at the bar, and as legislator and lieutenant governor in Michigan. A man of great industry, dignity and learning, whom no man in our whole commonwealth has ever surpassed in capacity for practical wholesome legislation. He was honest. He was dutiful to principles, to family and to his country--a model of good citizenship and high character; and his speeches were logical, terse, lucid, earnest and of a good type of useful oratory.

Yet the opinion generally prevails that the pioneers were, as a rule, uneducated and utterly devoid of ideas as to the possibilities which their future-our present-had in store for Nebraska. Nothing could be more erroneous. For in 1854, 55 and 56 was heard portrayed in pyrotechnic verbiage the steam horse on his iron track crossing the Missouri and dashing through the Rockies to the Pacific in pursuit of the teas of China and the silks of India and Japan. Even the numerous employees and agents of the American Fur company at Bellevue, from Colonel Peter A. Sarpy and Stephan Decatur, down to the half-breed cooks and roustabouts, waxed warmly wordy when the coming cars were talked about. And great cities on these plains were predicted with fervid faith by scores of swarthy long-haired prophets in moccasins and buckskin breeches. They saw with mental vision, well and clearly as in a mirror-all that our eyes behold to-day of material devel

opment of agriculture, commerce and manufacture. As in a crude block of marble the sculptor beholds the symmetry of the finished form of a goddess, so those pioneers had a mental concept of all that now surrounds and animates the stately progress of this queenly commonwealth.

In youth the future is filled with joys to be, triumphs yet to come. In age the past is stored with the rich and tender memories of joys departed. It is throbbing with the recollections. of victories that have vanished with the vanquished. There is in human life no present-no to-day. It is all to-morrow with youth. It is all yesterday with age.

Man is here on the earth, in the battle of life, not a volunteer but a conscript. He is essentially and potentially what his race made him. His ancestry determine his capacity to do, to suffer and to enjoy. Nurture and environment may modify this tendency or intensity that faculty, but nature. alone determines by heredity and evolution just what education may do for each individual, and fixes the limits to the leading out of intellects, by the intellects to be led out, as certainly as derivation fixes the origin of the word educate in the verb "educeve," "to lead out."

Therefore the laws of heredity and evolution should be taught in the schools so that by their obedient observance humanity may improve physically and mentally. Then each family should keep a daily record with

in its own household-a home history. It should tell the sanitary, mental and moral condition of parents and children. Then from such domestic data -some generations hence-when humanity shall have been philosophically observing evolution and heredity for a few centuries, history may become a record of useful facts, and not a register of prejudice and romance. Then there will be for all mankind less of fortuity and more of certainty in all possible attainments, physical and mental.

Reverting This desultory sketch. shows the influence of the ambition of Mr. Douglas in precipitating the civil war. It depicts the power which the death of Governor Burt exercised upon the existence of cities, the development of a State and the commerce of a continent. Those two personalities were: the first positively, the second negatively, the immediate causes of stupendous results. Neither of them consciously planned. Both apparently chanced. And yet had the human mind the power to trace through analysis, the ancestry of those men to

AT the date of his report, the secretary counted on a revenue from customs for the financial year 1862, of $57,000,000, but the circumstances to which he has just adverted now constrains him to reduce this estimate to $32,198,602.55.

The receipts from customs for the first quarter ending on the 30th of September, were $7,198,602.55, while the receipts for the three remaining quarters cannot be safely estimated at more than $25,000,000, making the aggregate for the year the sum just mentioned of $32, 198,602.55.

The estimates of receipts from lands and miscellaneous sources must also be reduced from $3,000,000, to $2,354,062.89 of which $354,062.89 were received during the quarter ending September 30, 1861, and $2,000,000 on the estimated receipts of the three remaining quarters.

The only other source of revenue which promises an addition to the resources of the year, is the direct tax authorized by Congress, from which if increased to the limit proposed by the secretary, and assumed by the States the further sum of $20,000,000 may be expected.

The aggregate of revenue from all sources may therefore, be estimated at $54,552,655.44, which is less by $25,447,334.56 than the estimate of July.

This reduction, however, though large, would not have compelled the secretary to ask any additional powers. for negotiating of loans, beyond those asked for in his July report, had appropriations and expenditures been confined within the estimates then submitted.

