The officer to whom the management of the finances was confided was so repeatedly charged with a desire to increase the public debt and to render it perpetual, and this charge had such important influence in the formation of parties, that an extract from this report can not be improperly introduced. After stating the sum to be raised, the secretary says, "three expedients occur to the option of the government for providing this: "One, to dispose of the interest to which the United States are entitled in the bank of the United States. This at the present market price of bank stock would yield a clear gain to the government much more than adequate to the sum required. "Another, to borrow the money upon an establishment of funds either merely commensurate with the interest to be paid, or affording a surplus which will discharge the principal by instalments within a short term. "The third is to raise the amount by taxes." After stating his objections to the first and second expedients, the report proceeds thus, "but the result of mature reflection is, in the mind of the secretary, a strong conviction that the last of the three expedients which have been mentioned, is to be preferred to either of the other two. "Nothing can more interest the national credit and prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to husband all the means previously possessed for extinguishing the present debt, and to avoid, as much as possible, the incurring of any new debt. "Necessity alone, therefore, can justify the application of any of the public property, other than the annual revenues, to the current service, or the temporary and casual exigencies; or the contracting of an additional debt by loans, to provide for those exigencies. "Great emergencies indeed might exist, in which loans would be indispensable. But the occasions which will justify them must be truly of that description. "The present is not of such a nature. The sum to be provided is not of magnitude enough to furnish the plea of necessity. "Taxes are never welcome to a community. They seldom fail to excite uneasy sensations more or less extensive. Hence a too strong propensity in the governments of nations, to anticipate and mortgage the resources of posterity, rather than to encounter the inconveniencies of a present increase of taxes. "But this policy, when not dictated by very peculiar circumstances, is of the worst kind. Its obvious tendency is, by enhancing the permanent burdens of the people, to produce lasting distress, and its natural issue is in national bankruptcy." It will be happy if the councils of this country, sanctioned by the voice of an enlightened community, shall be able to pursue a different course. * * * * * NOTE--No. VII. _See Page 450._