Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
In the kingdom of Great Britain, where all the ostentatious apparatus
of monarchy is to be provided for, not above a fifteenth part of the
annual income of the nation is appropriated to the class of expenses
last mentioned; the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the
payment of the interest of debts contracted for carrying on the wars in
which that country has been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets
and armies. If, on the one hand, it should be observed that the
expenses incurred in the prosecution of the ambitious enterprises and
vainglorious pursuits of a monarchy are not a proper standard by which
to judge of those which might be necessary in a republic, it ought, on
the other hand, to be remarked that there should be as great a
disproportion between the profusion and extravagance of a wealthy
kingdom in its domestic administration, and the frugality and economy
which in that particular become the modest simplicity of republican
government. If we balance a proper deduction from one side against that
which it is supposed ought to be made from the other, the proportion
may still be considered as holding good.
But let us advert to the large debt which we have ourselves contracted
in a single war, and let us only calculate on a common share of the
events which disturb the peace of nations, and we shall instantly
perceive, without the aid of any elaborate illustration, that there
must always be an immense disproportion between the objects of federal
and state expenditures. It is true that several of the States,
separately, are encumbered with considerable debts, which are an
excrescence of the late war. But this cannot happen again, if the
proposed system be adopted; and when these debts are discharged, the
only call for revenue of any consequence, which the State governments
will continue to experience, will be for the mere support of their
respective civil list; to which, if we add all contingencies, the total
amount in every State ought to fall considerably short of two hundred
thousand pounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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