienations hav therefore been a necessary consequence of public delinquency. Many of the creditors hav experienced a degree of distress, which, in a court of chancery, would entitle them to a consideration and redress. When a number of losses iz so great az to effect the public, the legislature then becumes a court of equity, where the sufferers must seek reparation. The legal principle must be suspended, and special provision made for this particular case. Thoze creditors who were able to keep their certificates, hav generally done it, and on every principle are entitled to the full nominal valu.

In the second place, the case of an individual assignee of a bond wil not apply; for B, in the suppozition, takes the bond voluntarily. A, the dettor, haz property, and it iz optional with B, whether to bring a suit for the money, recover a judgement, and take A's property, or take a bond on interest. This iz generally the case with individuals, but not with the public creditors. Theze hav no alternativ; they must take promises, which the subject cannot compel the public to fulfil, when the money iz wanted. In another particular, the two cases are widely different. A, B, and C, are three distinct persons. A iz the dettor, and it iz indifferent whether he pays the det to B or C. But when B haz sold the note for half the valu, he cannot be called upon for the money, nor for any part of it. In the other case, the creditors and the public are, in some mezure, the same person. The same persons who looze their property by public delinquency, are afterwards taxed to pay their proportion to the purchasers. But I wil for a moment suppoze the two cases exactly similar; for I am willing to giv my antagonists the fairest field of argument; and what conclusion can be drawn in favor of paying the certificates to the bearers? Can that reezoning be just which draws general consequences from particular propozitions? Such bad logic ought not to impeech a man's heart; but it can do very little honor to hiz head.

Do men, who reezon in this manner, consider that a principle with respect to individuals, may be perfectly just, and yet pursued to a certain degree, it may become entirely false? That the same principle which may be good in a certain degree, may, in the extreme becume criminal, iz tru not only in politics, but in the natural and moral systems. Heet and water, prouduce vegetables; but too large portions of either, destroy plants. Every passion, natural to man, iz good in itself, and the wurk of a perfectly wise being; but any passion indulged to a certain degree, becumes criminal and destructiv to social happiness. Self-love, the spring of all action, and in the tru sense of the word, the most necessary principle in creation, when it becumes excessiv, iz az criminal and pernicious, az the most malignant passion. Eeting and sleeping are essential to helth; but beyond a certain degree, they are hurtful, and may be fatal to the human body.

In politices, the greatest possible good iz the end of guvernment. Any principle, which may be tru, in particular instances, but which, when extended to the public, does not produce the greatest good to society, iz certainly false in legislation. A law which may be good and necessary in a community, may stil bear hard upon individuals. This iz generally tru of all laws. If a man takes a note of another, and sells it for half its valu, he haz no remedy in law, nor ought the law to make provision for hiz case; for laws are, in their nature and use, general; they do not desend to particular cases. The reezon iz obvious. Were laws to notice every inconvenience, which may flow from their operation, they would produce confusion rather than order, and occasion greater injuries to the public, than would result from the losses of individuals. But when such particular losses becume general, the principle loozes its force. Sufferings, multiplied to a certain number, becume public, and then require the interference of the legislature. If a man iz in det, and cannot pay, he iz at the disposal of the law; the law cannot be suspended nor relaxed for hiz particular benefit. But when the body of a peeple becume involved, the public safety requires a suspension or relaxation of law. If an individual settles upon land of another man, he iz considered az a trespasser, and iz liable to an ejectment. But let thirty thousand men settle thus upon land that iz not their own, and a wize legislature wil confirm them in their possessions. Necessity or general good, in such cases, suspends the operation of legal right, or rather changes private rongs into public right. Or to express the idea differently; when evils are increesed and extended to a certain degree, it iz better to let them remain, than to risk the application of a violent remedy. Instances of this kind occur so frequently, that it iz needless to multiply examples. Nothing betrays greater weekness, than the reezoning of peeple, who say, if a principle iz just, it extends to all cases. I should however be very unhappy to hav such men for my legislators. It may be asked, where iz the line of distinction? I answer, it may be impossible to determin. Where the right ends, and the rong begins; where the legal principle should ceese to operate, and special legislativ interference becumes necessary, it may be difficult to discuver; but the extreme iz always obvious. Whenever the operation of a receeved maxim or principle givs general uneasiness, it iz a demonstrativ proof that it iz rong: that it produces public evil; and a wize legislator wil restrain the operation, or establish a different principle: On the suppozition therefore that the present holders of the public det, are precisely in the situation of the assignees of bonds, stil the principle wil not apply nor warrant the same conclusion in both cases; becauze we cannot reezon from particulars to generals, especially on political subjects.

