Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-10-01

that disorder, corruption, and crime should
more and more abound: that respect for the
| laws and all lawful authorities should decline
! and that distrust in the stability of the Gov
rnment itself should gradually infuse itself
into the minds of the sober and thoughtful
portion of the people, who Can wonder at or
feel surprise -@
- The experience of the past teaches us to
what dangerous results the extreme party ac-
ton of the Government may lead if no check
to its intensity can be provided. The same
experience teaches us that to do this will be
no easy achievement. No sooner is one great
struggle for the possession of power and its
glttering spoils decided than the contest is
renewed between rival aspirants for the suc-
cession. Invention is again upon the rack;
the whole moral field of adventure. 'from
Arctic to Antarctic pole," is explored for the
discovery of some new Device some new ISSUE
some new scheme of policy by which the
popular sympathes and passions may be ex-
cited. Since politics have become a trade, an
employment, in which wealth as well as honor
and personal distinction may be won, the
votaries of ambition are not over-scrupulous
as to the means of success. When ali other
resources are exhausted; when foreign inter-
ventlon for the protection of trodden-down
nationalities fail them; when schemes of an
nexation and further national ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
offer no immediate prospect of success in
winning popular support; when no quarrel
vorife resort OF many in seeking to reach the
popular heart. the more desperate do not hes
ltate to try their fortunes by exciting and
fomenting sectional jealousies and resent
ments; anything but general quiet is desirable
to them. That would be destruction to their
objects. They abhor political calm as much
as nature is said to abhor a vacuum. Peace
is not what they want, If they had it they
would fling it away. They prefer sword
6nnmad tn
eternal round of excitements and agitation
Twice within the short space of ten years
have We seen from such causes the Govern
ment brought to the very verge of dissolu-
ton.
Happily hope may now be INDUCED that
these sectional discussions, which have been
so unfortunately fomented, will cease. We
have. at least, truce; an interval of repose,
which may be improved and ripened into per-
manent quiet, and the downward tendency of
the Government arrested by timely diver
sion of the public mind to questions and
measures of public policy, national in their
character and more in conformity with the
purposes and objects for which the Govern
ment was established. To do this we must
economic time. If we loiter by the way, if
we hesitate, we are lost. The evil spirit
which has been successful heretofore in
sowing discord is ever awake and of a most
inventive genius.
Sir, speak melancholy truths. but do not
altogether despair of the Republic. The cir
cumstances of the times appear to me to be
most auspicious for a determined and sue
cessful effort to accomplish great reform
Besides the apprehensions as to the future |
and the diminished confidence in the stability |
OF the Government itself, prevailing in the |
minds Of many of the best men of the cOun- |
try, TO which L have before alluded the mass |
of the people have become weary and tired of
the strife and agitation growing out of these |
sectional issues. Thousands and tens of |
thousands of them are suffering privation !
from the PROSTATE condition of trade and |
many important industrial enterprises of the |
country; and all the business classes feel that |
their resources are diminished, and their pro- |
ductlve energies more or less crippled and |
paralyzed by the late unparalleled monetary |
and commercial revulsiOn. Happy will it be |
II this shock to the great business interests of |
the country this check to the general pros
perity, shall awaken such a spirit of inquiry |
among the people as to the causes which pro- |
duced 1t as Will restore the Government to its |
regular and constitutional action and require |
the public functiOnaries, the trustees of pow |
er, and those who aspire to those great trusts,
to give more of their attention to the public |
welfare than to the ways and means of re-
tanning or acquiring them.
But, sir, there is another circumstance in |
the condition of the countrywide one to |
which alluded at the outset of my remarks |
which offers strong inducements to COM !
bined effort to bring back the Government to |
its original apd constitutional tack, and to |
correct the further progress of the vicious |
principles and practices in its operation which |
threaten to undermine and destroy it.
Twelve months ago, and for the preceding |
two years or more, there was a surplus in the |
public Treasury of nearly twenty million |
dollars; and this was 50 even under the drain |
age OF that profuse and eXtravagant expendi- |
ture which has been so often spoken of. But |
now, in time of peace with all the world |
except with one of the corporations or Terri |
tories of our own system. with no extra ex- |
penditure except that incurred in fitting out |
the expedition to Utah, the Treasury is re-
duced to the necessity of appealing to Con-
gress to supply its wants. In six months |
from the time when the pressure upon the |
money market commenced. Notwithstanding
the surplus then in the Treasury, and the |
S2S,OO0,OOO of current receipts in the first |
two quarters of the fiscal year 1857, the Gov
ernment, technically speaking, was reduced |
to bankruptcy. An application was made at |
the opening of Congress for loan of 500 |
100000 in the form of Treasury notes 1t |
was sustained and carried through under the |
whip aud spur of immediate necessity; the |
honorable Senator from Virginia telling us |
that in fortnight from the time when he |
spoke the Treasury would be absolutely ex-
hausted If we failed to pass that bill; while |
the Secretary of the Treasury, in his letter
applying for that issue, intimated distinctly |
that the $4,000 600 were only asked as a |
precautioE against possible deficit, and /
might not be needed at all. Yet, sir, within |
four months from that time we have an ap- |
plicaton for an additional loan Of SIS. OO0,- |
600. To do what? To carry the Government
through the present fiscal year ending on the
3Oth June next, and until the next session of |
Congress; thus adding to the public debt of |
the country in one year S35 .000, 600 indie
pendently and outside of the loan of SI5.-
10000 now asked. the means provided for
the expenditure of the Government within I
the present fiscal year, including the surplus
in the Treasury ut the beginning of it. the
current receipts from customs and the public
lands together with the $50, 000, 900 of Trea-
sury notes. exceed eighty million dollars
Such is the condition of the Treasury and of
The country-a new debt of $50. 000 0OO and
an annual expenditure of upwards of eighty
millions! And unless the expectation of the
honorable Senator from Virginia be realized
in regard to the revival of trade next year. of
which see no prospect, at least to the extent
he estimates, by the time another fiscal year
closes we shall be burdened with a public
debt far exceeding the debt at the close of ali
expensive war with Mexico. la the mean
time the depression of trade and OF most of |
the great industrial employments of the
country, caused by the late reyulsion, contin-
ues with little abatement.
Is there not enough in all these circum-
stances to awaken inquiry among the people
into the canss.s which have brought many |
evils upon the country? To show how much
dependence ought TO be placed in those who
now control the Government aud dictate the
policy of the country for the correction OF
the multiplied evils of the times, we may
learn, once for all, from their conduct in re-
lation to the present condition of the Treasury