Had there been a loss it would have been but $428,515; but the following table shows that it really gained to the government the sum of $92,265 14: The interest on the public debt purchased during the crisis, accurately calculated up to the time it would have fallen due, at the rate of interest it bore, amounts to the sum of $1,642,423 03 The interest on the treasury notes and loans which supplied its place at the rates, up to the time they will fall due, they bore respectively, amounts to the sum of Thus saving to the government, in the way of in- The amount of premium paid in the 1,261,047 40 381,375 63 bids for the new debt is the sum of 139,404 51 Making a difference against the Secretary's operations in premiums of . Deducting the loss of $289,110 49 on premiums from the gain in interest of $381,375 63, and we will have, when the present public debt, which was substituted for that redeemed, is paid, an actual saving, in dollars and cents, of $92,265 14 As the economy of the management of the Treasury Department has been assailed, it is proposed to show that the Secretary of the Treasury has administered his department at a less expense than it cost seven years ago, when the revenues collected were $15,000,000 less. 289,110 49 By reference to the following statement, and a comparison of its first with its last item, the truth of the proposition we have affirmed is established : STATEMENT EXHIBITING THE AMOUNT OF REVENUE FROM CUSTOMS FOR EACH OF THE YEARS FROM 1852 ΤΟ 1857, INCLUSIVE, AND THE AMOUNT EXPENDED IN COLLECTING THE SAME FOR THE SAME PERIOD We think we have clearly disproved the charge of profligacy so unblushingly made by the opposition against the Democratic party. We have proved that the onus of whatever of extravagance has characterized the expenditures of this government for the past four years, rests upon those who now assail the Democracy. We call upon the country not to be deluded by their affectation of a virtue which they do not possess, but to hold them to a just accountability for their reckless disregard of the public interest. FEMALE INFLUENCE IN THE AFFAIRS OF STATE POLITICS NOT WOMAN'S SPHERE. By the wisdom of Providence all the objects of animated nature are so constituted as to have some means of obtaining assistance and support from others, either by exciting fear, exerting force, or inspiring affection. To man who came into the world least provided with the power of self-sustenance has been given a subtle intellect, which enables him to compel each of the subordinate creations to minister in some measure to his wants, whilst he in turn extends a protecting aid to her whom nature and law may assign to his care. In the generality of cases women rejoice in this dependent position, and are content to display their attractions and employ their powers within the sphere marked out for them by nature. The love of new doctrines, however, has from time to time induced manly women, and womanish men, to propose an amendment to the divine decree, and suggest the propriety of placing both sexes on a footing of perfect equality without regard to their own comfort or the eternal fitness of things. Fanny Wright, an Englishwoman of eccentric taste, was the first advocate in this country of a doctrine which has since been more or less amalgamated with the extreme anti-slavery theories which are perpetually embroiling the peace of our congressional debates, and becoming issues at our presidential elections. The numerous instances with which history supplies us of evils produced by women's travelling beyond their province induce us to hold to the belief that the great conservative element of our government is its exclusion of females from an. active participation in the political councils of the nation. The bane of all hereditary monarchies has ever been that, however great their founders, however wise the regulations they may have introduced, their work has always been destroyed by the advent of a female successor, or of one who possessed the weaknesses, without the attractions of the softer sex. The school of adversity can alone form a conservative mind, and where all the tendencies are so progressive as they are in America, it is necessary that the Executive, exercising as he does, in the veto power, a means of counteracting the expansion of party spirit, should exhibit a mind calm, serene, and inflexible. "Femina semper varium et mutabile est," was said by one keenly alive to their attractions, but aware that the imagination, not the reason, was the motive power of women. When Englishmen speak in admiration of the "gracious lady" in whose name their government is conducted, they praise not her administrative capacity, not the forensic ability, not the sagacity of her views, and the logical clearness of her arguments, but the goodness of her heart, and the irreproachable manner in which she performs the part of a wife and mother; whilst the utmost they contend for her abilities is that she tries to understand some of the measures of her ministry, proving that the regal title is a sinecure and surplusage. It is much easier to build up than it is to eradicate, hence we enjoy an advantage over even the progressive portions of Europe, which causes other nations to look to us for improvements which they adopt whilst appropriating the credit to themselves. Though the castles of the middle ages have disappeared, and the hierarchy which thundered its edicts from the Vatican has toned down its voice to persuasive accents, though the droit de seigneur was swept away in the French revolution, though the feudal tenure has expired in England, and the kilted clans of Scotland no longer supply the profuse tables of their lords with the spoils of lowland industry, the impress of those times still lingers in every European