The enemy, likewise, was induced to prosecute the war, from
the temporary expedients we adopted for carrying it on. We were
continually expecting to see their credit exhausted, and they were
looking to see our currency fail; and thus, between their watching us,
and we them, the hopes of both have been deceived, and the
childishness of the expectation has served to increase the expense.
Yet who, through this wilderness of error, has been to blame?
Where is the man who can say the fault, in part, has not been his?
They were the natural, unavoidable errors of the day. They were the
errors of a whole country, which nothing but experience could detect
and time remove. Neither could the circumstances of America admit of
system, till either the paper currency was fixed or laid aside. No
calculation of a finance could be made on a medium failing without
reason, and fluctuating without rule.
But there is one error which might have been prevented and was
not; and as it is not my custom to flatter, but to serve mankind, I
will speak it freely. It certainly was the duty of every assembly on
the continent to have known, at all times, what was the condition of
its treasury, and to have ascertained at every period of depreciation,
how much the real worth of the taxes fell short of their nominal
value. This knowledge, which might have been easily gained, in the
time of it, would have enabled them to have kept their constituents
well informed, and this is one of the greatest duties of
representation.
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