facto, if not de jure, of the existence of new governments. Peace, however, was looked for and kept until March, 1861, notwithstanding the efforts which the government established at Montgomery was making to consolidate its authority in the seceding states.

No one except an actor in the scenes of that time can understand the intense anxiety in relation to the first breach of the peace. The preliminary debates in Congress turn on the collection of duties, and the avoidance of menacing and irritating measures. Then, Fort Sumter is surrendered. Volunteers are called for. At once the Confederate States become militant and powerful. A blockade is announced by proclamation. Letters of marque and reprisal against the commerce of the United States follow a declaration of war by the Confederate Congress. It is a fight to the death between two opposing communities, with a line of hostility between them. But is it rightful secession or revolution? The result of the movement will decide.

When the special session of Congress is called on July 4, 1861, where are the representative men from the South? Not one is there to defend secession. Attempts are made to limit the design and define the cause of the war. The Crittenden resolutions are intended to keep the Union paramount above all other concernments,― certainly above those of slavery and state rights. The attempt of the zealots of the Republican party to force President-Lincoln from his resolution on this subject fails. What he had written on the 14th of December, 1860, to Alexander H. Stephens, he steadily maintains. "Do the people of the South," he then asked, "really entertain fears that a Republican Administration would directly or indirectly interfere with the slaves?" He assures Mr. Stephens that the South would be in no more danger in this respect than they were in the time of Washington.

Resolutions pass both houses of Congress affirming the autonomy of the United States and declaring for its maintenance. They place the Union above all other objects, and when that is made secure the war is to end. But with the lapse of time the war goes on. The Democratic members of Congress again and again challenge debate in relation to the object of the war. writer of this volume vindicated Mr. Lincoln's policy upon the stump in Ohio, and was returned in 1862, in a strong Republican district, upon that issue.

The

One of the whimsical excesses of secession, or vicissitudes of the war, is the partition of Virginia. Forty western counties of Virginia agree to secede and form a new state, without the consent of the old one! This is anomalous and unconstitutional. It is a new phase of secession, made by the war. It is vigorously opposed, but in vain. The first beginnings of reconstruction thus, and in the very midst of the war, come out of this disparting of Virginia. It is one of the scars made by the war. It remains to commemorate the policy of force. It inevitably led to the successful attack which was soon to be made upon state institutions, including slavery.

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On the 1st of January, 1863, after three months' notice and much anxious avoidance, the President issues his Emancipation Proclamation, but only as a war measure, as he afterward maintained to the last. It sets free the slaves within the enemy's lines, as rapidly as the Federal arms move to the front, or open a way for the fugitives under the new military habeas corpus. This enfranchisement continues. But in the meantime the President holds that it is for the courts to determine the effect of the Proclamation.

The more audacious members of the Republican party, such as Thaddeus Stevens and those whom he led so vigorously, insisted that the Constitution was suspended within the Confederate lines by an act of war and not by secession. 66 Where," he exclaimed, "is the constitution of South Carolina ?" "Why should members of Congress, or an Executive in Washington, be bound by a constitution that does not exist in that state?" In effect this was to say that the Constitution ceased to exist while the National Government existed. The theory of Mr. Sumner was not unlike that of Mr. Stevens. While he held that the outgoing states could not remove themselves from national jurisdiction until the war which they waged became successful, he held that, in the meantime, these states had become territories. Their statehood being forever gone, any conditions might be prescribed by Congress for the admission of these territories. How he would ascertain the boundaries of these territories, without admitting some constitutional basis for the secession ordinances, neither Mr. Sumner nor any of his political school has ever attempted to demonstrate. How could there be a territory

of South Carolina?

The doctrine of the Northern Democrats, in and out of Congress, involved no such vindictive absurdities as that of Mr. Stevens and Mr. Sumner. The Democrats held that secession was unconstitutional, null, and void. Therefore, it could in no way impair the vitality of the Constitution. Secession was simply a denial of the power of the general government to exercise its Federal functions in certain states of the Union. It was an insurrection, no more, no less; and for the suppression of which the people and the states of the Union had clothed the general government with full authority and ample power. This power was not to be exercised rashly while

peaceful measures might succeed. The Constitution might be denied any operation or be resisted by extremists North and South, but would it be thereby limited in its legal and political force? Nothing could curtail the scope of the Constitution except an absolute and permanent dismemberment of the Union of the states. The result of the insurrection could alone determine whether South Carolina was to remain a state of the Union, or to become severed from her Federal bond. If the general government should succeed in suppressing the insurrection, then, in contemplation of the Constitution and the laws of the land, her ante bellum relations to the Federal Union would continue. The fact that the extent of the insurrection and the feelings of human

ity required secession to be suppressed in the mode of civilized warfare could not effect a political change in the Federal system. Such an effect, in a case of unsuccessful revolution was never conceived, much less asserted, by any authority on the science of civil government, until its violent assumption by the radical obstructionists of the Republican party. They alone gave their full sanction to the doctrine of secession. Secession drew the sword and died by the sword, and slavery was buried with it. Despite the horrors of a protracted civil war, and the still more violent suspension of constitutional vigor succeeding it under congressional reconstruction, all the machinations and devices of usurpers of power North and South failed to destroy even one member of the Federal body politic. So firmly fixed in the American mind is the theory of state and Federal government, that, at last, the people arose in their might and silenced all disputation over war results, by commanding the Federal hand to be withdrawn from the throat of sovereign states which were and always would be states of the Union.

