of which would be a fatal bar to the establishment of national credit. Instead of enlarging on these topics, two observations are submitted to the justice and wisdom of the legislatures. First, the present creditors, or rather the domestic part of them, having either made their loans for a period which has expired, or having become creditors, in the first instance, involuntarily, are entitled, on the clear principles of justice and good faith, to demand the principal of their credits, instead of accepting the annual interest. It is necessary, therefore, as the principal cannot be paid to them on demand, that the interest should be so effectually and satisfactorily secured, as to enable them, if they incline, to transfer their stock at its full value. Secondly, if the funds be so firmly constituted as to inspire a thorough and universal confidence, may it not be hoped that the capital of the domestic debt, which bears the high interest of six per cent., may be cancelled by other loans obtained at a more moderate interest? The saving by such an operation would be a clear one, and might be a considerable one.
Thus much for the interest of the national debt: for the discharge of the principal within the term limited, we rely on the natural increase of the revenue from commerce, on requisitions to be made from time to time for that purpose, as circumstances may dictate, and on the prospect of vacant territory. If these resources should prove inadequate, it will be necessary, it the expiration of twenty-five years, to continue the funds now recommended, or to establish such others as may then be found more convenient.
With a view to the resource last mentioned, as well as to obviate disagreeable controversies and confusions, Congress have included in their present recommendations a renewal of those of the 6th day of September, and of the 10th day of October, 1780. In both these respects, a liberal and final accommodation of all interfering claims of vacant territory is an object which cannot be pressed with too much solicitude.
The last object recommended is a constitutional change of the rule by which a partition of the common burdens is to be made. The expediency, and even necessity, of such a change, has been sufficiently enforced by the local injustice and discontents which have proceeded from valuations of the soil in every state where the experiment has been made. But how infinitely must these evils be increased, on a comparison of such valuations among the states themselves! On whatever side, indeed, this rule be surveyed, the execution of it must be attended with the most serious difficulties. If the valuations be referred to the authorities of the several states, a general satisfaction is not to be hoped for. If they be executed by officers of the United States traversing the country for that purpose, besides the inequalities against which this mode would be no security, the expense would be both enormous and obnoxious. If the mode taken in the act of the 17th day of February last, which was deemed, on the whole, least objectionable, be adhered to, still the insufficiency of the data to the purpose to which they are to be applied must greatly impair, if not utterly destroy, all confidence in the accuracy of the result; not to mention that, as far as the result can be at all a just one, it will be indebted, for that advantage, to the principle on which the rule proposed to be substituted is founded. This rule, although not free from objections, is liable to fewer than any other that could be devised. The only material difficulty which attended it in the deliberations of Congress, was to fix the proper difference between the labor and industry of free inhabitants and of all other inhabitants. The ratio ultimately agreed