Suppoze the original creditors to be five, and the present holders two; more than half the number of creditors hav lost the money which waz due to them; the loss affects them in the first instance, and the hevy taxes which are necessary to appreciate the certificates in other hands, double their injuries and complaints. Theze loozing creditors hav an idea that they are really cheeted, and their murmurs foment that popular jealousy which iz ever bizzy to check large and sudden revolutions of property. The certificates fall into the hands of rich men, at a great discount, and the body of the peeple say, "we wil not suffer our own losses to enrich our welthy nabors."

This outcry, it iz said, proceeds from a levelling principle, which aims to destroy all distinction of rank and property. But in the present case, the popular complaints proceed from equitable principles; nor do I know of any instance of public jelousy, excited by an acquizition of property in the course of honest industry. Fortunes may be suddenly raized in private business, by commercial speculations, and no notice taken of the event; but when public delinquency haz thrown numberless advantages into the hands of a particular class of men, which the peeple know are made at their own expense, it iz impossible that they should behold such a change of property, without questioning the propriety of it, and the justness of the principle by which it iz defended. When the common sense of mankind iz oppozed to such a change, it ought to be considered az a good proof that it iz not just.

Whatever conclusions therefore may be drawn from a principle, established in courts of law, or among nations in different circumstances, the public sense of justice must, after all, decide the question. A lawyer may wurk himself up to convictions, in wire-drawing principles; but hiz reezoning iz oppozed to the sense of mankind. Peeple may not be able to discuver the fallacy of the reezoning, but they can feel it. They may be silenced, but cannot be convinced.

One grain of common sense iz worth a thousand cobweb theories; and however peeple may be abuzed for refining upon justice, we rarely find them generally dispozed to do rong.

The domestic det of America furnishes a new era in the history of finance. We hav no examples to follow; we must pursu some practicable system, with our eyes invariably fixed on public justice. I know it iz said that the original creditors can purchase certificates now, at the same or a less price than they took for them. But this iz not strictly tru. Individuals might purchase at a low rate; but a general demand for them would raize their valu much abuv their current valu at any past period: For it should be considered that hitherto the sellers hav been numerous, and the purchasers, few; that iz, a full market, with little demand for the articles. Reverse the case. Let the sellers becume the purchasers; the demand would at once raize the valu of the certificates neerly to the face of them.

But if the certificates were to pass at their present low valu, few of thoze who hav alienated them, could re-purchase; for the same necessity which obliged them to sell at a loss, now prevents their repurchasing. Peeple hav not grown rich since the revolution; especially thoze who were faithful in the service of their country. At any rate it iz to be wished that the certificates might ceese to circulate az objects of speculation. They are a Pandora's box to this country.

Almost the whole activ specie of the country iz employed in speculation. Laws prohibiting usury, restrain the loan of money, while the certain profits of speculation amount to five or ten times the legal interest. No money can be borrowed; no capitals can be raized to encurage agriculture and manufactures: Lucrativ industry iz checked; land iz sunk to two thirds of its real valu, and multitudes of industrious peeple are embarrassed. From such evils, good Lord deliver us.

No. XXIX

 HARTFORD, JANUARY, 1790.

An ADDRESS to YUNG GENTLEMEN

At a time of life when the passions are lively and strong, when the reezoning powers scarcely begin to be exercised, and the judgement iz not yet ripened by experience and obzervation, it iz of infinit consequence that yung persons should avail themselves of the advice of their frends. It iz tru that the maxims of old age are sometimes too rigorous to be relished by the yung; but in general they are to be valued az the lessons of infallible experience, and ought to be the guides of youth. The opinions here offered to your consideration hav not the advantage of great age to giv them weight, nor do they claim the authority of long experience: But they are formed from some experience, with much reeding and reflection; and so far az a zeel for your welfare and respectability in future life merits your regard, so far this address haz a claim to your notis.

The first thing recommended to your attention iz, the care of your helth and the prezervation of your bodily constitution. In no particular iz the neglect of parents and guardians more obvious and fatal, than in suffering the bodies of their children to grow without care. My remark applies in particular to thoze who design their children to get a living without manual labor. Let yung persons then attend to facts, which are always before their eyes.

Nature seldom fails to giv both sexes the materials of a good constitution; that iz, a body complete in all its parts. But it depends mostly on persons themselves to manage theze materials, so az to giv them strength and solidity.

The most criticcal period of life, in this respect, iz the age of puberty, which iz usually between thirteen and seventeen, or eighteen. Before this period, you are very much in the power of parents or masters, and if they wish to see you strong and robust, they wil feed you with coarse substantial food of eezy digestion. But at fourteen yeers old, yung persons are capable of exercising their reezon, in some degree, and ought to be instructed in the mode of living, best calculated to secure helth and long life. It iz obzervable that yung persons of both sexes grow tall very rapidly about the age of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen; but they do not acquire muscular strength in du proportion. It should then be the bizziness of yung persons to assist nature, and strengthen the growing frame by athletic exercises.