country, startling the American with anomalies monstrous to his republican eye, and to which the natives still cling with superstitious affection. He visits the courts of law, and the judges, clad in gown and wig, carry him back to the times of Lord Coke; he walks the streets, and encounters a procession of mourners such as followed the honored dead in the times of Addison and Steele; whilst yeomen, clad in the garb of the days of Charles II., guard that tower where the children of Edward IV. were murdered by their cruel uncle Richard III. Penetrating into rural districts he finds the reproduction of the past marking the ideas and language of the natives, and people clinging with tenacity to ancient usages on account of their very antiquity. In France the peasant yokes his wife and cow to the plough, and women are seen working in the fields laden with huge baskets; whilst the ragged nobility of Spain, scorning to labor for daily bread, take to robbery as a means of support. Though the cattle of the Campagna still maintain the superiority boasted for them in the days of the Romans, Italy lives only in the memory of the past, and the spontaneous products of her soil feed her indolent and contented population. Strongest of all time-honored usages is the respect paid to hereditary rank, "noblesse oblige." The blood of counts cannot mingle in trade, or be polluted by honest industry, hence sinecures have to be invented, and the convent remains a genteel refuge for portionless maidens with high-sounding names. The court is the point towards which tend the aspirations of the high born. A duchess leaves the comforts of home to become lady of the bedchamber to the queen, and a lord who is paramount over thousands of acres is eager to be made a "silver stick in waiting." A general who has conquered provinces, is rewarded with a red ribbon; an admiral who has swept the seas, retires with honest pride on the acquisition of a blue one; whilst the coat of a successful diplomatist is variegated with eagles, stars, and trinkets, the gifts of twenty potentates. All these things are part of a system which will pass away when education is generally diffused, and men are valued for their real worth. The fact that we, by precept and example, are striving to produce this effect is what renders us odious to aristocratic Europe. The beauty and distinction of our ladies disprove their dictum that rank and refinement are equivalent terms, and stray scions of nobility are only known in our ball-rooms by the want of ease and self-possession which distinguishes them from the surrounding men. To what are we indebted for the manly yet courteous bearing which marks our relations with the fairer portion of creation, but to the knowledge that their position is fixed, that they have a sphere out of which they cannot travel, and which they therefore dignify and adorn. It may be objected that the only office of acknowledged rank that a woman can hold abroad is that of queen, but if disqualified by nature and the universal consent of mankind for the less important posts, how can she occupy the highest? The Normans, the finest specimens of men, intellectually and physically, that the world has produced, whilst inculcating every respect to the laws of descent, gave the sovereign the right of disposing of the hands of heiresses in favor of those capable of doing service to the state, and discountenanced unequal matches by the established rule that the rank of the husband determined that of the wife, and whilst he might drag her down, she could not elevate him. "No woman shall succeed in Salique land; This quotation from the Englishman's bible, shows that though it is ascribed by the courteous and immortal dramatist, Shakespeare, to a disregard for the natives of a conquered province, the most polite nation in the world did, at an early period, see the importance of keeping power in its natural channels. For many centuries, therefore, France avoided the dangers of a female dynasty. A regency, however, frequently counteracted, whilst it confirmed the wisdom of the policy of exclusion; and probably in no country has the boudoir so often dictated laws to the Cabinet. The cruel massacre of St. Bartholomew was the result of maternal influence exercised on the weak mind of Charles IX., and corresponded with the religious fanaticism which induced Mary of England to light the fires of Smithfield, and make martyrs of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley. What stronger illustration can we have of the inexpediency of female domination than that presented by a queen offering up the interest of her subjects to carry out those views which afterwards induced her husband, Philip the Second, when he succeeded to the vast dominions of Charles V., to lose the rich appanage of the Netherlands sooner than permit a variance in the religious tenets of his subjects. Yet this war of the Netherlands gives us another example of a woman vainly striving to cope with state policy. Margaret of Parma, the natural daughter of Charles V., inherited many of his qualities, and was thought to be a person peculiarly fit to bring back to their alliegance the hereditary subjects of the house of Burgundy. Made regent at the beginning of the outbreak, and before it had become a revolution, she lost, by a wavering policy, the confidence of all, and the iron hand of Alva, was, when too late, employed as a last alternative to dragoon into subjection the followers of the Prince of Orange. Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought up amidst the intrigues of the French Court, and was niece to the Guises, who had studied the science of governing men in the camp, the church, and the cabinet. Yet she failed even with her Scotch subjects, and was superseded in power by her natural brother. |