The creation in time of peace of a debt likely to
become permanent is an evil for which there is no equivalent. The
rapidity with which many of the States are apparently approaching
to this condition admonishes us of our own duties in a manner too
impressive to be disregarded. One, not the least important, is to keep
the Federal Government always in a condition to discharge with ease and
vigor its highest functions should their exercise be required by any
sudden conjuncture of public affairs--a condition to which we are always
exposed and which may occur when it is least expected. To this end
it is indispensable that its finances should be untrammeled and its
resources as far as practicable unencumbered. No circumstance could
present greater obstacles to the accomplishment of these vitally
important objects than the creation of an onerous national debt. Our
own experience and also that of other nations have demonstrated the
unavoidable and fearful rapidity with which a public debt is increased
when the Government has once surrendered itself to the ruinous practice
of supplying its supposed necessities by new loans.
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