On general principles of law and reason, debts contracted in the name of "the
United States," or of "the people of the United States," are of no validity.
It is utterly absurd to pretend that debts to the amount of twenty-five
hundred millions of dollars are binding upon thirty-five or forty millions of
people [the approximate national debt and population in 1870], when there is
not a particle of legitimate evidence — such as would be required to prove a
private debt — that can be produced against any one of them, that either he,
or his properly authorized attorney, ever contracted to pay one cent.
Certainly, neither the whole people of the United States, nor any number of
them, ever separately or individually contracted to pay a cent of these debts.
Certainly, also, neither the whole people of the United States, nor any
number of them, every, by any open, written, or other authentic and voluntary
contract, united themselves as a firm, corporation, or association, by the
name of "the United States," or "the people of the United States," and
authorized their agents to contract debts in their name.
Certainly, too, there is in existence no such firm, corporation, or
association as "the United States," or "the people of the United States,"
formed by any open, written, or other authentic and voluntary contract, and
having corporate property with which to pay these debts.
How, then, is it possible, on any general principle of law or reason, that
debts that are binding upon nobody individually, can be binding upon forty
millions of people collectively, when, on general and legitimate principles
of law and reason, these
forty millions of people neither have, nor ever had,
any corporate property? never made any corporate or individual contract? and
neither have, nor ever had, any corporate existence?
Who, then, created these debts, in the name of "the United States"? Why, at
most, only a few persons, calling themselves "members of Congress," etc., who
pretended to represent "the people of the United States," but who really
represented only a secret band of robbers and murderers, who wanted money to
carry on the robberies and murders in which they were then engaged; and who
intended to extort from the future people of the United States, by robbery
and threats of murder (and real murder, if that should prove necessary), the
means to pay these debts.
This band of robbers and murderers, who were the real principals in
contracting these debts, is a secret one, because its members have never
entered into any open, written, avowed, or authentic contract, by which they
may be individually known to the world, or even to each other. Their real or
pretended representatives, who contracted these debts in their name, were
selected (if selected at all) for that purpose secretly (by secret ballot),
and in a way to furnish evidence against none of the principals
individually;
and these principals were really known individually neither to their
pretended representatives who contracted these debts in their behalf, nor to
those who lent the money. The money, therefore, was all borrowed and lent in
the dark; that is, by men who did not see each other's faces, or know each
other's names; who could not then, and cannot now, identify each other as
principals in the transactions; and who consequently can prove no contract
with each other.
Furthermore, the money was all lent and borrowed for criminal purposes; that
is, for purposes of robbery and murder; and for this reason the contracts
were all intrinsically void; and would have been so, even though the real
parties, borrowers and
lenders, had come face to face, and made their
contracts openly, in their own proper names.
Furthermore, this secret band of robbers and murderers, who were the real
borrowers of this money, having no legitimate corporate existence, have no
corporate property with which to pay these debts. They do indeed pretend to
own large tracts of wild lands, lying between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, and between the Gulf of Mexico and the North Pole. But, on general
principles of law and reason, they might as well pretend to own the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans themselves; or the atmosphere and the sunlight; and to
hold them, and dispose of them, for the payment of these debts.
Having no corporate property with which to pay what purports to be their
corporate debts, this secret band of robbers and murderers are really
bankrupt. They have nothing to pay with. In fact, they do not propose to
pay their debts otherwise than from the proceeds of their future robberies
and murders. These are confessedly their sole reliance; and were known to be
such by the lenders of the money, at the time the money was lent. And it
was, therefore, virtually a part of the contract, that the money should be
repaid only from the proceeds of these future robberies and murders. For
this reason, if for no other, the contracts were void from the beginning.
In fact, these apparently two classes, borrowers and lenders, were really one
and the same class. They borrowed and lent money from and to themselves.
They themselves were not only part and parcel, but the very life and soul, of
this secret band of robbers and murderers, who borrowed and spent the money.
Individually they furnished money for a common enterprise; taking, in return,
what purported to be corporate promises for individual loans. The only
excuse they had for taking these so-called corporate promises of, for
individual loans by, the same parties, was that they might have some apparent
excuse for the future robberies of the band (that is, to pay the debts of
the
corporation), and that they might also know what shares they were to be
respectively entitled to out of the proceeds of their future robberies.
Finally, if these debts had been created for the most innocent and honest
purposes, and in the most open and honest manner, by the real parties to the
contracts, these parties could thereby have bound nobody but themselves, and
no property but their own. They could have bound nobody that should have
come after them, and no property subsequently created by, or belonging to,
other persons.