elligence and to bring the nation to the verge of ruin. It had no
compunction. It regarded the gore of battlefields as the rich rain and
mould out of which its own harvest was to grow. The more blood the
merrier. The more tears the richer the yield. The more war the more
debt. The more depression of the national credit the more cheaply we
shall be able to gather it up! The more grape-vine despatches the more
distraction and the better opportunity for us. The more death the more
millions. The more horror and devastation the heavier will be our
coffers. The more the people groan the more we will shout. The more
they die the more we will live. The more the flag is torn the more our
damask curtains will flutter. The more liberty perishes and withers
from the earth the more we shall plant ourselves and flourish and rule
and reign over a nation that we have destroyed and a people whom we
have enslaved. If Mr. Clews wishes any further outline of the history
of Wall Street during our Civil War we shall be glad to contribute
such a sketch as a reminiscence of a great fact which appears to be
dim in his memory.

There is another almost fatal omission in Mr. Clews's article. He says
but little about the principal work in which Wall Street, historically
considered, has been engaged during the last thirty years. I do not
like the way in which this great section of the "Past" of Wall Street
is glossed over. During the period referred to, that institution has
had one bottom purpose and one reason of action from which it has
never deviated. This purpose, this reason of action, has been the
perpetuation of the national debt and the increase of its value by
bulling the unit of money in which the debt is payable. Wall Street
knows that the bonded debt of the United States is the basis, or
central fact, in the whole system of bonds and stocks. Wall Street
knows that the dollar is the central fact in the bond. It knows that
if the bond can be made everlasting and the dollar can be increased in
value until a single unit of it shall be equivalent to an acre of
farming land, then the Street can own the United States in fee simple,
and can presently annex the rest of the world.

I acknowledge a certain admiration when I consider this stupendous
scheme. It is more than Napoleonic; it is continental, interplanetary,
sidereal! I cannot recall another conspiracy in the history of mankind
quite equal in colossal and criminal splendor to the profoun