aforesaid invoice, are the current value of the same, at the place of manufacture, and such as he or they should have received, if the same had been then sold in the usual course of trade." The 9th section provides for the appointment of suitable persons at the principal ports, to "examine such goods, wares and merchandize, as the collector may direct, and truly to report, to the best of their knowledge and belief, the true value thereof when purchased, at the place or places from whence the same were imported."

The method of carrying into effect the proposed regulation is hardly less objectionable than the measure itself. The Secretary in his second pithy communication, of Dec. 14, 1824, observes,

"I have also the honor to submit, that importations made by aliens, or on foreign account, may be distinguished from those made by citizens of the United States, by requiring of the persons by whom the same are entered at the custom-house, to state, on oath, on which account the importation is made."

The immoral tendency of requiring oaths on trivial occasions, was well examined in a report to the Assembly of this state, in 1821, by a learned gentleman recently elected to Congress, from this city, and who was then a member of our legislature. By the law proposed by him, oaths were dispensed with from thirty or forty thousand persons, who were formerly compelled, every year, to go through the form of swearing. As the revenue laws now stand, the government not content with a close scrutiny by the custom-house officers, and an appraisement by an authority specially established for that purpose, require a multiplicity of oaths; and every one who is at all acquainted with the details of our revenue system, must be convinced of its tendency to diminish that awe which an appeal to Heaven ought always to excite. Custom-house oaths have in all countries been treated with great levity, and administered in a way little calculated to induce those who take them to appreciate the guilt of false swearing. How easy would it be for an American citizen, not particularly conscientious, by the transfer of the legal title, by means of a supposed or real lien on the property, to satisfy himself that he was the owner and not the consignee? The discriminating system would thus, like most regulations of trade, benefit the unprincipled at the expense of honest men.

It appears from one of the statements annexed to the treasury report,* that the importation of articles paying ad valo

Report, &c. p. 36—6.

rem and specific duties into eight of the principal ports of the United States during the third quarter of 1824, was less in value by $818,196 than during the corresponding quarter of 1823. By reason of the new tariff, however, the nation paid, in three months, at the ports referred to, $409,980 additional taxes while the articles from abroad, which contribute to the comforts and necessaries of life, were diminished by an amount exceeding eight hundred thousand dollars. Were these exactions made to enable the government to support the dignity of the nation by defending its rights against foreign aggression, they ought to be submitted to without murmuring; but we are little acquainted with the principles of equal rights on which our institutions are based, if the spirit of the constitution authorizes the enriching of manufacturers at the expense of all other classes of the people. As the wealth of the nation is the aggregate of that of individuals, any few additional dollars brought into the public treasury can be of no avail in the consideration. Indeed, money is seldom as productively employed by governments as by individuals.

Various estimates are made of the portion of the public debt, which may be annually redeemed, so that the whole loan may be repaid in 1825.* We have doubts whether there is occasion to felicitate the nation on this apparently favorable state of our financial concerns, considering that the increase of revenue has been the result of additional taxation. When money is borrowed and consumed in the support of armies or in the other expenditures incident to war, it is absolutely lost to the nation. It is not intended to say that cases do not arise in which a nation must make a sacrifice of a portion of its wealth to support the rights essential to its sovereignty, and it sometimes happens that this is even required by the true principles of political economy. Should, for example, a million of our property be illegally captured every year, an annual expenditure of half a million in such warlike measures as would prevent future depredations, would be productive of a clear saving of national wealth. But generally the capital disposed of in war is not reproductively employed, and does not remain either with the government or among individuals so as to contribute to the aggregate of the riches of the country. To repay the money borrowed, it is neces

* Report, &c. p. 13.

Our readers will recollect that duties on merchandize are taxes to all intents and purposes.

sary to take from the subjects of the nation, and from its reproductive capital, an amount equal to what has been expended in the vast majority of cases unproductively, to use the language of political economy. The payment of a debt cannot, therefore, make a nation richer; and as loans are frequently contracted abroad, or, at least, a large amount of the stock held by foreigners, by the redemption of the national debt, the capital employed in branches of industry is greatly diminished. By the payment of the existing public loan of the United States, nearly twenty four millions of dollars would be taken from our efficient capital,* unless the facilities of reinvestment should induce the foreign stockholders to place their money in our local stocks. An ignorance of our moneyed institutions would probably prevent this being done to any extent. The public debt of the union has a definite value on 'change' in London and Paris, and an interest even a half per cent. greater than can be procured by investments in English or French funds would induce purchasers. Not so with regard to other American securities. The foreign capitalists may be individually satisfied of their sufficiency, though in this respect they must, in general, yield to government stocks; but as they want the faculty of being at any moment converted into cash, and of always commanding a value in the market, they lose, in the view of the speculator, no small portion of their value. We would certainly not wish to be the advocates of the creation of a national debt, but its principal evil-the unproductive consumption of wealth, has already taken place in relation to the existing public stocks. In a political point of view, the repayment of the loan is to be regretted as weakening the the chains which bind together the members of the confederacy. The proprietors of the government stock residing in different sections of the union are attached to the existing order of things by considerations of individual interest, the most powerful motives that can govern the actions of men. That

