The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1864-09-01
To the People of the United States.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
July 25, 1864.

is authorized to issue an amount not eA :
ceeding two hundred millions of dollars
in Treasury notes, bearing interest at a
rate not exceeding seven and three-tenths
per centum, redeemable after three years
from date, and to exchange the same for
lawful money. The Secretary is further
authorized to convert the same into
bonds, bearing interest at rate not ex-
ceeding six per centum, payable in coin
In pursuance of the authority thus con-
ferred, / now offer to the people of the
United States Treasury notes as described
in my advertisement dated July 20,
1864.
The circumstances under which this
loan is asked for, and your aid invoked,
though differing widely from the existing
state of affairs three years ago, are such
as to afford equal encouragement and Sc
curity. Time, while proving that the
struggle for national unity was to exceed
in duration and severity our worst antici-
pations, has tested the national strength,
and developed the national resources, to
an extent alike unexpected and remarka-
BILE, exciting equal astonishment at home
and abroad. Three years of war have
burdened you with a debt which, but
three years since, would have seemed be-
yond your ability to meet. Yet the ac-
cumulated wealth and productive ener-
gies of the nation have proved to be so
vast that it has been borne with compare
tive ease, and a peaceful future would
hardly feel its weight AS a price paid
for national existence, and the preserva-
ton of free institutions, it does not de-
serve a moments consideration.
Thus far the war has been supported
and carried on, as it only could have
been, by people resolved at whatever
cost of blood and treasure, to transmit,
unimpared, to posterity, the system of
free government bequeathed to them by
the great men who framed it. This de-
liberate and patriotic resolve has devel-
oped power surprising even to them
selves 1t has shown that III less than
century a nation has arisen, unsurpassed
in vigor, and exhaustless in resources,
able to conduct through series of years,
war on its most gigantic scale, and find
ing itself, when near its close, almost un-
impaired in all the material elements of
power. 1t has, at the present moment,
great armies in the field, facing an enemy
approaching period of utter
exhaustion, but still struggling with
force the greater and more desperate as
it sees, and because it sees, the rear ap-
proach of a final and fatal consummation.
Such, in my deliberate judgment, is the
present condition of the great contest for
civil liberty in which you are now en-
gagged.
Up to the present moment you have
readily and cheerfully afforded the means
necessary to support your Government in
this protracted struggle. 1t is your war.
You proclaimed it, and you have sus-
tanned it against traitors everywhere,
with patriotic devotion unsurpassed In
the worlds history.
The securities offered are such as
should command your ready confidence.
Much effort has been made to shake pub
lie faith in our national credit, both at
home and abroad. AS yet we have asked
no foreign aid. Calm and self-reliant,
our own means have thus far proved ad-
equate to our wants. They are yet am
pie to meet those of the present and the
future. 1t still remains for patriotic
people to furnish the needful supply
The brave men who are fighting our bat
ties by land and sea must be fed and
clothed, munitions of war of all kinds
must be furnished, or the war must end
in defeat aud disgrace. This is not the
time Tor any lover Of his country to in
quire as to the state of the money mark
ct, or ask whether he can so invest his
surplus capital as to yield him larger
return. No return, and no profit, can be
desirable, if followed by national dissolu-
ton, or national disgrace. Present prof
it, thus acquired, is but the precursor of
future and speedy destruction. No in
vestment can be SO surely profitable as
that which tends to insure the national
existence.
I am encouraged in the belief that by
the recent legislation of Congress our f.
nances may soon be placed upon q sound
er and more stable footing. The present
deranged condition of the currency is i'm
putable, in great degree, to disturbances
arising from the withdrawal of necessary
checks, often inevitable in time of war,
when expenditures must largely exceed
any possible supply of coin. The oppor-
tunities thus presented to acquire sudden
wealth have led to vicious speculation, a
consequent increase in prices, and vio-
lent fuctuation. The remedy is to be
found only in controlling the necessity
which begets the evil. Hitherto we have
felt the need of more extensive and Wig
orous taxation. Severe comment has
been made upon what seemed to many
on undue timidity and tardiness of action,
on the part of Congress, in this regard.
| deem it but just to say that every great
has existed, and perhaps
still exists, upon this point. Legislators,
like all others, nave much to learn in a
new condition of affairs. An entirely
new system was to be devised, and that
al