Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1878 — Origin of the English National Debt. [ARTICLE]

Origin of the English National Debt.

From the moment that the public at large began to pay the taxes, and not the land, toe extravagance of Government expenditures grew amazingly, and a national debt was commenced. When the people paid, and the aristocracy and their sons and kinsfolk received through Government offices in the army or navy, from that moment toe history of our boundless profusion commences. Before this great transfer of taxation from toe lands to customs, excise, and other popular burdens, it must be borne in mind that there was no debt. So long as the land had to pay the taxes the aristocracy were not willing to incur a national debt; the moment they had made their transfer, and could, living on their exempted lands, revel in the sweets of taxation, a debt was commenced. Charles, we shall find, borrowed £900,000 of thd merchants of London, and soon informed them that he never could repay it; it must remain a debt in the nation, the interest being alone obtainable. The debt first commenced has now grown, as the direct consequence of this grand fiscal revolution, to upward of £800,000,000. Macaulay has well said that this was not the first age of borrowing, but the first of funding.