It has two
hands--one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a
rough hand and a smooth one. The activity of the second is necessarily
subordinate to the activity of the first. Strictly, Government may take
and not restore. This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and
absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part, and sometimes
the whole, of what they touch. But the thing that never was seen, and
never will be seen or conceived, is, that Government can restore more to
the public than it has taken from it. It is therefore ridiculous for us
to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars. It is radically
impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the
individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a
greater injury upon the community as a whole.
Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma.
If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of
weakness, ill-will, and incapacity. If it endeavours to grant them, it
is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes--to do more harm than
good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general
displeasure.
Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two
promises--_many benefits and no taxes_. Hopes and promises, which, being
contradictory, can never be realised.
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