Office of Finance, August 28, 1782.
Sir:
I have duly received your several favors of the twenty-second and
twenty-seventh of July, and tenth and thirteenth of August. My not
answering them is owing to causes which you will easily conceive,
because you will easily conceive the multiplicity of objects to which
I must turn my attention. I am very sorry to learn that you can no
longer continue in the office of Receiver. It would have given me great
pleasure that you should have done so, because I am sure that you would
have rendered very signal service to the public cause: this you will
now do in another line, more important, as it is more extensive: and
the justness of your sentiments on public affairs, induces my warm
wish, that you may find a place in Congress so agreeable as that you
may be induced to continue in it.
I should readily have complied with your wish, as to a successor, but
there are many reasons which have called my attention to, and fixed
my choice upon, Doctor Tillotson. We will converse on this subject
when we meet. I am, however, very far from being unmindful of your
recommendations; and although I cannot name the citizen of any State
to settle the accounts of that particular State, consistently with
the general line of conduct I have laid down for myself; yet I shall
do, in other respects, what is in my power. I have not hitherto been
able to fix on a proper Commissioner for the State of New-York. The
office is vacant for New Hampshire and Rhode Island. I inclose you a
copy of the Ordinance on the subject, that you may know the powers,
duties, and emoluments; and I have to request that you offer these
places to Colonel Malcolm and Mr. Lawrence. You will make the first
offer, including the choice, as your own judgment may direct. Should
the gentlemen, or either of them, accept, you will be so kind as to
give me early notice. I will then immediately recommend them to the
States respectively; and on receiving their approbation, the proper
instructions, etc., can be expedited.
I am sorry to learn that any letter of mine should have given offence;
but I conclude that this effect must follow from many parts of my
writings and conduct; because the steady pursuit of what appears to
be the true line of duty, will necessarily cross the various oblique
views of interest and opinion. To offend is sometimes a fault, always
a misfortune. The letter in question is, I suppose, under the date of
the eleventh of December, of which I inclose you a copy. Let me, at
the same time, assure you, that in all your excellent letter of the
thirteenth instant, I most esteem the clause now in question; because
it contains that useful information which is least common. I will make
no apologies for the letter to any one, because apologies are rarely
useful; and where the intention has been good, they are, to candid
minds, unnecessary. Possessed of the facts, you can guard against
misrepresentation; and I have ever found that to be the most hostile
weapon which either my personal or political enemies have been able to
wield against me.
I have not, _even yet_, seen the Resolutions of your Legislature
relative to an extension of the powers of Congress. I had supposed
the same reason for them which you have expressed. Indeed, power is
generally such a darling object with weak minds, that they must feel
extreme reluctance to bid it farewell; neither do I believe that any
thing will induce a general consent to part with it, but a perfect
sense of absolute necessity. This may arise from two sources; the one
of reason, and the other of feeling: the former more safe and more
uncertain; the latter always severe and often dangerous. It is, my dear
sir, in circumstances like this, that a patriot mind, seeking the great
good of the whole, on enlightened principles, can best be distinguished
from those vulgar souls whose narrow optics can see but the little
circle of selfish concerns. Unhappily, such souls are but too common,
and but too often fill the seats of dignity and authority. A firm,
wise, manly system of federal government is what I once wished, what I
now hope, what I dare not expect, but what I will not despair of. Your
description of the mode of collecting taxes, contains an epitome of the
follies which prevail from one end of the continent to the other. There
is no end to the absurdity of human nature. Mankind seem to delight in
contrast and paradox; for surely nothing else could sanctify (during
a contest on the precise point of being taxed by our own consent) the
arbitrary policy which, on this subject, almost universally prevails.
God grant you success in your views to amend it. Your ideas on the
subject are perfectly correspondent to my own. As to your doubt on the
mode of collecting it, I would wish to obviate it by the observation,
that the farther off we can remove the appointment of Collectors from
popular influence, the more effectual will be their operations; and
the more they conform to the views of Congress, the more effectually
will they enable that body to provide for general defence. In political
life, the creature will generally pay some deference to both. The
having a double set of officers is indeed an evil; but a good thing is
not always to be rejected because of that necessary portion of evil
which, in the course of things, must be attached to it. Neither is this
a necessary evil; for, with a proper Federal Government, Army, Navy,
and Revenue, the Civil Administration might well be provided for by a
Stamp Act, Roads by Turnpikes, and Navigations by Tolls.
The account you give of the State is by no means flattering: and
the more true it appears, the more concern it gives me. The loan, I
hope, will be completed; and I wish the _whole_ amount of the tax
may be collected. The Forage plan I have disagreed to; and inclose,
for your information, the copy of my letter, on that subject, to the
Quartermaster General. I believe your State is exhausted: but perhaps
even you consider it as being more so than it is. The Certificates,
which now form a useless load, will (if the United States adopt,
and the several States agree to, a plan now before Congress) become
valuable property. This will afford great relief. The scarcity of
money, also, may be immediately relieved, if the love of popular
favor would so far give way to the love of public good, as to enforce
plentiful taxation. The necessity of having money will always produce
money. The desire of having it, produces, you see, so much as is
necessary to gratify the desire of enjoying foreign luxuries. Turn
the stream, which now flows in the channels of Commerce, to those of
Revenue, and the business is completed. Unfortunately for us, this is
an operation which requires fortitude, perseverance, virtue; and which
cannot be effected by the weak or wicked minds who have only partial,
private, or interested views.
When I consider the exertions which the country you possess has already
made, under striking disadvantages, and with astonishing prodigality of
national wealth, by pernicious modes of applying it; I persuade myself,
that regular, consistent efforts, would produce much more than you
suppose.
* * * * *
I am, with perfect respect,
Your most obedient
And humble servant,
Robert Morris.
To Alexander Hamilton, Esq.