Who now will question the vitality of our political system? What element remains, to eat out the substance, sense, and virtue of the people, undo the work of the past, and dismantle our incomparable system of government? Are we again to become the prey of mercenary and corrupting officials? Nothing can destroy our system except when the greed of gain struggles toward the goal with the lust of power. The demoralization of the public service during the war and shortly after it, was to be expected. But long after that period, great and honored names were not ashamed of association with the bribe-giver and bribe-taker, and the reckless and avaricious lobby.

The elements and conditions which produced the usurpation of 1877 still exist in great force. We have the same timidity of wealth, the same cowardice of credit, and the same tenderness of trade, which then drowned the popular will by clamors for the revival of business. The rich bartered political rectitude for contentment with their gains. But for all that, are we to be rid of the rich? Shall there be no more bond-holders, no champagne revelers, no railroad kings, no sleek lobbies, no purchasable news-venders, no moneyed princes, no men of fashionable clubs and soft attire? These cannot be abolished. Their evil influences must be restrained. The impedimentum cannot be left behind in the campaigns and contests for freedom, although it may hinder the march. As it must have its place somewhere, let that place be far in the rear of the column.

For purity of public conduct, we must turn to the principles and practice of the Union established by the fathers. But how long will that Union be worthy of maintenance, if the republican form of government gives place to a plutocratic usurpation of all the co-ordinate branches of the Federal Government? Has not wealth, or unscrupulous fealty to corporate power, been for many years the main, and often, the all-sufficient qualification for the high

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offices of state-executive, legislative, and even judicial? What has brought about such a woeful, anti-republican condition of affairs? Is it not plainly the continuance of the extravagances of the war times, when the foundations of most of the present colossal fortunes were laid in great contracts and cemented with the blood, tears, and cruel taxations of the people? One would think that the American people, with an ancestry providentially guided here, with an inheritance so splendid, and with the example set them by the generations of patriotic men who have passed away, would still retain the freshness and purity of virtuous power. All the bounteous elements of sea and earth and sky would seem to beckon business men, legislators, judges, executives, and ministers of official grace and honor, away from the base fascination of hoarded pelf which dishonors to destroy our institutions. There must be more concern for the national character.

The recent election gives hope of better days and much reformation. America in her fresh hemisphere, in her first cycle of unity, with the vote, with the numbers, with the added wisdom and practical sagacity of her people, must clarify the political and social atmosphere, and declare for the new order of administration, else the light of her liberties may be extinguished. Let not progress and poverty march abreast in this, as in the older hemisphere. The American Republic must become an exemplar for all future republics which may be created by the achievements of free men. Now that the world is adapting itself to new developments of physical forces and moral resources, now that new boundaries are being made between the nations, now that new elements are startling kings and kaisers, and giving fleet coursers to civilization by the vapor of water and the spark of lightning, let progress and prosperity march hand in hand on this continent. Let us not prove recreant to the demands of this new order. National wealth is not always the evidence of national prosperity, nor does great industrial progress always imply corresponding happiness among those who develop it. If negro slavery was an unjust appropriation of the rewards due to labor, it behooves the people to learn wisdom from the overthrow of that institution.

Let progress be in the paths of peace, humanity, and justice, and toward the advancement of real liberty and mutual industry. Let the torch of patriotism shine out upon the shoals and reefs where the wreckers would despoil the Ship of State, so that free, unbiased as the winds and waves, she may sail on forever, freighted with the hopes and the happiness of an upright people. Let those who shall hereafter direct her course, be as the elect of God-yea, even the salt of the earth.

CHAPTER VII.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE UNION.

THE MEXICAN WAR FINANCES THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR FINANCES - STATE AND CONTINENTAL BILLS OF CREDIT EARLY REVENUE RESOURCES – CUS TOMS, EXCISES, AND DIRECT TAXES - THE CIVIL WAR FINANCES-THE CIVIL WAR DEBT - THE ISSUES OF BONDS AND TREASURY NOTES UNITED STATES NOTES-LEGAL TENDER NOTES-DUTIES ON IMPORTS UNDER THE MORRILL TARIFFS - THE INTERNAL REVENUE SYSTEM – THE PLAN FOR A NATIONAL PAPER CURRENCY - ITS ORIGIN AND CONSTITUTIONALITY — AMERICAN ABILITY TO SUSTAIN TAXATION.

P

RIOR to the war for the preservation of the Union, the country had suffered no considerable strain upon its resources for a period of forty-five years. Almost two generations of men had come and gone since the government had found it necessary to meet the demands upon the treasury by a resort to direct or internal taxation. The war with Mexico had imposed no such necessity. It was sufficient for that emergency to borrow money in anticipation of ordinary taxes. We then issued some millions of treasury notes. These were afterwards funded, or received back in payment of duties on imports. The receipts under the Democratic revenue tariff of 1846, during the ten years following, were almost sufficient to pay the current expenses of the government and reduce the debt incurred in that war to less than a fifth of its original amount. In 1846, before the war commenced, the public debt was $15,550,000. In 1849, the year after its close, the debt was $63,000,000; and in 1851 it had risen, probably as a consequence of the war, to $68,304,000. It may therefore be assumed that the cost of the Mexican War, over and above the current revenue which was paid out in that period, was not in excess of $52,754,000. In 1857 the public debt was reduced to $28,700,000; or only $13,149,000 more than it was in 1846. These figures afford evidence of good financial management.

In 1846 it became necessary, in order to carry on the war with Mexico, either to increase the taxes or borrow money. The party then in power, true