North America-2 [144]
know that Pennsylvania behaved badly about her money affairs, although she did at last pay her debts. We all know that Mississippi has behaved very badly about her money affairs, and has never paid her debts, nor does she intend to pay them. And, which is worse than this, for it applies to the nation generally and not to individual States, we all know that it was made a matter of boast in the States that in the event of a war with England the enormous amount of property held by Englishmen in the States should be confiscated. That boast was especially made in the mercantile City of New York; and when the matter was discussed it seemed as though no American realized the iniquity of such a threat. It was not apparently understood that such a confiscation on account of a war would be an act of national robbery justified simply by the fact that the power of committing it would be in the hands of the robbers. Confiscation of so large an amount of wealth would be a smart thing, and men did not seem to perceive that any disgrace would attach to it in the eyes of the world at large. I am very anxious not to speak harsh words of the Americans; but when questions arise as to pecuniary arrangements, I find myself forced to acknowledge that great precaution is at any rate necessary. But, nevertheless, I am not sure that we shall be fair if we allow ourselves to argue as to the national purpose in this matter from such individual instances of dishonesty as those which I have mentioned. I do not think it is to be presumed that the United States as a nation will repudiate its debts because two separate States may have been guilty of repudiation. Nor am I disposed to judge of the honesty of the people generally from the dishonest threatenings of New York, made at a moment in which a war with England was considered imminent. I do believe that the nation, as a nation, will be as ready to pay for the war as it has been ready to carry on the war. That "ignorant impatience of taxation," to which it is supposed that we Britons are subject, has not been a complaint rife among the Americans generally. We, in England, are inclined to believe that hitherto they have known nothing of the merits and demerits of taxation, and have felt none of its annoyances, because their entire national expenditure has been defrayed by light custom duties; but the levies made in the separate States for State purposes, or chiefly for municipal purposes, have been very heavy. They are, however, collected easily, and, as far as I am aware, without any display of ignorant impatience. Indeed, an American is rarely impatient of any ordained law. Whether he be told to do this, or to pay for that, or to abstain from the other, he does do and pay and abstain without grumbling, provided that he has had a hand in voting for those who made the law and for those who carry out the law. The people generally have, I think, recognized the fact that they will have to put their necks beneath the yoke, as the peoples of other nations have put theirs, and support the weight of a great national debt. When the time comes for the struggle, for the first uphill heaving against the terrible load which they will henceforth have to drag with them in their career, I think it will be found that they are not ill inclined to put their shoulders to the work. Then as to their power of paying the bill! We are told that the wealth of a nation consists in its labor, and that that nation is the most wealthy which can turn out of hand the greatest amount of work. If this be so, the American States must form a very wealthy nation, and as such be able to support a very heavy burden. No one, I presume, doubts that that nation which works the most, or works rather to the best effect, is the richest. On this account England is richer than other countries, and is able to bear, almost without the sign of an effort, a burden which would crush any other land. But of this wealth the States own almost as much as Great Britain owns. The population of the Northern States is industrious, ambitious