Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1847-10-23

| no longer to-day's! Who shall say when gene
ration began, or when it is 10 end /! Admit the
doctrine, and Reputation will forthwith tell you
that yesterdays debt was contracted by genera
ton which ceased to-day. But to the passage:
"I wise rule, and should DO fundamental in Govern
disposed to cherish its credit and at the time to
restrain the of it within the limits of its faculties
to borrow dollar without laying tax, in the instant,
for paying the interest annually and the principal Oia
given term and to consider that tao pledged to the credi
the public faith On such pledge this sacredy
Observed Government may always command, a
BILE interest," all the endabe money of its citizens whilst the
necessity of equivalent tax is sautary warning to them
and to their constituents against oppreson bankruptcy, and
its inevitable MISREPRESENTATION But the term Of
dempon must be moderate and, at any rate, oithn the
limit Of their righful po,oes. But what limits, il will be
asked, does this prescribe their powers What to hin
der them from creating perpetual debt The h,cs
of nature.
"The earth belongs the living, the dead The
will and power of man expire with his life by natures law
Some societies give 1T artificial continuance, for the en-
enlargement of industry Some refuse it aboriginal
neghbos whom call barbaans The generations of men
may be considered bodies corporations Each genera
ton has the uuct of the earth during the period of its
continuance When it to exist, that usuruct passes
to the succeeding generaon free and unincumbeed and
to and from generation 10 another, for We
may consid each generation distinct nation, with
right by the will of majority to bind themselves but none
TO bind the succeeding generation than the inhabitants
of another country Or the may be ikened ohe ord
nary of tenant for life, who may hypothecate the land
for his debts, during the continuance of his usuuc but
his death the reversioner (ho for life only receives
oaerated from all burdens The period of generation,
its OF life, is determined by the laws of mortality which,
varying little only in different climates, offer general
rage to be found by observation turn for instance Bu
ons tables of 23994 Deaths and the ages which they
happened and find that of the numbers of all ages living
LII, .,y
eight months But leaving the minors who have not
the power of segovernment of the adults of agel living
moment majority of whom act for society," half
will be dead in eighteen years and eight months. AT nine
teen years, them from the date of contract the majority of
the dead, and their with them Let
this general theory be applied to particular Suppose
the annual nalf? births of the State of New York to be
%, 994, the number Of its ae 2? inhabitants according
Button, will be 6l7,703 Of all ages OF these, there would
constantly be 269 2s6 minors, and 34S AIT adults of which
last l742 O9 will be maority Suppose that majority,
the first day Of June, 1894, had borrowed of money
equal to the simple of the State and to have consumed
in eating and drinking and making merry in their day or, if
please, in quaeng and fighting with their unoending
neighbors. Within eighteen gears and eight aont one
half of the adult citizens dead Till then, being the
ory they might rghtfuy levy the interest of their debt
nualy on themselves and their eow-revellers, fellow
champions But, at that period, say this moment,
majority have into place, in their right and not
under the rights the conditions, the laws OF their pede
Are they bound consider the debt consider
the preceding generation having had right the
whole of the soil of their country in the of life
ALLEVIATE it from them, for il would be alienation to the
creditors j and would they think themselves either legally
morally bound to give up their country and emgrate to
another for subsistence Every will say No' The
soil is the gift of God to the Epag much il had been
the deceased generation and the aW Of nature imposes
obligation them TO pay this debt And although like
other natural rights this has not yet entered into any De-
caraton of Rights is less law, and ought to be act
ed upon by all honest Governments 1t is at the time,
salutary curb the spirit of and Indictment which,
since he dem Of Of has
drenched the earth with blood and crushed its inhabitants
der burdens accumuang Had this principle been de-
cared in the British Bill of Rights England would have
been placed under the happy disability OF wagng eternal
and Of contracting her thousand millions Of Public debt"
[Jeersons Correspondence, VOL v, p 202 Letter to John
w EPpas, J.ss'es24, 1873
The doctrine of this Letter, so repugnant not
merely to all just ideas of public faith but also to
that great conservative principle of the Constitution
of the United States which forbids the passage of
any erpost facto law law imparing the obligation
of contracts, is only the more dangerous and the
more requiring reprobaon, from its being brought
forward under the sanction of great name. Ii
becomes an indispensable duty, indeed, now that
this almost forgotten letter is reproduced in a
to give countenance to principles utterly dsor
ganzng, that the press should without reserve de-
clare its sentiment in regard TO it, Such least
consider to be our indispensable duty.
Look, then, at the great fundamental proposition,
with which he begins this part of his deductions
Is The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.
Can there be looser, vaguer proposition, less
true as an invariable truth, more requiring that
wise and sincere man should define and limit what
he means by it, before he argues from it Surely
the writer of the letter was logcian enough 10 know
the axiom that fraus iatet Su6 generah-that !" a
fraud turks under generality" broad and loose
proposition, from which, if admitted, all sorts of
things may be inferred and that he who propounds
such intends to impose upon you. He must have
known, or should have known, a logican, rea-
soner, that logic itselfthe art of reasoning rightly
is nothing else but the taking to argue only from
certain premises to their legitimate conclusions that
nothing can be reasoned upon until it has been de-
fined and that the entire art of sophistry, Of
soning wrong, or rather Of moi reasoning while you
seem to reason, consists in this getting admitted for
you deceptive premises, which are partly true, but
not in that TO which you mean TO apply them. This
is the capital the almost universal trick of all So
phlsiry; and in the above letter il used broadly
and openly that 1t is difficult to believe that any
man of his understanding can have done it other
wise than Intentionally
II il be true that, because " the earth belongs to
the living, not TO the dead' and because the will
and power oEman expire with his life by nature
law" one generation cannot, as a society, make a
contract which shall continue to the property