36. ACCOUNTS, Complicated.—
Alexander
Hamilton * * * in order that he
might have the entire government of his
[Treasury] machine, determined so to complicate
it as that neither the President nor
Congress should be able to understand it, or
to control him. He succeeded in doing this,
not only beyond their reach, but so that he at
length could not unravel it himself. He
gave to the debt, in the first instance, in funding
it, the most artificial and mysterious form
he could devise. He then moulded up
his appropriations of a number of scraps
and remnants, many of which were nothing
at all, and applied them to different
objects in reversion and remainder,
until the whole system was involved in impenetrable
fog; and while he was giving himself
the airs of providing for the payment of
the debt, he left himself free to add to it continually,
as he did in fact, instead of paying
it.—
To Albert Gallatin. Washington ed. iv, 428.
Ford ed., viii, 140.
(W.
1801)
