onward march of the whole and every part and involve all in one common
ruin. But such considerations, important as they are in themselves, sink
into insignificance when we reflect on the terrific evils which would
result from disunion to every portion of the Confederacy--to the North
not more than to the South, to the East not more than to the West. These
I shall not attempt to portray, because I feel an humble confidence that
the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to frame the
most perfect form of government and union ever devised by man will not
suffer it to perish until it shall have been peacefully instrumental by
its example in the extension of civil and religious liberty throughout
the world.

Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union
is the duty of preserving the Government free from the taint or even the
suspicion of corruption. Public virtue is the vital spirit of republics,
and history proves that when this has decayed and the love of money has
usurped its place, although the forms of free government may remain for
a season, the substance has departed forever.

Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history.
No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large a surplus
in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to extravagant
legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure and begets a race
of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is exerted in contriving and
promoting expedients to obtain public money. The purity of official
agents, whether rightfully or wrongfully, is suspected, and the
character of the government suffers in the estimation of the people.
This is in itself a very great evil.

The natural mode of relief from this embarrassment is to appropriate the
surplus in the Treasury to great national objects for which a clear
warrant can be found in the Constitution. Among these I might mention
the extinguishment of the public debt, a reasonable increase of the
Navy, which is at present inadequate to the protection of our vast
tonnage afloat, now greater than that of any other nation, as well as
to the defense of our extended seacoast.

It is beyond all question the true principle that no more revenue ought
to be collected from the people than the amount necessary to defray
the expenses of a wise, economical, and efficient administration of
the Government. To reach this point it was necessary to resort to a
mo