2001. DEBT, Generations and.—[continued].
The public expenses of
England during the present reign have
amounted to the fee simple value of the
whole island. If its whole soil could be sold,
farm by farm, for its present market price,
it would not defray the cost of governing it
during the reign of the present King, as managed
by him. Ought not then the right of
each successive generation to be guaranteed
against the dissipations and corruptions of
those preceding, by a fundamental provision
in our Constitution? And, if that has not
been made, does it exist the less; there being
between generation and generation, as between
nation and nation, no other law than
that of nature? And is it the less dishonest
to do what is wrong, because not expressly
prohibited by written law? Let us hope our
moral principles are not yet in that stage of
degeneracy, and that in instituting the system
of finance to be hereafter pursued, we
shall adopt the only safe, the only lawful and
honest one, of borrowing on such short terms
of reimbursement of interest and principal
as will fall within the accomplishment of our
own lives.—
To J. W. Eppes. Washington ed. vi, 199.
Ford ed., ix, 398.
(P.F.,,
Sep. 1813)
