As brethren, the American people had consented to hazard property and life in its defence.

All the sums expended in the attainment of this great object, whatever might be the authority under which they were raised or appropriated, conduced to the same end.
Troops were raised, and military stores purchased, before congress assumed the command of the army, or the control of the war.

The ammunition which repulsed the enemy at Bunker's Hill, was purchased by Massachusetts; and formed a part of the debt of that state.
Nothing could be more erroneous than the principle which had been assumed in argument, that the holders of securities issued by individual states were to be considered merely as state creditors;--as if the debt had been contracted on account of the particular state.

It was contracted on account of the union, in that common cause in which all were equally interested.
From the complex nature of the political system which had been adopted in America, the war was, in a great measure, carried on through the agency of the state governments; and the debts were, in truth, the debts of the union, for which the states had made themselves responsible.

Except the civil list, the whole state expenditure was in the prosecution of the war; and the state taxes had undeniably exceeded the provision for their civil list.