210 Progress of Population and Wealth 



and supposing the decennial increase of population to have ave- 

 raged 33| per cent, that of wealth has been 53 per cent. 



According to the view that has been taken of the resources of 

 these States, their public debts, on the most liberal estimate made of 

 them, bear an insignificant proportion to their means. Supposing 

 the amount of those debts to be 200 millions of dollars, at an interest 

 of 6 per cent, the annual charge is $12,000,000, which is little more 

 than 1 per cent of their income in 1840, and may be presumed to 

 be less than 1 per cent of their present income. But if they were 

 all to provide for the punctual payment of this interest, and thus re- 

 store that confidence in the national faith which once existed, or 

 even make an approach to it, the debt could be readily converted at 

 par into a five, or even four per cent stock, and the excess would be 

 sufficient for a sinking fund that would discharge the debt in thirty 

 years or less. In this interval, too, as wealth would be steadily in- 

 creasing, the burthen would become lighter and lighter, and in 

 twenty-five years, it would bear but a third or a fourth of its pre- 

 sent rate on the value of property. 



With such ample means of complying with their engagements, the 

 States have not a shadow of excuse for not faithfully fulfilling them. 

 It is true that these debts are distributed among them very unequal- 

 ly, because their affairs have been administered with very unequal 

 degrees of wisdom and forbearance ; but even those States which 

 are most encumbered, may provide for the payment of interest by a 

 moderate tax which shall be made to bear on all sources of revenue. 

 Thus the debt of Pennsylvania, estimated at $40,000,000, bears, at 5 

 per cent, an annual interest of $2,000,000. The income of this 

 State was, in 1840, $131,000,000, and is probably at this time not 

 less than $150,000,000. A nett revenue of only 1^ per cent of that 

 income would produce the $2,000,000 required. 



But were the burthen yet greater, and the means of discharging 

 them yet less, no State which does not set a higher value on pro- 

 perty than integrity, can consent to a violation of the national faith ; 

 nor would any right-minded citizen deem the saving thus effected 

 any compensation for the stain of national infamy it would leave 

 behind it. But the public sentiment of the Union, to say nothing of 

 our character abroad, to which we never have been and never 

 ought to be indifferent, is so decided on this subject, that it is impos- 

 sible the people of any State can permanently resist it. Even the 

 excuses and pretences which were but too successfully urged by 

 those who make a political traffic of their principles when the first 



