The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-19 00:00:00

2HE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE.

THE COST OF CONGRESSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION.
I would not put considerations of money in com-
petition with justice and right, but the expenses
incident to " reconstruction" under the system
adopted by Congress aggravate what 1 regard as
the intrinsic wrong of the measure itself. It has
cost uncounted millions already, and, if persisted
in, will add largely to the weight of taxation, al-
ready too oppressive to be borne without just com-
plpint, and may finally reduce the Treasury of the
nation to a condition of bankruptcy. We must not
delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing
army and probably more than two hundred millions
of dollars per annu.n to maintain the supremacy of
negro governments after they are established. The
sums thus thrown away would, if properly used,
fJrm a sinking fund large enough to pay the whole
nation d debt in I,ss than fifteen years. it is vain
to hope that negroes wi:l rnaiutain their ascendancy
themvelves. Without military power they arc
wholly incapable of holding in subjection the white
people of the South. I submit to the judgment
of Congress whether public credit may not be :
injuriously affected by a system of measures like
this. With our debt and vast private interests, which
are complicated with it, we cannot be too cautious
of a policy which might by possibility impair the
confidence of the world in our Government. That
confidence can only be retained by carefully incul-
cating the principles of justice and honour on the
popular mind, and by the most scrupulous fidelity
to all our engagements of every sort. Any serious
breach of organic law persisted in for a considerable
time cannot but create fears for the stability of our
institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules,
which we bind ourselves to observe, must demoralise
the people. Our only standard of civil duty being
set at nought, the sheet anchor of our political
morality is lost, public confidence swings from its
moorings, and yields to every impulse of passion
and interest. If we repudiate the Constitution we
may well not be expected to care much for mere
pecuniary obligations. The violation of such a
pledge as we made on the 22d of July, 1861, will
assuredly diminish the market value of our other
promises. Besides, if we now acknowledge that
the national debt was created not to hold States
in the Union as taxpayers were led to suppose,
but to expel them from it, and hand them over
to be governed by negroes, moral duty to pay
it may seem much less clear. I say it may seem
so, for I do not admit that this or any other
argument in favour of repudiation can be enter-
tained as sound, but its influence on some classes
of minds may well be apprehended. The financial
honour of a great commercial nation largely in-
debted, and with a Republican form of govern-
ment, administered by the agents of popular choice,
is a thing of such delicate texture, the destruction
of it would be followed by such unspeakable cala-
mity, that every true patriot must desire to avoid
whatever might expose it to the slightest danger.
The great interests of the country require imme-
diate relief from these enactments. Business in the
South is paralysed by a sense of general insecurity,
by terror of confiscation, and dread of negro supre-
macy. Southern trade, from which the North would
have derived so great a profit under a government
of law, still languishes, and can never be revived
until it ceases to be fettered by arbitrary power
which makes all its operations unsafe. That rich
country, the richest in natural resources the world
ever saw, is worse than lost if it be not soon placed
under the protection of a free constitution. Instead
of being, as it ought to be, a source of wealth and
power, it will become an intolerable burden upon
the rest of the nation.