Gazette Of The United States

NEW-YORK, November 29.

The present situation of the State debts, is a curious one. Congress resolved that as those debts were contracted for the support of the war, they ought to be paid out of the Continental treasury. They were therefore adopted as Continental debts, but under certain restrictions.—It was clear enough that if one State debt which was incurred for the general defence, ought to be assumed, another of the same complexion ought likewise to be assumed; yet from an overstrained squeamishness, a certain limit was fixed, and only a given sum assumed in each State, tho' it was previously well known that the debt exceeded that limit in several of the States. The creditors of those States subscribed to the loan opened by Congress, but it turns out that there is an overplus beyond that sum assumed—what is to be done with it? If the creditor applies to the State to pay, or fund that overplus, the State will naturally say to him, 'your debt is no longer a State debt—it is a Continental debt—Congress have so declared it—we are bound by their acts—you must look to them for it—you have taken them as paymasters, by subscribing to their loan, and you have shewn that you preferred their credit to ours, you cannot therefore with any decency resort to us.' Unless Congress make a provision for this overplus, the Creditors must lose it. This is, however, not to be apprehended: the strict regard hitherto shewn to justice by that body, is a flattering presage, that they will not leave undone that work they have so honorably begun, more especially as they have by their act reduced the State creditors into this dilemma, and as from the present auspicious state of the public revenues, it is manifest that a compleat assumption will require no impositions of further burdens.