deemed it disadvantageous to them, lest a refusal should deter other nations from treating with them in future. It is by this line of conduct that public credit can alone be supported.
Mr. MADISON. The constitutionality of the proposition had been drawn into question. He (Mr. Madison) asked whether words could be devised that would place the new government more precisely in the same relation to the real creditors with the old. The power was the same; the objection was the same: the means only were varied.
If the gentlemen persisted, however, in demanding precedents, he was happy in being able to gratify them with two, which, though not exactly parallel, were, on that account, of the greater force, since the interposition of government had taken place where the emergencies could less require them. The first was the case of the Canada bill. During the war which ended in 1763, and which was attended with a revolution in the government of Canada, the supplies obtained for the French army in that province were paid for in bills of exchange and certificates. This paper depreciated, and was bought up chiefly by British merchants. The sum and the depreciations were so considerable as to become a subject of negotiation between France and Great Britain at the peace. The negotiation produced a particular article, by which it was agreed by France that the paper ought to be redeemed, and admitted by Great Britain that it should be redeemed, at a stipulated value. In the year 1766, this article was accordingly carried into effect by ministers from the two courts, who reduced the paper, in the hands of the British holders, in some instances as much as seventy-five per cent. below its nominal value. It was stated, indeed, by the reporter of the case, that the holders of the paper had themselves concurred in the liquidation; but it was not probable that the concurrence was voluntary. If it was voluntary, it shows that they themselves were sensible of the equity of the sacrifice.
The other case was of still greater weight, as it had no relation to war or to treaty, and took place in the nation which had been held up as a model with respect to public credit. In the year 1715, the civil list of Great Britain had fallen in arrears to the amount of £500,000. The creditors who had furnished supplies to the government, had, instead of money, received debentures only from respectable officers. These had depreciated. In that state they were assigned in some instances; in others, covenanted to be assigned. When the Parliament appropriated funds for satisfying these arrears, they inserted an express provision in the act, that the creditors who had been obliged, by the defaults of government, to dispose of their paper at a loss, might redeem it from the assignees by repaying the actual price, with an interest of six per cent., and that all agreements and covenants to assign should be absolutely void. Here, then, was an interposition on the very principle that a government ought to redress the wrongs sustained by its default, and on an occasion trivial when compared with that under consideration; yet it does not appear that the public credit of its nation was injured by it.
Slave Trade.—On committing the Memorial of the Quakers on the Slave Trade.
House of Representatives, March, 1790.
Mr. TUCKER said, he conceived the memorial to be so glaring an interference with the Constitution, that he had hoped the house would
