The New-Jersey gazette — Burlington [N.J.], 1779-04-28 00:00:00, page 1

[No. V.]
Mr. Collins,
AFTER I had, in my last, pursued the
consequences and tendencies of the two
different plans under consideration,
with refpeft to found and good policy,
I was prevented to proceed by the
% bounds prescribed to the length of my
pieces. I shall tlkrefore now resume and prosecute
the
2. Relation of tbefe different plans to the rules of
equity and juflice. I confefs it appears to me im
possible to redress this general and advanced evil,
without doing injustice to feme individuals : But it
is inconteftible that the inj uJlice is greatly aggravated
by the greater number it affects-,the ingratitude it might
be attended with, and the greater detriment it may
render to the community in general. —Hence the com
mon faying holds true, of two evils the leaf ought to
be chosen. If we thus compare each plan with the
ftri(ft rules of equity and juflice, we Shall find both
will unavoidably infringe' them : But I humbly con
ceive the one in a much more aggravated degree than
the other.
I. If the tax for recovering the value of our cur
rency be laid on the money itfelf, it seems to threaten
shocking injustice to persons who had their estates in
money before depreciated, and some who have fold
their real estates before the money was quarter so
low as it is now, and others of similar circumstances:
tbefe would be obliged to pay as much tax in pro
portion to the money they possess, as others who got
it fifteen and twenty for one. However, great part
of this injustice might ealily be avoided. Let all the
monies laid up for the maintenance of superannuated,
widows and orphans, be exempted. Also all the
monies brought into our loans before the firft day of
Much, 2778. The reasons for tliis are evident.
These monies stand the refpedive owners at their
original value, they have had no agency in the de
preciation, and are reduceable to certain classes in
the community, without defeending to individuals,
to which (if it was done) there would be no end.
As to those who have fold real property, and come
not within the description aforefaid, the advanced
price has probably been their inducement ; and there
to^ I cannot fee great injustice in their being obliged,
tfke traders, to balance their loss and gain. There
Blmany particular cases of individuals similar to
ULthe injustice which this plan seems to expose
lU^to would be greatly alleviated by considering
them in the fame point of view.—There is one ob
againft this feheme, which in the opinion of
fme, might make it appear very unjust, namely,
tmt the farmers who poflefs the foil of all improved
America, Jbould be exempt from so large a tax in
fk.ng the national debt. Whatever colour of in
justice this objection may carry in the face of it, I
am confident, if thoroughly examined, it will be
^feund void of foundation. Let it only be confidered —
'That this charge supposes several things which arc
not true, as, that the farmers will be free of this
tax. Have they got no money ?If not, it is a fuf
ticient evidence that they have not been guilty of the
depreciation. If they have, they will pay their pro
portionable fharc. In each case it will be just.—
That none but farmers have real property. Have not
merchants houses and other improvements, furniture,
merchandize, Shipping, &c. ? — That this tax is to be
paid for finking the national debt. This I deny ; I
have before proved the contrary. It is for railing
the value of the money. And as much as the depre
ciation has truly funk of the national debt, they have
bore their part. If this tax is laid on real property,
it will not fink, but vaflly increase the real national
debt, as I have before demonstrated.—Let us
2. Next examine how it will square with the rules
of equity and justice, if the tax for recovering the
wine of our currency be laid on real property. I
frankly own it appears to me
1. In its ver, nature unjust and oppressive, because
then the farmers would be compelled to give thousands
and millions to the monied part of the community,
for which neither they nor the community never re
ceived the equivalent, and that to the farmers de
struction. Before I proceed permit me to explain
my meaning, in the use of two terms. If I use the
word monied-man, I mean a person who gets bis living
or has bis eflate chiefly in money, in trade, or bonds,
bills and notes. By farmer I don't mean a person
who has no money, but one who chiefly has bis income
from the produce of bis land. —Now, in order to make
my above assertion evident, let the monied man and
the farmer in this case be placed in their different
filiations, and the injuflice and o,pregion will evidently
appear from the contrail. —Suppefe the monied man
NEW-JERSEY GAZETTE.
[Vol. ll.]
