I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons,
as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep
a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the
charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into
execution.
II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased
persons shall be ascertained.
III. When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be
ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the
co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age the person authorized by the
will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the
commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four
equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the
choice of the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain as a
security until the bond be paid off.
IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of
the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national
bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount
of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been
paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.
V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the
bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay
the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving
at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to
suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their
right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater
degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary
register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus
suspending that right, at least during the present war.
VI. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in
four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always
be _numeraire_ [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the
first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.
VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all
possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times
the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with
_numeraire_ continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off
whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire
a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be
received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to numeraire, because
the government can always receive numeraire for them at the bank.
VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent, be
made in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan.
But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property
may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in
numeraire, If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at
the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount;
and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the
fund, equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create
means to carry itself into execution.
Thomas Paine.