In fashioning the bank, remember that it is to be made particularly instrumental in enriching and aggrandizing the elect few, who are to be called in due season to the honors and felicities of the kingdom preparing for them, and who are the pillars that must support it. It will be easy to throw the benefit entirely into their hands, and to make it a solid addition of 50, or 60, or 70 percent to their former capitals of 800 percent, or 900 percent, without costing them a shilling; while it will be so difficult to explain to the people that this gain of the few is at the cost of the many, that the contrary may be boldly and safely pretended. The bank will be pregnant with other important advantages. It will admit the same men to be, at the same time, members of the bank and members of the government. The two institutions will thus be soldered together, and each made the stronger. Money will be put under the direction of the government, and government under the direction of money. To crown the whole, the bank will have a proper interest in swelling and perpetuating the public debt and public taxes, with all the blessings of both, because its agency and its profits will be extended in exact proportion.10. "Divide and govern" is a maxim consecrated by the experience of ages, and should be as familiar in its use to every politician as the knife he carries in his pocket. In the work here to be executed, the best effects may be produced by this maxim, and with peculiar facility. An extensive republic made up of lesser republics necessarily contains various sorts of people, distinguished by local and other interests and prejudices. Let the whole group be well examined in all its parts and relations, geographical and political, metaphysical and metaphorical; let there be first a northern and a southern section, by a line running east and west, and then an eastern and western section, by a line running north and south. By a suitable nomenclature, the landholders cultivating different articles can be discriminated from one another, all from the class of merchants, and both from that of manufacturers.
One of the subordinate republics may be represented as a commercial state, another as a navigation state, another as a manufacturing state, others as agricultural states; and although the great body of the people in each be really agricultural, and the other characters be more or less common to all, still it will be politic to take advantage of such an arrangement. Should the members of the great republic be of different sizes, and subject to little jealousies on that account, another important division will be ready formed to your hand. Add again the divisions that may be carved out of personal interests, political opinions, and local parties. With so convenient an assortment of votes, especially with the help of the marked ones, a majority may be packed for any question with as much ease as the odd trick by an adroit gamester, and any measure whatever be carried or defeated, as the great revolution to be brought about may require.
It is only necessary, therefore, to recommend that full use be made of the resource; and to remark that, besides the direct benefit to be drawn from these artificial divisions, they will tend to smother the true and natural one, existing in all societies, between the few who are always impatient of political equality and the many who can never rise above it; between those who are to mount to the prerogatives and those who are to be saddled with the burdens of the hereditary government to be introduced - in one word, between the general mass of the people, attached to their republican government and republican interests, and the chosen band devoted to monarchy and Mammon. It is of infinite importance that this distinction should be kept out of sight. The success of the project absolutely requires it.
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks. Here the aid of the former encroachments and all the other precedents and way-paving maneuvers will be called in of course. But, in order to render success the more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general welfare." If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in all cases whatsoever." To oppose the power may consequently seem to the ignorant, and be called by the artful, opposing the "general welfare," any may be cried down under that deception.
As the people, however, may not run so readily into the snare as might be wished, it will be prudent to bait it well with some specious popular interest, such as the encouragement of manufactures, or even of agriculture, taking due care not even to mention any unpopular object to which the power is equally applicable, such as religion, etc. By this contrivance, particular classes of people may possibly be taken in who will be a valuable reinforcement.
With respect to the patronage of agriculture there is not indeed much to be expected from it. It will be too quickly seen through by the owners and tillers of the soil, that to tax them with one hand and pay back a part only with the other is a losing game on their side. From the power over manufactures more is to be hoped. It will not be so easily perceived that the premium bestowed may not be equal to the circuitous tax on consumption which pays it. There are particular reasons, too, for pushing the experiment on this class of citizens.
(1) As they live in towns and can act together, it is of vast consequence to gain them over to the interest of monarchy.
(2) If the power over them be once established, the government can grant favors or monopolies, as it pleases; can raise or depress this or that place, as it pleases; can gratify this or that individual, as it pleases; in a word, by creating a dependence in so numerous and important a class of citizens, it will increase its own independence of every class and be more free to pursue the grand object in contemplation.
(3) The expense of this operation will not in the end cost the government a shilling, for the moment any branch of manufacture has been brought to a state of tolerable maturity the exciseman will be ready with his constable and his search warrant to demand a reimbursement, and as much more can be squeezed out of the article. All this, it is to be remembered, supposes that the manufacturers will be weak enough to be cheated, in some respects, out of their own interests, and wicked enough, in others, to betray those of their fellow citizens; a supposition that, if known, would totally mar the experiment. Great care, therefore, must be taken to prevent it from leaking out.
- The expediency of seizing every occasion of external danger for augmenting and perpetuating the standing military force is too obvious to escape. So important is this matter that for any loss or disaster whatever attending the national arms, there will be ample consolation and compensation in the opportunity for enlarging the establishment. A military defeat will become a political victory, and the loss of a little vulgar blood contribute to ennoble that which flows in the veins of our future dukes and marquesses.
Many other rules of great wisdom and efficacy might be added; but it is conceived that the above will be abundantly enough for the purpose. This will certainly be the case if the people can be either kept asleep so as not to discover, or be thrown into artificial divisions so as not to resist, what is silently going forward. Should it be found impossible, however, to prevent the people from awakening and uniting; should all artificial distinctions give way to the natural division between the lordly minded few and the well-disposed many; should all who have common interest make a common cause and show an inflexible attachment to republicanism in opposition to a government of monarchy and of money, why then...
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