WEDNESDAY, April 28, 1779,
has now an estate of fifty thousand pounds present
value of our currency, in money, bonds, bids or
notes. A farmer has five hundred acres of land,
which would have readily fold four years ago at
five pounds per acre. This land is now worth, ac
cording to the supposed medium at twenty for one,
fifty thousand pounds. Consequently these two are
so far on a par, or of equal estate. The yearly in
terest for the money is £. 3000. If he trades with
it he gets more. According then to the plan of
Congress, this land paying its proportion of tax, in
thirteen years an hundred millions will be funk.
Then thirty millions will remain, which we will sup
pose to be only fufficient for a circulating medium.
The monied man had three thousand per year interek,
his original dock, which was in true value no more
than two thousand five hundred, is now fifty thousand.
But the farmer whose estate was but thirteen years
before equal to his, is now worth two thousand five
hundred. Now only consider how many such able
farmers will have to labour and sweat thirteen years,
to raise this man's estate from two thousand five
hundred to fifty thousand ? And then there arc the
thirty millions of dollars yet to pay, after they have
been reduced to their original value. So that farmers
by thirteen years hard labour, and many by having
their estates fold, will have made the monied men
twenty times as rich as they are now, and encreafed
the true national debt from eight to thirty millions of
dollars. At the fame time the monied men may live
sumptuous and luxuroully, and daily add to their
original dock. If this is ju/lice and equity in a nation,
I confefs I know not what justice is.
2. This injuflice would be Mockingly aggravated
from the multitude it would affect. —Here the monied
men are to be compared to the yeomenry throughout
this vast continent. Ido not presume to determine
in what proportion the number of the latter exceeds
the former. This however none will deny, that the
farmers vastly out-number the others. —To the num
ber of farmers must be added that of all the mc
chanicks and tradesmen, who necessarily must stand,
rife or fall with farmers, as well as day labourers.—
This set of men need no other argument to convince
them of this, than only to recollect the present time.
Though to appearance they made money by railing
tire price of their labour, but in fad they have paid
dear for what they got for that money,' and their
full proportion in what the depreciation has funk
of the national debt. Aik the fobcr and industrious
among them, though they have laboured as hard as
in former days, wncther they have been as well fed
and eloathed as before ? Had foreign and home pro
duce been distributed without monopoly, foreftalling
and extortion, not an individual would have needed
to fufter any want. Now if tiiis class of men have
already felt the fad effects of this evil, while the
monied few have been only preparing to make their
fortunes, what will they feel when tirefe shall ac
tually make them in the proportion of twenty to one ?
Add to these the thousands of brave American sol
diers who voluntarily confined themselves to their
sword and mulket, and waded through seas of blood
and difficulties, and thousands facrificing their lives
for the defence of their country's liberties and pro
perties; while the monied men have been hoarding
up and depreciating millions. And shall these brave
men, betide what they have already fuffered by the
depreciation, be compelled to facrifice what some
of them possess as yet in real property, or their
sweat and labour, to make good the depreciated
money in the hands of those who have hoarded it up
as dust ? What would the rhanes of those heroes who
bravely fell in their country's cause fay, could they
behold their reliefs and offspring engaged in such un
worthy drudgery ?—Now if all the monied men in
this empire be compared with those, as to their col
lective numbers, they will be an insignificant dust in
the balance. And what aggravated injustice woukl
that be to make so many thousands, yea millions
miserable to enrich a few ?
3. This, injustice will fti'l appear more aggravated
if we consider its inseparable ingratitude. —The men
who have served their country mod, are undoubtedly
meft entitled to their country's grateful reward.
