Should a surplus be permitted to accumulate beyond the appropriations,
it must be retained in the Treasury, as it now is, or distributed among
the people or the States.
To retain it in the Treasury unemployed in any way is impracticable; it
is, besides, against the genius of our free institutions to lock up in
vaults the treasure of the nation. To take from the people the right of
bearing arms and put their weapons of defense in the hands of a standing
army would be scarcely more dangerous to their liberties than to permit
the Government to accumulate immense amounts of treasure beyond the
supplies necessary to its legitimate wants. Such a treasure would
doubtless be employed at some time, as it has been in other countries,
when opportunity tempted ambition.
To collect it merely for distribution to the States would seem to be
highly impolitic, if not as dangerous as the proposition to retain it
in the Treasury. The shortest reflection must satisfy everyone that to
require the people to pay taxes to the Government merely that they may
be paid back again is sporting with the substantial interests of the
country, and no system which produces such a result can be expected to
receive the public countenance.
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