On general principles of law and reason, debts contracted in the name of
"the United States," or of "the people of the United States," are of no
validity. It is utterly absurd to pretend that debts to the amount of
twenty-five hundred millions of dollars are binding upon thirty-five or
forty millions of people, when there is not a particle of legitimate
evidence--such as would be required to prove a private debt--that can be
produced against any one of them, that either he, or his properly
authorized attorney, ever contracted to pay one cent.
Certainly, neither the whole people of the United States, nor any number
of them, ever separately or individually contracted to pay a cent of
these debts.
Certainly, also, neither the whole people of the United States, nor any
number of them, ever, by any open, written, or other authentic and
voluntary contract, united themselves as a firm, corporation, or
association, by the name of "the United States," or "the people of the
United States," and authorized their agents to contract debts in their
name.
Certainly, too, there is in existence no such firm, corporation, or
association as "the United States," or "the people of the United
States," formed by any open, written, or other authentic and voluntary
contract, and having corporate property with which to pay these debts.
How, then, is it possible, on any general principle of law or reason,
that debts that are binding upon nobody individually, can be binding
upon forty millions of people collectively, when, on general and
legitimate principles of law and reason, these forty millions of people
neither have, nor ever had, any corporate property? never made any
corporate or individual contract? and neither have, nor ever had, any
corporate existence?
Who, then, created these debts, in the name of "the United States"? Why,
at most, only a few persons, calling themselves "members of Congress,"
etc., who pretended to represent "the people of the United States," but
who really represented only a secret band of robbers and murderers, who
wanted money to carry on the robberies and murders in which they were
then engaged; and who intended to extort from the future people of the
United States, by robbery and threats of murder (and real murder, if
that should prove necessary), the means to pay these debts.
This band of robbers and murderers, who were the real principals in
contracting these debts, is a secret one, because its members have never
entered into any open, written, avowed, or authentic contract, by which
they may be individually known to the world, or even to each other.
Their real or pretended representatives, who contracted these debts in
their name, were selected (if selected at all) for that purpose secretly
(by secret ballot), and in a way to furnish evidence against none of the
principals _individually_; and these principals were really known
_individually_ neither to their pretended representatives who contracted
these debts in their behalf, nor to those who lent the money. The money,
therefore, was all borrowed and lent in the dark; that is, by men who
did not see each other's faces, or know each other's names; who could
not then, and cannot now, identify each other as principals in the
transactions; and who consequently can prove no contract with each
other.
Furthermore, the money was all lent and borrowed for criminal purposes;
that is, for purposes of robbery and murder; and for this reason the
contracts were all intrinsically void; and would have been so, even
though the real parties, borrowers and lenders, had come face to face,
and made their contracts openly, in their own proper names.
Furthermore, this secret band of robbers and murderers, who were the
real borrowers of this money, having no legitimate corporate existence,
have no corporate property with which to pay these debts. They do indeed
pretend to own large tracts of wild lands, lying between the Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans, and between the Gulf of Mexico and the North Pole.
But, on general principles of law and reason, they might as well pretend
to own the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans themselves; or the atmosphere and
the sunlight; and to hold them, and dispose of them, for the payment of
these debts.
Having no corporate property with which to pay what purports to be their
corporate debts, this secret band of robbers and murderers are really
bankrupt. They have nothing to pay with. In fact, they do not propose to
pay their debts otherwise than from the proceeds of their future
robberies and murders. These are confessedly their sole reliance; and
were known to be such by the lenders of the money, at the time the money
was lent. And it was, therefore, virtually a part of the contract, that
the money should be repaid only from the proceeds of these future
robberies and murders. For this reason, if for no other, the contracts
were void from the beginning.
In fact, these apparently two classes, borrowers and lenders, were
really one and the same class. They borrowed and lent money from and to
themselves. They themselves were not only part and parcel, but the very
life and soul, of this secret band of robbers and murderers, who
borrowed and spent the money. Individually they furnished money for a
common enterprise; taking, in return, what purported to be corporate
promises for individual loans. The only excuse they had for taking these
so-called corporate promises of, for individual loans by, the same
parties, was that they might have some apparent excuse for the future
robberies of the band (that is, to pay the debts of the corporation),
and that they might also know what shares they were to be respectively
entitled to out of the proceeds of their future robberies.
Finally, if these debts had been created for the most innocent and
honest purposes, and in the most open and honest manner, by the real
parties to the contracts, these parties could thereby have bound nobody
but themselves, and no property but their own. They could have bound
nobody that should have come after them, and no property subsequently
created by, or belonging to, other persons.