3621. HAMILTON (Alexander), Funding jobbery.—
It is well known that, during
the[Revolutionary] war, the greatest difficulty
we encountered was the want of money or
means to pay our soldiers who fought, or our
farmers, manufacturers and merchants, who furnished
the necessary supplies of food and clothing
for them. After the expedient of paper
money had exhausted itself, certificates of debt
were given to the individual creditors, with assurance
of payment, so soon as the United
States should be able. But the distresses of the
people often obliged them to part with these for
the half, the fifth, and even a tenth of their
value; and speculators had made a trade of
cozening them from the holders by the most
fraudulent practices, and persuasions that they
would never be paid. In the bill for funding
and paying these, Hamilton made no difference
between the original holders and the fraudulent
purchasers of this paper. Great and just repugnance
arose at putting these two classes of
creditors on the same footing, and great exertions
were used to pay the former the full
value, and to the latter, the price only which
they had paid, with interest. But this would
have prevented the game which was to be
played, and for which the minds of greedy
members were already tutored and prepared.
When the trial of strength on these several
efforts had indicated the form in which the bill
would finally pass, this being known within
doors sooner than without, and especially, than
to those who were in distant parts of the Union,
the base scramble began. Couriers and relay
horses by land, and swift-sailing pilot boats by
sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners
and agents were associated and employed
in every State, town and country neighborhood,
and this paper was bought up at five shillings,
and often as low as two shillings in the pound,
before the holder knew that Congress had already
provided for its redemption at par. Immense
sums were thus filched from the poor and
ignorant, and fortunes accumulated by those
who had themselves been poor enough before.
Men thus enriched by the dexterity of a
leader, would follow of course the chief who
was leading them to fortune, and become the
zealous instruments of all his enterprises.—
The Anas. Washington ed. ix, 91.
Ford ed., i, 160.
(1818)
