Mankind are united by the necessity for subsistence in a
common interest. Those who furnish the subsistence, pay
all the taxes. As subsistence flows from the earth, that may
be called the mother of men, liable to make all the disbursements they need. Hence, all, or nearly all taxes, must be
ultimately paid by agriculture, and ought of course to be inflicted by her, if the doctrine is true* that the payer is the only just imposer of taxes. Agriculture cannot be partial, because she cannot shift the tax from her own shoulders. From her other interests diverge, like rays from the sun,
but she is the centre of them all. If one of these rays usurps from the parent sun, the distribution of his light, it may be induced to darken another, for the purpose of increasing the splendour of its own ; as a child who makes the will of a
parent, disinherits his brethren for his own advantage. And so legislation flowing from, or influenced by any particular interest, in whatever form, has never failed to rob other interests.
Perhaps no separate interest would constitute a less exceptionable legislator, than commerce, on account of its close connexion with agriculture and manufactures; and yet, without considering the complicated means she could practise, to make other interests, and even that of agriculture, subservient to hers; a simple power of converting all other interests into insurers of her adventures, giving them the losses, and keeping herself the profits, Mould be sufficiently tyrannical.
If commerce would be the least exceptionable separate interest, as a legislator, or as influencing legislation, because of her connexion with agriculture and manufactures, paper stock must be the most exceptionable, because it has no connexion with either. It is not one of those rays diverging from the sun, or one of those interests arising From the earth, capable of being softened by the affinities of a common ancestor. Belonging to the family of cunning, it is inexorable to the family of the earth, and favorable to its own relations. These two families, in all their branches.
