The Weekly register., 1843-09-02
NUMBER 25.
The humble petition of the Rev. sgd
ney Smith, to the House of Congress

az washington. =,
81 Ipetition your honorable House to
institute some measures for the restora-
ton Of American credit, and for the re-
payment of debts incurred and repudia-
| ted by several of the States. Your petit
toner lent to the State Of Pennsylvania
a sum of money for the purpose of some
public Improvement. The amount, tho
small, is TO hiniimportant, and is sa-
wing from life income, made with diff
iculty and privation. If their refusal
TO pay (frenn which very large num-
Der of English families are suiIering)
had been the result of war, pronounced
by the unjust aggression of powerful en-
emies; ifit had arisen from civil discord;
if it had proceeded from an improvident
application of means in the first year of
self government; if it were the act of
poor state, struggling against the bar
renness of nature-every friend of A
merica would have been contented to
wait for better times, but the fraud is
committed in the profound peace of
Pennsylvania by the richest State in the
Union, after the, wise investment of the
borrowed money II roads and canals, of
which the repudiators are every day
reaping the advantage. 1t is an act of
bad faith which (aIl its circumstances
considered) has no parallel, and no ex-
cuse.
'Nor isit only the loss of property
which your petitioner laments; ne la
ments still more that great and I'M
mense. power which tho bad faith OF
America has given to aristocratical O.
pinions, and to the enemies of free insti-
tutions in the old world. 1t is in vain
any longer to appeal to history, and to
point out the wrongs which the many
| have received from the few The AM
orleans, who boast 10 have improved the
| institutions of the old world, have at
least equaiIed its crimes. A'great ma
tion, after trainpIing under foot all earth
ly tyranny, has been guilty Of q fraud
as enormous as ever disgraced the worst
king of the most degraded nation Of Eu-
rope.
at is most painful to your petitioner
to see that American citizens excite
wherever they may go, the recollection
that they belong to dishonest people,
who pride themselves on having tricked
and piIlaged Europe; and this mark is
fixed, by their faithless legislators, on
some Of the best and most honorable
men in the world, whom every English
man has been eager TO see, and proud to
receive.
sIt is subject of serious concern in
your petitioner that you are losing all
that power which the friends of freedom
rejoiced that you possessed, looking up
on you as the ark of human happiness,
and the most splendid picture of justice
and of wisdom that the world had yet
seen. Little did the friends Of America
expect it, and sad is the spectacle, to see
you rejected by every State in Europe.
as nation with whom no contract can
be made, because none viii be kept; un-
stable in the very, foundations of social
life, deficient III the elements of good
faith, men who prefer any load of in
fanny however great,to any pressure Of
taxation, however light. : 20.
"Nor' is it only this gigantic bank
rupicy for SO many degrees of longitude
and latitude which your petitioner de-
plores, but he is alarmed also by that
total want OF shame with which these
things have been done, the callous inn
morality with which Europe has been
plundered, that deadness of the moral
sense which seems to preclude all re-
turn to honesty, TO perpetrate this new
infamy, and to threaten its extension o.
yer every State Of the Union. II
ssTo any man of real philanthropy,
who receives pleasure from the inn
proyements Of the world, the repudia-
ton Of the public debts Of America, and
the shameless manner, in which it has
been talked Of and done, is the most mel
ancholy event which has happened du.
ring the existence of the present gene-
ration. Your petitioner Sincerely Hrays
that the great and good men still existing
among you may, by teaching TO the Uni
a. i Al y A