It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of
men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it:
it is our business to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that
are derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues are rare, so
they must be unproductive. It is a good thing for a monied man to pledge
his property on the welfare of his country; he shows that he places his
treasure where his heart is; and, revolving in this circle, we know that
"wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also." For these
reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the attempts
which have been made, with more good meaning than foresight and
consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by
private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is established,
there voluntary contribution can answer no purpose, but to disorder
and disturb it in its course. To recur to such aids is, for so much, to
dissolve the community, and to return to a state of unconnected nature.
And even if such a supply should be productive, in a degree commensurate
to its object, it must also be productive of much vexation, and much
oppression. Either the citizens, by the proposed duties, pay their
proportion according to some rate made by public authority, or they
do not. If the law be well made, and the contributions founded on just
proportions, everything superadded by something that is not as regular
as law, and as uniform in its operation, will become more or less out
of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be not made upon proper
calculation, it is a disgrace to the public wisdom, which fails in skill
to assess the citizen in just measure, and according to his means. But
the hand of authority is not always the most heavy hand. It is obvious,
that men may be oppressed by many ways, besides those which take their
course from the supreme power of the state. Suppose the payment to be
wholly discretionary. Whatever has its origin in caprice, is sure not to
improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is impossible for each
private individual to have any measure conformable to the particular
condition of each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies
of his country. 'Tis a random shot at best.
When men proceed in this irregular mode, the first contributor is apt to
grow peevish with his neighbours. He is but too well disposed to
measure their means by his own envy, and not by the real state of their
fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which it may in them be an act
of the grossest imprudence to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude,
with which people will look upon a provision for the public, which
is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet. Hence the bitter
heart-burnings, and the war of tongues, which is so often the prelude
to other wars. Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver. A false shame, or a false
glory, against his feelings and his judgment, may tax an individual to
the detriment of his family, and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence
of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private
duties. It may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions
which he is to furnish according to the prescript of the law; but what
is the most dangerous of all is, that malignant disposition to which
this mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length leaves
the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to prescribe to
the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to
make of their fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the subversion
of all property.