5406. MONEY (Continental), Redemption of.—
It will be asked, how will the two
masses of Continental and State money have
cost the people of the United States seventy-two
millions of dollars, when they are to be
redeemed. now, with about six millions? I
answer, that the difference, being sixty-six
millions, has been lost on the paper bills,
separately, by the successive holders of them.
Every one, through whose hands a bill passed,
lost on that bill what it lost in value, during
the time it was in his hands. This was a
real tax on him; and, in this way, the people
of the United States actually contributed
those sixty-six millions of dollars, during the
war, and by a mode of taxation the most oppressive
of all, because the most unequal of
all.—
To M. de Meunier. Washington ed. ix, 260.
Ford ed., iv, 165.
(P.
1786)
