The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1845-04-21

|cmbdrfaosmcnt ana insolvency III many III
stances.
A forcible writer ia Frazer's Magazine has
graphic description Of the miseries Of being IN
debt. He says. believe me that Of all kinds OF
tyranny by which the spirit Of man Is bowed
down and crushed, and all his energies, moral
and physical, parayzed and withered. there is
none SO active in its oppression, and 50 bitter 10
lis torture, as that which creditor exercises
over his debtor. II is tyranny which can even
quell the springing elasticity OF youths san
guine ambition Observe, TOO, thar Its ex-
slence does not merely depend upon the
disposition or acts of the master. The
latter may be the mldest and most long suffer
ing man upon earth and so far from endeavor-
ing roughly to enforce his claims, may even re-
frain from asserting them. STU by the very
nature of the relation of which subsists between
the parties is the debtor reduced TO the condi-
lion of his bondsmen or serf; for the real inten-
sity of the tyranny consists in this that the ere
dlor has ever in his service an othcious and in-
defatgable agent, who acts not only without his
orders, but often in spite OF his express wishes,
and that agent is the memory OF the indebted
party. The master may be willing to give time
TO his slave,-he may even desire him DOT TO be
dsquieted by the apprehensons of violence
but can the latter forget the existence of an obi
gait on which may be forced upon his memory
by the slightest circumstance of the passing mo
menl2 Can he forget, too, that, however hu-
name his present lord may be, his rights and
claims may. after his death, pass to another oil
imperious aud violent temper. Such are some
Of the considerations which make the mere ex-
istence of debt, without any other aggravatlng
circumstances, in itself tyranny oil the most
loathsome description. The parish pauper, des-
picabe as his lot may appear, enjoys higher
degree of liberty and independence than the
man who has put it into the power Of another
to come up to him aud say, 'pay me what thou
owest.' Think not that my description is over
charged. The fool and the prohigate would
laugh at the picture which have displayed TO
you-the one owing to his mental in6rmity, not
being able TO understand true libery-the other
from the baseness Of his nature, being dead TO
the degradation of servtude. But the man Of
an ingenious and sensitive disposition, will rea-
Oily allow that there are letters for the mind as
well as the body and that, in order to be APP
prised of subsection to bondage, il is not ne
cessary that one should actually hear the clank
of the iron chains"
Another circumstance which tends TO make
the debtors constrant more intolerable, is, that
= Il :, Il
stoned or expedited by his own weakness and
folly. A weak submission TO the imperious yet
trihng mandates Of fashion, a vain competition
in the race OF extravagance with more wealthy
compeers, and shameful compliance with the
suggestions of unhealthy and artificial appetites
these are some Of the principal causes which
sometimes separately, but more frequently in
close league together, entangle the young man
in the tolls of debt.
D'I6aeli says that if youth but knew the fatal
misery that they are entailing on themselves the
moment they accept pecuniary credit to which
they are not entitled, how they would start in
their career! how pale they would turn how
they would tremble and clasp their hands in
agony a. which they are disporting Debt is
the prolific mother Of crime ii iainrs the course
Of life in all its streams. Hence so many I'M
happy marriages, so many prostituted pens, and
vena politicians IL hath small beginning,
but giants growth and strength. When we
make the monster, we make our master, who
haunts us at all hours, and shakes his whip of
scorpions forever in our sight. The slave hath
no overseer so severe. Fauslus, when he sign
ed the bond with blood, did H.. secure doom
so terrific.