Of

These estimates, it will be remembered, contemplated expenditures in all departments, and for all objects to the amount of $318,519,581.87. this sum $185, 296,397.19 were for additional appropriations required by the Department of War; and $17,652,105.09 for appropriations already made for that Department. The basis of the estimates for these additional appropriations was the understanding that it would be necessary to bring into the field, for the suppression of the rebellion, two hundred and fifty thousand volunteers in place of the seventy-five thousand drafted militia originally called out, and to increase the regular army by the addition of eleven new

regiments-making a total force, including the regular army already organized, of about three hundred thousand men. After estimates for this force had been furnished to the secretary in accordance with law, and his own report founded upon them had been closed, the president thought it expedient in order to make the contest short and decisive, to ask Congress to place at the control of the Government at least four hundred thousand men and $400,000,000. In the number thus called for the regulars were included. Congress, animated by the same desire for a short and decisive contest, went beyond this recommendation of the president and authorized the acceptance of volunteers in such numbers, not exceeding five hundred thousand as he might deem necessary. Congress also authorized the whole increase of the regular army estimated for by the Department, and provided for further additional companies and for new officers in several branches of the military service.

The secretary then remarks as follows: To provide the large sums needed for the disbursements of the current year, and the large sums which the exigencies of the succeeding year may require, will necessarily engage the most serious attention of senators and representatives." Then in substance: That the reduction of expenditures should be within the narrowest practicable limits, and that retrenchment and reform are among the indispensable duties of the hour, and then adds

the following words: "The secretary feels himself constrained to renew the suggestion heretofore submitted by him, that the property of rebels should be made to pay, in part at least, the costs of rebellion. Property of great value in loyal States is held by proprietors who are actually or virtually engaged in that guilty attempt to break up the Union and overturn its government, which has brought upon our country all the calamities we now endure. That property is justly forfeited to the people, and should be subjected with due regard for all rights and interests concerned, to sequestration or confiscation, and the proceeds should be applied to the satisfaction of claims arising from the war.

Property of rebels in rebel States should be treated in like manner. Rights to services under State laws must of necessity, form an exception to any rule of confiscation. The secretary, however, recommends that the slaves of rebels under State laws may justly be liberated and made more valuable by being employed by government as laborers, at a just compensation than if confiscated as subjects of property." The reader should be informed, especially those who were not of sufficient age to become familiar with the fact, that when the report of the secretary was written, the slaves were not to any extent enlisted in the army of the Union.

The secretary then in substance states, that no anticipation of revenue from imports will be sufficient in

amount to meet the demands of the government if the existing contest shall be prolonged; and that it is not probable, should the debt created in the suppression of the rebellion reach very large proportions, that the revenue. from customs will be sufficient to provide for it during the first years after the restoration of peace. That it therefore becomes the duty of Congress to direct its attention to revenue from other sources, and says: "The provision made at the last session was of two descriptions: First, a direct tax of $20,000,000, of which $14,846,018 was apportioned to States and territories acknowledging their obligations to the Union, and $5,153.982 to the States, the citizens of which repudiate those obligations, and are in open rebellion; and secondly, an internal duty of three per centum on all annual income with certain exceptions and deductions."

The secretary was unable to estimate what the revenue from incomes would amount to after deducting the exemption of $800 allowed, and then adds: "The prudent forecast which induced Congress to postpone to another year the necessary steps for the practical enforcement of law, affords. happily the opportunity of revision. and modification; it affords also the opportunity of comparing the amount of needed revenue with the probable income from taxes of every kind, and of so shaping legislation, as to secure beyond doubt, the sums essential to the fulfillment of national obligations and

the maintenance of national credit.

"In the judgment of the Secretary, it will be necessary to increase the direct tax so as to produce from the loyal states alone, a revenue of at least $20,000,000, and to lay such duties on still and distilled liquors, on tobacco, on bank notes, on carriages, on legacies, on paper evidences of debt and instruments for conveyance of property, and other like subjects of taxation, as will produce an equal additional sum. The existing provision for an income tax, just in its principle, inasmuch as it requires largest contributions from largest means, if somewhat modified, will probably produce $10,000,000 more. The aggregate taxations will thus amount to $50,000,000."

"The Secretary is aware that the sum is large; but seeing, as he does, no probability that the revenue from ordinary sources will exceed $40,000,coo during the current year, and knowing, as he does, that to meet even economized disbursements, and pay the interest on the public debt, and provide a sinking fund for the gradual reduction of its principal, the appropiation of $90,000,000 will be necessary; he feels that he must not shrink from a plain statement of the actual necessities of the situation.

"But if the sum is large, the means of the people are also large; and the object to be attained by a consecration of a portion of them to the public service is priceless. The real property of the loyal states is valued, in round numbers, at