Thoze persons who leed a sedentary life, should practis some amusement which requires considerable exertion of the lims; az running, foot ball, quoit; taking care not to injure themselves by too violent exertion; for this would defeet the salutary purpose of such exercizes. But the exercize I would most recommend, iz fencing; for the art itself iz highly useful at times, and the practice tends more to render the body firm and vigorous than almost any exercize whatever. It braces the muscles of the arm, spreds the brest, opens the chest to giv the lungs play; an effect of great consequence to persons about the age of puberty. For, az waz before obzerved, persons of this age, shoot up very fast; the body grows tall, but narrow; the mass of flesh and blood iz increesed much faster than the tone of the vessels and muscular strength; the chest iz two narrow for the lungs to perform their office, and the blood vessels hav not sufficient elasticity to produce a brisk free circulation; the system iz often too week to carry on the necessary secretions of the juices; and the consequence of the whole iz, an obstructed circulation produces ulcers upon the lungs, which bring on a decay, or some infirmities of body, which last for many yeers, and not unfrequently for life.

To avoid theze ills, much exercise of the arms and body iz not only useful, but necessary; and when it iz not the lot of yung persons to labor, in agriculture or mekanic arts, some laborious amusement should be constantly and daily pursued az a substitute, and none iz preferable to fencing. A fencing skool iz perhaps az necessary an institution in a college, az a professorship of mathematics; for yung men usually enter college about the age of puberty; and often leev a laborious occupation, to commence a sedentary life, at the very time when labor or other exercize iz the most necessary to giv firmness and vigor to their constitutions. In consequence of this change and an academic life, they often run up into long, slender, effeminate bodies, which a slight cold may throw into a consumption; or by intense application to books, add, to a debilitated frame of body, a week nervous system, which keeps them always dying, tho it may not end life til old age.

Dancing iz an excellent amusement for yung peeple, especially for thoze of sedentary occupations. Its excellence consists in exciting a cheerfulness of the mind, highly essential to helth; in bracing the muscles of the body, and in producing copious perspiration. Az the two first effects are very visibly beneficial, they are the subject of common obzervation; but the last, which iz perhaps the most generally beneficial, iz rarely mentioned.

Experience haz led me to the following ideas on this subject. Our bodies are so constituted that a large portion of the juices should be thrown off by insensible perspiration; nor can the process be abated without danger, nor wholly obstructed without occasioning diseese. The body must perspire, or must be out of order. A violent cold iz a sudden obstruction of the process, which throws the matter, intended for evacuation thro the pores of the skin, back upon the intestines, taking the word, not in a tecknical, but in its original extended sense. All that iz necessary to cure a cold, which iz not attended with symptoms of inflamation, iz to open the pores of the body; which may be done by bracing, az by drinking cold water, which excites circulation by its tonic power; or by relaxing the system, az by the warm bath and warm teas. The first wil answer, where the body haz vigor enough to giv the tonic its full effect; but iz not so efficacious, nor so generally practicable az the last. It iz not so eezy to force thro a wall, az to open a gate.

The common house-wifely remedies, consisting of butter or other oily substances, mixed with spirits, usually hav no effect upon a cold, or a bad one. Flannel, warm teas, or simple warm water, hav the best effect in relaxing; but if they fail of producing a perspiration, the patient should hav recourse to exercise. Dancing in a warm room, or other violent exercise, wil generally throw a person into a copious swet in a few minutes; and this, two or three times repeeted, wil usually releev the person, however obstinate the cold. If every thing else fails, the warm bath should be resorted to az an almost infallible remedy.

But there iz another species of obstructed perspiration more dangerous perhaps than sudden colds, because less perceptible; I meen, that which proceeds from a week habit of body. Whenever the tone of the vessels iz lost, the circulation of the blood becumes languid, the animal heet iz diminished, and the system haz not strength sufficient to throw off the perspirable matter. The consequence iz, the skin becumes dry and rigid, and the person usually feels a dull pain in hiz hed and the back part of hiz neck. Wimen, literary men, clerks, &c. are most expozed to theze symptoms. The remedy for them iz, free perspiration; but the most effectual remedy iz dancing, or other vigorous exercise, which increeses, at the same time, animal heet and the tone of the vessels. Dancing indeed unites to theze, the other advantage of cheerfulness and good spirits, which iz of singular use to persons accustomed to close application to bizziness or contemplation. The only caution to be obzerved iz, not to go into the cold air, without considerable additional clothing.

