dependent of that instrument. Let the convention, then, which frames our constitution, fence round and protect the interests of the people by explicit declarations not to be misunderstood or liable to be twisted to suit the purposes of mischievous and designing men. Private property should be so well guarded that not the value of a cent could be demanded for public uses except compensation, in money, be paid to the owner. A legislature without such a check might take private property for public use upon a promise to pay, and thus entail- the debt upon posterity; and if authority be given to take private property without payment in money, there would be no limit to the power, inasmuch as promises can be made more abundant than money.

Having some further arguments to advance on this subject, and on the one immediately connected with that of borrowing money-taxation-we shall defer them for another article.

TAXATION-BORROWING MONEY

[August 1, 1846]

We submitted on Tuesday last a few remarks on the subject of granting the power of borrowing money to legislative bodies, pointing out some of the evils to the whole community by its delegation of this power, etc. We now propose to offer some further reflections in continuation of the subject, in connection with the one so immediately united with it, on that of taxation.

It is, we believe, admitted that when a government is instituted and salaries to its officers authorized to be paid, the power to levy and collect the necessary taxes is included. To deny this power would tend to pull down the whole fabric of government, and no position has been better settled than that every government possesses the inherent power of sus

taining itself and to raise all the means necessary to that end, until such time as it shall please the people to alter or abolish it. In nearly all our state constitutions there have been restrictive clauses introduced in regard to the exercise of the power of taxation, but these wise and prudent restrictions have been rendered nugatory by the practice recently introduced of borrowing money. The power to borrow money at will is a very important one and should be exercised with the utmost caution. With this power the legislature must necessarily possess the means of carrying it into effect. These means are nothing more nor less than transferring from ourselves to our representatives the right to mortgage every dollar's worth of property in our possession for its repayment. A wicked or unwise legislature might borrow more money than the people will be able to repay in half a century. The power of taxation may also be abused. So may all other powers granted. But there is an extent beyond which abuses cannot go. The abuse of taxation, for instance, cannot extend further than the ability of the people in any one year to pay, whilst the abuse of the borrowing [power] may be felt for ages to come. The exercise of the right of taxation has justly been called a "high sovereign power." The right of borrowing is a higher power still. The power to borrow is just so far greater than the power to tax as the whole and entire control of the fee of our lands is greater than one year's product of them. Excessive and unnecessary taxation in any one year can be corrected by the ballot boxes of the next, but a mortgage upon our lands cannot be removed in that way. If one legislature can bind successive legislatures to any extent if may deem proper— if one legislature can draw upon and squander the resources of the state for many years to come, and can bind not only its immediate constituents during their natural lives, but posterity, by its acts, our annual elections are so many farces. It has been denied that one legislature binds another; this may be so, but when the public faith is pledged

by the constituted authorities that pledge ought to be redeemed.

It has been said, "The legislature is the people, and cannot the people trust themselves?" The members of the legislature are the agents of the people. They act for the people by power of attorney. So far as their acts are within. that power they are good and valid; so far as they go beyond that power they are null and void. Although the people should and do confide in the representative of their own choice and trust him to do everything in the range of the trust delegated to him, yet he is not invested with sovereign and independent power. There is no sovereign and independent power except in the people. "It should be remembered," says Jefferson, "as an axiom of eternal truth in politics that, whenever any power in any government is independent, it is absolute also, in theory only, at first, when the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes."

It may not be improper to offer some observations as to the power of taxation as applied to the matter under discussion. "Money," says Alexander Hamilton, "is, with propriety, considered the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions." Now, so far as this "vital principle" is abstracted from the body politic, so far as it is dissipated and squandered, so far is life and motion paralyzed and its essential functions weakened. The object of every wise government, more particularly of a government founded upon and sustained by the will of the governed, is to protect the life, liberty, and property of all within its sphere. A government that fails in the protection of property, or wrongly seizes upon it, degenerates into tyranny; for the essence of tyranny consists in taking from us our hard earnings without giving a fair and just equivalent. Whether this be done under color of law or, as in the Turkish Empire, by force and violence, matters not. The effect is the same. Our revolutionary ancestors took this view of it.

They were not oppressed by taxation, but the fear that they should be drove them into rebellion. The result is well known.

We should look well to these powers when delegating them to others and see that our "natural, inherent, and inalienable" rights are properly guarded in the proposed constitution. Let us be certain that, in giving a portion of our private property, we secure to ourselves protection and security for the remainder. Among the rights of man, as enjoyed in a state of nature, are life and liberty and the proceeds of his labor. As with our property, so with our personal liberty. We voluntarily agree to certain restrictions upon our liberty so that the balance or greater portion shall be better secured. In this way every individual avails himself of the whole power of the community for the safety of the bulk of his property, and for the protection of his political rights and his freedom of action. Every individual, by this wise arrangement, affords and secures protection. The perfection of republican governments consists in relinquishing as little of property and liberty and securing as much of both as is consistent with these ends.

VIEWS OF "R" CONCERNING THE CONSTITUTIONAL

CONVENTION

[August 8, 1846]

MESSRS. EDITORS: Some valuable, appropriate, and important remarks have lately appeared in your paper on the subject of the state constitution soon to be acted upon by a convention of delegates to be chosen for that purpose. There is, apparently, too much apathy and indifference among the people on that highly important subject. Important principles are to be discussed and acted upon, and it is hoped that men of ability, capable of doing justice to the subject, will immediately enter upon the discussion. It has already been too long delayed.