Some have served their country in the cabinet, or by
salutary councils given their fellow-citizens at large ;
others in the field.—While our valiant army encoun
tered unparalclicd hardships, and braved danger and
[laughter; while our farmers, mechanicks and trades
men bravely stepped forth from their lawful and
neceflary business, to the great damage of their pri
vate interest, to defend their country in the service
of the militia, at the rilk and hazard of their lives ;
where then were the monied men of the commu
nity? I answer, some fcalking about to hoard up
T HE
,d depreciate our money, and to avoid their duty
in tlie field ; and wlien they could no longer escape
the penalty for negleft of duty, then to'pay their
lines with money they had been purchasing at a low
value. Others were balking in the fanfliine of mo
nopoly, foreftalling and extortion, and withal pam
pering their vile natures in ease, Superfluities and
luxury, if all America had afted such a part, where
would our enemies have been ? Where would we
have oecn ? And are these the men whom we should
reward, by compelling this patriotick collective body,
who at the rilk of their lives and fortunes, have
rescued this country from slavery and depredation,
to give them millions of money for which the com
munity has received no kind of value ? O! incom
parable and fatal ingratitude! Pagans would put us
co the bluih ; whose proverb was mgratum dixeris,
Ct omnia dixeris,
I fincerdy declare, that it appears evident to me,
this aggravated injustice will be inseparable from the
plan of Congress, if carried into effect. Some how
ever may perhaps urge in lupport of this plan,
That the faith of the nation is pledged to make this
„tone, good to its p^orj.—This I deny. It cannot
be proved. The nation has pledged 'its faith that
the money shall be funk by the community, but it
remains still with them to devifc the most equitable,
just and advantageous means for effecting it. The
matter in queJhun is here mistaken. The queflion is
not whether real property shall be taxed to pay the
real national debt ? but whether real property shall be
taxed to make depreciated nominal property good to
depredators ? The evil is unprecedented and lingular,
and so ought the remedy to be.
Allo, that the farmers get monJlrous prices for
their produce, and therefore may and can well pay it.
This hardly deserves an answer, after it is considered
what I have before advanced. If farmers ha%e got
luch monstrous prices, they also will have monstrous
quantities of this money, and pay monstrous taxes -
for their farms will pay still as great in this, as the
money mftance in the former example. The five
hundred acres of the farmer was equal in the present
value to the fifty thousand of the monied-man; but
after the deduction of nineteen in twenty deprecia
tion, this man has twenty-five hundred true value,
and tlie farmer's land is'now worth just that sum,
and no more.
After I liavc endeavoured to place the plan Con
gress seem to have adopted, in its true point of view,
I mutt observe by way of caution, that I sincerely
beg not to be understood as if I intended to insinuate
any apprehenJions of a premeditated deJign in that
""£'^ body, for subverting the democradek govern
ments as now ejiablijbed by and on the authority of the
people, or of injuring any class of their confidents in
favour of another. It is highly probable that there
are among them a few abandoned libertines and
Atheists, who, as they have no God to trust to, ought
to be trusted by none in the community, yet that
body has given us such proofs of their Ikill, found
judgment, confiimmate prudence, patriotic and dif
intcrefted zeal for their country (one or two felf
interefted instances perhaps excepted) as demands
from their constituents becoming reverence and due
refpeft, and a firm confidence that they will most
readily adopt any measures which their own pene
tration, amidst all their accumulating business, or
the more leisure thoughts of their patriotic consti
tuents may suggest, for the real benefit of this em
pire.
As I have sincerely and candidly stated both plans
in their proper position, I think the contrast plainly
ihows that the plan of the real farmer to la, the tax
for retrieving the value of the money, on the money
itfelf, is much more politic, equitable and just, and
so more fiilutary to the community than the other.
The third plan is that of borrowing gold and fiver
from foreign powers, in order therewith to redeem our
continental currency. —To borrow a sum fufficient to
exchange all the emitted paper money, dollar for
dollar, would be one of the wjldeft schemes imagin
able : because the procuring so large a sum is mani
fehly impracticable; and if it could be had, it would
complcat all the national mifchiefs before-mentioned.
Its surplus in circulation would set these champions
to run over a more fatal race, and America be fold
to the power so large a sum was borrowed from. It
appears however that the bonowing a competent
sum would answer a most valuable end, for a remedy
of the evil and advantage of the empire. Let it's
suppose that the depreciation is only fifteen for one
at a medium, and I am positive it is that throughout
the continent, if it is one farthing. Then if our in
ternal national debt is at this value an hundred and
sixty millions of dollars, the true debt, at the redded
[Numb. 73.]