Those
who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like
discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a
mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests,
grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into
different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The
regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the
principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party
and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest
would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his
integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit
to be both judges and parties at the same time; yet what are many of the
most important acts of legislation, but so many judicial determinations,
not indeed concerning the rights of single persons, but concerning the
rights of large bodies of citizens? And what are the different classes
of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they
determine? Is a law proposed concerning private debts? It is a question
to which the creditors are parties on one side and the debtors on the
other.
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