The whole of
the debt embraced by the provisions of the funding system, consisted of
the unextinguished principal and arrears of interest, of the debt which
had been contracted by the United States in the course of the late war
with Great Britain, and which remained uncancelled, and the principal
and arrears of interest of the separate debts of the respective States
contracted during the same period, which remained, _outstanding, and
unsatisfied, relating to services and supplies for carrying on the war_.
Nothing more was done by that system, than to incorporate these two
species of debt into the mass, and to make for the whole, one general,
comprehensive provision. There is therefore, no arithmetic, no logic,
by which it can be shown that the funding system has augmented the
aggregate debt of the country. The sum total is manifestly the same;
though the parts which were before divided are now united. There is,
consequently, no color for an assertion, that the system in question
either created any _new_ debt, or made any addition to the _old_.
And it follows, that the collective burthen upon the people of the
United States must have been as great _without_ as _with_ the union of
the different portions and descriptions of the debt.
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