As the benign warmth of the sun is sometimes imperceptible, where a brisk flame is kindled for chemical or culinary purposes, or for forcing vegetation, so the supreme powers of the union are withheld or inert, where the objects reserved exclusively for state legislation call for the attention of government. And as sickly, drooping plants and trees, are sometimes removed from the partially forcing heat of a green-house, to recover health by the genial rays of the sun; so are appeals from the partial operations of state decisions, in certain cases, essential to the honor, the well being, and tranquillity of the states.

As the state powers of the STATES, were sufficiently coercive for a republic, before the ratification of the MAGNA CHARTA, defining the powers of the general government, the sole objects of the people were to establish in congress, a supreme power to illumine, combine, improve, invigorate, extend, and at all times To DEFEND the whole. The principal duties of congress, therefore, are happily to promote a plenitude among the people, rather than for THE STATES. As the amiable and respectable grand father leaves the coercive duties for his offspring of the second degree, to the discretion of his first children, and is himself content to stimulate by acts of kindness only, and appropriate presents to his grateful grand children, so ought the general government to understand the true line of their ordinary duties.

Our excellent form of government will thus harmonize with the most sublime positions in nature; and for this cause, it must be owing to their idleness, or to a gross departure from nature, if our rulers lose the proper respect we entertain for their authority. As all nature sickens and complains when the genial stimulating and exhilirating rays of the sun are obscured for an unusual time, or beyond the ordinary course of nature; so, whenever the constitutional STIMULI of the general government are withheld, the whole union must feel the loss.

The most common errors in statistics, are the confusion in the use of the following appropriate terms, viz. TAXES, DUTIES, and CONTRIBUTIONS, in relation to revenue or treasury income; and in LOANS, DISTRIBUTIONS, and EXPENDITURES, in relation to the disposition of the essential oil and best stimulus for all industry, both for defence and for the prosperity of every community.

Taxes and expenditures, terms appropriate to foreign expense, often injurious, may weaken any country; but LOANS and DUTIES, and DISTRIBUTIONS and CONTRIBUTIONS, are only wholesome circulations for the general health of the body politic.

DR. PRIESTLY thought with every other statesman, that "it would be well if GOVERNMENT was CONFINED TO THOSE THINGS IN WHICH THE WHOLE SOCIETY ARE INTERESTED." "To make a people happy at home and FORMIDABLE ABROAD, in erecting public works and forming public institutions useful to the whole and to posterity," is their entire duty. (See lectures on general policy.)

The finances and the defence of our country, combining the view to its rapid increase by more MEN and more MONEY from the old world, till our population might average 50 to a square mile, would have been sound policy in the opinion of every American patriot from the time of PENN to this day, if unfortunately the unequal operation of the too complex funding system, had not disturbed the sober patriotism of our rulers of all parties; but as the thing is now past redemption, we pray heaven our rulers may no longer continue too obstinately blind for the future, merely because they were displeased at past events. This would be childish indeed. The whole of the war debt ought to have been funded at pár, at not exceeding 5 per cent. interest; for as untangible or irredeemable 5 per cents would have brought above par at any time since the funding system, this rate would have been enough. It is a curious fact, that by obligating ourselves to pay off the 4 per cent. loans, by short periodical instalments, we lost 100 per cent. on the whole sum, within the first 12 years, besides the benefit of compound interest!!!

If, for example, the government had taken the money payable without day, it would have gone of itself rapidly into the land offices, bringing with it the lenders from Europe.

