GROUPS OF PERSONAL PROPERTY INTERESTS
A second broad group of interests was that of personal property as contrasted with real property. This embraced, particularly, money loaned, state and continental securities, stocks of goods, manufacturing plants, soldiers’ scrip, and shipping. The relative proportion of personalty to realty in 1787 has not been determined and it is questionable whether adequate data are available for settling such an important matter.[[43]]
Personalty in Money.—Although personalty in the form of money at interest or capital seeking investment did not constitute in 1787 anything like the same amount, relative to the value of real estate, which it does to-day, it must not be thought that it was by any means inconsiderable in any state. The tax returns of New Hampshire for 1793 report the value of all buildings and real estate as £893,327:16:10 and the amount of money on hand or at interest as £35,985:5:6. The Massachusetts tax returns of 1792 show £196,698:4:6 at interest and £95,474:4:5 on hand. The Connecticut returns for 1795 show £63,348: 10:1 at interest.[[44]]
Money capital was suffering in two ways under the Articles of Confederation. It was handicapped in seeking profitable outlets by the absence of protection for manufactures, the lack of security in investments in western lands, and discriminations against American shipping by foreign countries. It was also being positively attacked by the makers of paper money, stay laws, pine barren acts, and other devices for depreciating the currency or delaying the collection of debts. In addition there was a widespread derangement of the monetary system and the coinage due to the absence of uniformity and stability in the standards.[[45]]
Creditors, naturally enough, resisted all of these schemes in the state legislatures, and failing to find relief there at length turned to the idea of a national government so constructed as to prevent laws impairing the obligation of contract, emitting paper money, and otherwise benefiting debtors. It is idle to inquire whether the rapacity of the creditors or the total depravity of the debtors (a matter much discussed at the time) was responsible for this deep and bitter antagonism. It is sufficient for our purposes to discover its existence and to find its institutional reflex in the Constitution. It was to the interest of the creditors to see the currency appreciate, to facilitate the process for securing possession of forfeited mortgaged property, and to hold the rigor of the law before the debtor who was untrue to his obligations. Whether the creditors were driven into class consciousness by the assaults of their debtors or attained it by the exercise of their wits is, for scientific purposes, immaterial.
Personalty in Public Securities.—Even more immediately concerned in the establishment of a stable national government were the holders of state and continental securities. The government under the Articles of Confederation was not paying the interest on its debt and its paper had depreciated until it was selling at from one-sixth to one-twentieth of its par value.[[46]] Grave uncertainties as to the actions of legislatures kept state paper at a low price, also, even where earnest attempts were being made to meet the obligations.
The advantage of a strong national government that could discharge this debt at its face value is obvious; and it was fully understood at the time. The importance of this element of personalty in forcing on the revolution that overthrew the Articles of Confederation is all the more apparent when it is remembered that securities constituted a very large proportion of the intangible wealth. In Massachusetts, for example, it is set down in 1792 at a sum greater than all the money at interest and on hand in the state.[[47]]
The amount of the public securities of the United States and of the several states at the establishment of the new government was estimated by Hamilton, in his first report on credit, as Secretary of the Treasury.[[48]] The foreign debt, that is, money borrowed abroad, was fixed at $10,070,307 and arrears of interest up to December, 1789, were estimated at $1,640,071.62, making a total of $11,710,378.62. The domestic continental debt, including the registered debt, army certificates, etc., amounted to $27,383,917.74, to which was added arrears of interest to the amount of $13,030,168.20, making a total of $40,414,085.94. The amount of the state debts was unknown in 1790, but Hamilton placed it at about $25,000,000, which appears to have been rather high. The issue, later authorized to cover them, was $21,500,000 and the amount actually paid out was $18,271,786.47.[[49]]
The enormous total of the national debt after state and national securities were funded is shown by Hamilton’s report of January 16, 1795:—
| Foreign Debt | $13,745,379.35 |
| Funded domestic debt | 60,789,914.18 |
| Unsubscribed debt | 1,561,175.14 |
| Total unredeemed debt | $76,096,468.67 |