to regard, as I am bound to treat, them _as facts_ which can
not now be undone, and as deeply interesting to us all, and equally
imposing upon all the most solemn duties; and the only use I would make
of the errors of the past is by a careful examination of their causes
and character to avoid if possible the repetition of them in future.
The condition of the country, indeed, is such as may well arrest the
conflict of parties.

The conviction seems at length to have made its way to the minds of all
that the disproportion between the public responsibilities and the means
provided for meeting them is no casual nor transient evil. It is, on the
contrary, one which for some years to come, notwithstanding a resort to
all reasonable retrenchments and the constant progress of the country
in population and productive power, must continue to increase under
existing laws, unless we consent to give up or impair all our defenses
in war and peace. But this is a thought which I am persuaded no
patriotic mind would for a moment entertain. Without affecting an alarm,
which I do not feel, in regard to our foreign relations, it may safely
be affirmed that they are in a state too critical and involve too many
momentous issues to permit us to neglect in the least, much less to
abandon entirely, those means of asserting our rights without which
negotiation is without dignity and peace without security.

In the report of the Secretary of the Treasury submitted to Congress
at the commencement of the present session it is estimated that after
exhausting all the probable resources of the year there will remain a
deficit of about $14,000,000. With a view partly to a permanent system
of revenue and partly to immediate relief from actual embarrassment,
that officer recommended, together with a plan for establishing a
Government exchequer, some expedients of a more temporary character,
viz, the issuing of Treasury notes and the extension of the time for
which the loan authorized to be negotiated by the act of the last
session should be taken. Congress accordingly provided for an issue of
Treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000, but subject to the condition
that they should not be paid away below par.

No measure connected with the last of the two objects above mentioned
was introduced until recently into the House of Representatives. Should
the loan bill now pending before that body pass into a law for its
present amount, there would still rem