[76]


FINANCE  AND  UNITY


nursery  of  resources,  and,  consequently,  far  the
most  important  to  be  inviolably  maintained."*
Credit  is  the  invigorating  principle  of  the  nation;
it  brings  into  action  its  capacities  for  improve
ment  and  accelerates  growth.b  Its  protection
Hamilton  regarded  as  of  interest,  not  to  any  one
class  or  section,  but  to  the  whole  people.  "The
cause  of  credit  and  property,"  he  says,  "is  one  and
the  same  throughout  the  States.  A  blow  to  it,  in
whatever  State  or  in  whatever  form,  is  a  blow

to  it  in  every  State  and  in  every  form There

cannot  be  a  violation  of  public  principle  in  any
State  without  spreading  more  or  less  an  evil  con
tagion  in  all."c

It  was  Hamilton's  idea  that  his  financial  meas
ures  acted  directly  on  the  prosperity  of  the  nation
by  reviving  credit,  facilitating  the  exchanges,  im
proving  the  machinery  of  business,  and  encour
aging  industrious  and  ambitious  undertakers.
While  an  obvious  object  of  his  measures  was
strengthening  the  borrowing  power  of  the  govern
ment,  his  broad  purpose  was  the  improving  of
commerce,  agriculture,  and  manufactures;  the  ex
tension  of  trade  and  navigation;  the  encourage
ment  of  the  building  of  towns  and  of  means  of
transportation.  He  believed  that  his  measures

a  Works,  vol.  10,  p.  93.    To  Wolcott,  April  10,  1795.
b  Works,  vol.  3,  p.  294.    Public  Credit,  1795.
c  Works,  vol.  9,  pp.  16,  17.    Funding  System,  1795  (?).
[77]


ALEXANDER  HAMILTON


had  resulted  in  a  "universal  vivification  of  the
energies  of  industry."*

Hamilton  thought  that  the  revival  of  pros
perity  which  came  with  the  founding  of  the  new
government,  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  fund
ing  increased  the  "active  capital"  of  the  country.