In cases where persons cannot hav recourse to dancing or other exercize in a warm room, the warm bath may be uzed to great advantage. At first thought, one would imagin, that the cold bath should be prescribed for giving tone to a week system; but on reflection, this would appeer to be generally, tho not always hazardous. The truth iz, a general relaxation of the body checks perspiration; and the first effect of cold, in such cases, iz to brace the exterior parts of the body, and throw the offending matter, lodged in the skin by the debility of the system, back upon the lungs, or other interior parts. If the system haz strength enough, or can receev enough by the operation of cold, to force open the pores and produce a copious perspiration, the cold bath wil hav an excellent effect. But when the person iz of a week frame, the experiment iz extremely dangerous. The safest remedy iz the warm bath, which remooves the obstructing matter by a gentle relaxation of the surface; thus enabling the vessels to recuver their tone, in a degree, and keep up a brisk circulation. The warm bath then iz the most safe and efficacious remedy for obstructed perspiration, occasioned by debility; and this iz an evil to which all sedentary peeple are expozed, and by which most of them suffer.

I hav been often suprized that the moderns hav so generally neglected the meens of prezerving helth, which were uzed by the ancients. A little attention to the structure of the human body, and the effect of heet and cold upon it, led the ancients to the obvious and almost infallable meens of garding themselves from diseeze. Their method waz to bathe almost daily; and then oil their bodies. By bathing, they kept their perspiration free, and their bodies of course, in vigor and clenly; and by the use of oil, they secured the body from the fatal effects of sudden cold. In the later ages of Rome, warm baths indeed became a luxury, and were uzed to excess; but this waz only an abuse of a good thing, the excellent effects of which had been experienced for ages. The neglect of the same meens, of preventing diseese, haz obliged the modern to hav recourse to physic, a substitute, more expensiv and trublesome, and not always effectual.¹⁶⁷

Whether in bizziness or amusement, let your whole conduct be guided by temperance. Are you students? Eet moderately, and let your food be of the nutritiv kind, but not oily, high seesoned and indigestible. Drink but little, or rather no distilled liquors; wine and fermented liquors are much to be preferred. A good cup of tee, iz sometimes a cordial; coffee may be uzed freely; but the constant use of hot liquors seldom fails to debilitate the system and impair the digestiv powers.

Whether you reed or rite, accustom yourselves to stand at a high desk, rather than indulge an indolent habit of sitting, which always weekens, and sometimes disfigures the body. The neerer you can keep every part of the body to an eezy strait posture, the more equable wil be the circulation of the fluids; and in order to giv them the most unconstrained flow to the extremities of the lims, it iz very useful to loosen thoze parts of dress that bind the lims closely.

There iz another kind of temperance which I would warmly recommend; that iz, temperance in study. Little does a helthy robust yuth reflect upon the delicate texture of the nervous system, which iz immediately affected by close mental application. The full fed muscular man may spurn the caution, that warns him against the danger of hypocondriacs; but it iz next to impossible that the hard student, who clossets himself seven or eight hours a day, in deep meditation, should escape the deplorable evil, which makes men valetudinarians for life, without hope of a radical cure, and with the wretched consolation of being perpetually laughed at.

Four hours of uninterrupted study in a day iz generally sufficient to furnish the mind with az many ideas az can be retained, methodized and applied to practice; and it iz wel if one half of what are run over in this time are not lost. It may sometimes be necessary to study or reed more hours in a day; but it wil az often be found useful to reed less.

When you exercize at any diversion, or go into company, forget your studies, and giv up yourselves entirely to the amusement. It wil do you no good to leev your books behind, unless you dismiss your attention or train of thinking. Attend to experience. You find it very fateeging to stand, sit or even to lie in one fixed posture, for any length of time, and change affords releef. The same iz tru of the mind. It iz necessary, if I may indulge the expression, to change the pozition of the mind; that iz, vary the train of thought; for by a variety of ideas, the mind iz releeved, in the same degree az the body by a change of posture.

When you reed, always endevor to reed with some particular object. You wil find many books that ought to be red in course; but in general when you take up a treetis upon any science, or a volum of history, without a view to inform yourself of some particular in that wurk, you are not likely to retain what you reed. The object iz too general; the mind iz not capable of embracing the whole. For instance, if you reed Hume's England in course, with design to acquaint yourself with the whole story, you wil find, at the end of your labor, that you are able to recollect only a few of the most remarkable occurrences; the greatest part of the history haz escaped you. But if you confine yourself to one point of history at a time, for example, the life and policy of Alfred, or the account of Mary, queen of Scots, and reed what every author you can lay your hand on, haz said upon that subject, comparing their different accounts of it, you wil impress the history upon the mind, so az not to be eezily effaced. Law students should attend to theze remarks.