Our government, therefore, ought to have borrowed a sufficient sum in 1790, to have taken half of the national bank, and on the present plan of state subscriptions, to have contributed one fourth to the stock of one or more banks for each state, suited to the population and growing commerce of the respective districts in which they have since been established, and are daily extending: these would have given 8 to 10 per centum. This plan of the writer, communicated to Mr. Hamilton, in 1791, would have required twelve millions in loans, then easily attainable at 4 and 5 per cent. The certificates, therefore, if made easy in the mode of transfer, like the loan office certificates of the revolutionary war, or like bank post bills, (leaving those who prefer the present embarrassing form to wave the facility of the one proposed) these facile certificates would so far increase the circulating medium as to create an increased demand for the public lands, at 3 to 8 dollars the acre, if they were raised to this price by law. The whole of this loan for these purposes would have been exchanged for the public lands before the year 1803, leaving the United States possessed of above twelve millions additional capital, in the profits only of this stock, or twenty-five millions in the whole, by this simple operation only. Of which profit, five millions might have been invested in turnpike and canal shares, or those great arteries of the union, leaving the bysecting ramifications, or veins, for the body politic to the states.

Abbe Raynal tells us, that the country is yet in a barbarous state, where the general government does not take good care of the principal roads, to mend and extend them wherever they may be useful.

These objects would have given more than was contemplated in the original plan. The compound operation by reinvestment of the

whole profit, would have furnished in bank, canal, and road stock, above sixty millions before the year 1810; and before the year 1835, the whole expenses of the general government, with 30 sail of the line and 60 frigates, could have been supported, without a single cent from any other source.

We do not mean to say, that a simple skeleton of a revenue from luxuries, as well as a certain number of regular troops, are not essential to the well being of a state; for it has ever been found difficult to form either an army or a plan for their support, in a short time. The minds of a free people should be accustomed to enough of both, to know their only use, their consistent eligibility, and the true extent for either.

Many writers have been very full and diffuse on the important subject of national revenue; but they have very generally served to confuse their own brains, in proportion to the extent of their essays, as we hope to shew in our larger book. All we have to say in this place is, that as it is the vice of monarchies only to be too expensive, and of republics, without a single exception, to err on the contrary extreme, we have only to advise that a happy medium may be observed in our country, whenever our public lands may be exhausted, which, with correct management, cannot happen for 50 years, even with a continual war for the whole of the time. But there are, it is to be feared, some inconsiderate persons, even in our legislature, who do not calculate, and therefore suppose that all income into the treasury involves taxation, and that all circulations involve expenditure. But if the same attention to classic propriety were to be observed in future in our treasury reports, as is now exhibited in the stated reports, (see page 111,) a great deal of nonsense might in consequence be expunged, both from legislative debate and from the circular letters of many honest members to their constituents. There certainly ought to be no deception in these ; no trick, however intended, in any communications either to the legislature, or to the people. We ought to leave these little arts to be exclusively used by the pirivileged order in monarchies, who may require such to maintain their usurpations.

There has been also a common error in very general circulation, of incalculable magnitude! It has been said that it would be good policy to return our too scanty loans to Europe, before we proceed to count on the value of our public lands. This absurdity we believe to be without its parallel. The deceptive language of our public documents, in calling wholesome CIRCULATIONS within a commonwealth, expenditure, are in part the origin of this ruinous error. We refer our readers to pages 186 and 197, to prevent further repetitions; and also to the comparative view of the duties of the legislature, page 188; and further, to our view of the present excess of exports, by the annual drains by the premature return of our loans to Europe, pages 198 and 128, will fully explain our meaning. And how came these errors to arise? Where are the calculations on which they

