When we
think or talk about taxes, we ought to recollect that we lie down in
peace and sleep in safety; that we can follow our farms or stores or
other occupations, in prosperous tranquillity; and that these
inestimable blessings are procured to us by the taxes that we pay.
In this view, our taxes are properly our insurance money; they are
what we pay to be made safe, and, in strict policy, are the best money
we can lay out.
It was my intention to offer some remarks on the impost law of
five per cent. recommended by Congress, and to be established as a
fund for the payment of the loan-office certificates, and other
debts of the United States; but I have already extended my piece
beyond my intention. And as this fund will make our system of
finance complete, and is strictly just, and consequently requires
nothing but honesty to do it, there needs but little to be said upon
it.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, March 5, 1782.
XI.
ON THE PRESENT STATE OF NEWS.
SINCE the arrival of two, if not three packets in quick
succession, at New York, from England, a variety of unconnected news
has circulated through the country, and afforded as great a variety of
speculation.
That something is the matter in the cabinet and councils of our
enemies, on the other side of the water, is certain- that they have
run their length of madness, and are under the necessity of changing
their measures may easily be seen into; but to what this change of
measures may amount, or how far it may correspond with our interest,
happiness and duty, is yet uncertain; and from what we have hitherto
experienced, we have too much reason to suspect them in every thing.
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