* Of the amount of the public debt of the United States due on the 1st of October 1824, there was held

patriotism sometimes requires aid from such sources, the history of every country will demonstrate.

The most singular part of the Treasury report is that which relates to the last loan negociated with the Bank of the United States. Not to be charged with misrepresentation, we give the Secretary's own words.

"Although the individual offers are, apparently, more favorable than that of the bank, yet, taking into consideration that the government is the proprietor of one-fifth of the capital of the bank, and that a portion of the means of the bank, equal to the amount of the loan, would otherwise have been unemployed; the offer of the bank at par, was decidedly the most advantageous to the government; being equal to an individual offer of 4 3-4 per cent. premium."*

We trust that we showed sufficiently, when speaking of "Restrictions on Banking," that a bank has not the power of increasing its issues beyond its means of redemption. It is not easier, therefore, for such an institution, than for an individual possessing the same capital and furnished with the same deposits, to lend a given sum of money. The Secretary's reasoning must proceed on the supposition that when capitalists and moneyed associations throughout the union were obtaining from five to seven per cent. for their loans, the Bank of the United States was so badly managed, that one-seventh part of its whole capital would have been absolutely unproductive if it had not been borrowed by government. If, indeed, the bank could have obtained for its money one per cent. per annum from other sources, the statement in the report is incorrect. But even if money was so little in demand that no one could be found to take it of the bank at one per cent., would not that fact alone have brought down the market price so that the government might have borrowed at a rate considerably less than that actually offered by individuals or given by the bank? Had the foregoing extravagant suppositions been correct, would it have affected the government's interest in the bank, if the offers of that institution had been refused, and the money procured from individuals? A demand in the market would have taken place equal to the void caused by the loan to government, and the bank would have been able to supply the deficiency at the rate at which those who lent to the United States previously furnished their borrowers.-Without pursuing this subject farther, we would ask what will be the effect of the Treasury decision on the biddings of capitalists for future loans?

In our view of the great national questions which we have considered, we have endeavored to take as our land marks,

* Report, &c. p. 14.

those immutable principles, which, like the discoveries of Galileo, may be proscribed, but cannot be refuted. We are aware that it has been fashionable for those who esteem it too much trouble to think for themselves, and who are willing to trust implicitly in the artificial theories of their forefathers, to stigmatise the science of political economy as a collection of "new-fangled notions." Nothing, however, can better illustrate who is right in the view of untutored common sense, than an anecdote related in the journal of a voyage made by a British officer to the coast of Spanish America, since the independence of the new states has been established. On enquiring of a mountaineer of Mexico, his sentiments as to the recent political events in his country, Captain Hall received this answer: "My opinion of the free trade rests on this; formerly I paid nine dollars for the piece of cloth of which this shirt is made, I now pay two;--that forms-my opinion of the free trade."

THE POET'S SOLILOQUY.

My thoughts are not like those of other men,
I feel not as they feel;

But how, or why, or when

The power creative moulded me to be
Such as I am, and must be still,

I know not; but whate'er perchance I see
Or hear, wakes thoughts to reason unallied,
In union strange by fancy tied,

Or wild caprice, the only law to me.

But this I know, that nothing mean or base,
Or cruel or unkind,

Can find a moment's place

In my unfettered thoughts, where'er they go;
Nor will I bend the knee or mind

To vulgar wit or vulgar greatness, though,
Like the armed fowl, in gorgeous plumes arrayed,
Before their fellows they parade;

I leave them, on their barn-yard heap to crow.

For I was called of nobler things to tell;

New worlds I can create,

And in them I can dwell;

Worlds, that shall live and bloom, when I am dead,

Beyond the power of time or fate:

There others' spirits shall go, fancy-led

There hold communion with each breathing thought,

And hail the genius of the spot,

When earth's cold clods lie heavy on my head.