were founded? Who are the authors of the error? It will discover a noble mind in them to acknowledge any accident incident to our infantine and singular experience in finance. To prove the error, we have to shew that government under it, have already been obliged to ask for a reduction from 2 dollars, to one and a quarter for lands, that were brisk at the former price in 1800, till too much of the only stimulus to agriculture and vital principle of commerce was returned to Europe. What member of congress, in possession of an improving estate, bought at a low rate, and payable at his own discretion, would have wantonly obligated himself to pay an annual sum, far beyond the net proceeds, if he found that by a little delay, the profits being greater than the interest, he could pay the whole with more ease and much more to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned? What should we say of such a man, if he had done this with no previous calculation, or no view, no care for the consequences? Where then is the estimate which led to a similar, but a much more dangerous error? For if it had not been for the new bank stock, accidentally created by our merchants for remittances, in which the former four per cents and five per cents are now in part invested by foreigners, there would not have been market money sufficient for the cities only at this time. How much less would the public lands or even those of the middle country command, with but one dollar a head in circulation? Will the lands sell at all; will they command any thing, if we go on with no further loans to counter-check our foreign drains by the excessive depleting acts of our political fathers? These are all important questions at a time when usurious interest on good bills are at 18 per cent. per annum, in our cities, and our banks reduced to check their best friends in consequence. The untimely or premature drains, originally engrafted on our funding system, have already cost our country a difference in the total valuation of all interior and back country property, equal to more than 50 per cent. on above 2500 millions, (see page 196.) Mr. Hamilton saw this the year before his death, but alleged that they were correct, for many reasons, at their institution; because they increased the general circulations; and even now, said he, if new loans for at least the amount, were continually added, which he then believed would have been effected, all would have been right. As Mr. De Pinto's principles support him in this opinion, we will wave our objections; for they are chiefly supported by our belief in the plan for making our national lands a land bank, for the sole and final redemption of all our present debts and future loans.

The acres that compose this land bank, would bring no more now than they did in the days of Powhatan, if we had no more money in circulation; double the specie circulations, and you will find an incredible increase realized in the subsequent sales of every thing now under its ultimate value. Provisions might fall, and so would labour, as the lands approach to something near their intrinsic value, while all real estate would rise beyond the reach of allodial monopoly,

which has occasioned more misery and more revolutions, than any other cause. In short, nothing can be so hostile to the rising interest and liberties of the people, as being cheated out of their national domains; therefore, we shall repeat on all occasions the facts that may be necessary to place an important, but a much neglected truth, in the clearest light in our power.

If government will only refrain, in future, from any further partial donation by grants from the national domains, they will be found amply sufficient of themselves; for the principal and interest of all debts, in lieu of all our national taxes, for at least 50 years to come. Then let the future donations of congress be in certificates only, rather than in lands, and a three-fold benefit may be thereby realized. 1st. The optional position of the receiver will be particularly favorable.

2dly. These certificates may contribute to the circulating medium; and

3dly. If they go to Europe in exchange for specie, they will sooner or later bring the possessors (as many of our former loans, have already done,) to purchase therewith a portion of the public lands, and thus contribute to increase the value of all our real estate, while the certificates die their natural death in the land offices.

The effect of an increase in our circulations by these means, is further explained by reference to the common application of a bucket of water to a dry pump, (see page 188,) where little or nothing could be obtained without the auxiliary loan from a foreign fountain.

In addition to all the preceding notes on the most important subject that ever came before a civilized nation, we state the following, viz. There is but a limited sum to be loaned in any one year by the monied interest of all Europe. Hence, in times of peace, it is sometimes difficult for a nation across the Atlantic, to rival the borrowing powers of Europe; but in times of war, an infant nation at peace, with increasing securities for the discharge of any debt they may be willing to contract, will have an advantage, such as it is our known duty now to embrace, to secure the friendship of the lenders, and to prevent others from using the same money to molest their unoffending commercial neighbors, merely for the pillage to be obtained by such outrage. This we have already experienced from both the British and French; and whenever we have returned all we have borrowed from Europe, our danger from these will be still the greater, for our being so much weakened by the returns, and for having thereby no further ties of friendship on the other side of the Atlantic. An expensive war may probably soon deside our question of prudence.

Mr. William Loton Smith, has hit on a very interesting mode of comparing our state constitutions with each other, and with that of the United States. He complains, with too much reason, that these are less read than those of antiquity. The following is an abridgment, on a more confined scale, with the same views, but with less advantage to the uninformed reader, for want of room in our manual.