Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-08-12
To The Peopltof the United
StSes.

oOi lOotj tuo pecTtlIJ VI VI" |
is authorized to issu an amount not ex-
ceeding two bundre millions of dollars
in Treasury notes, caring interest at a
rate not exceeding seven an d three
tenths p er centul, redeemable alter
three years from dae, and to exchange
the same for lawful money. The Secre-
tary is further authorized to convert the
same into bonds bearing interest at a
rate not exceeding six per centum, pay
able in coin. In pursuance of the autho-
rity thus conferred, | offer to the
people of the United States Treasury
notes as described in my advertisement
dated July %, 1864.
The circumstances under which this
loan is asked or, and your aid invoked,
though differing widely from the existing
state of affairs hree years ago, are such
as TO afford eq,al encouragement n d
security. Time, while proving that the
struggle for national unity was to exceed
in duration and ssserity our worst an
ticipations, has tested b e strength,
and developed the national resour-
ces, to an extent dixie unexpected and
remarkable, excitin, equal astonishment
at home and abrold. Three years of
war h v e burdeled you with debt
which, but hire, years since, would
have seemed beyondyour ability to meet.
Yet the accumulated wealth and produc-
tive energies of the nation have proved
to be so vast that it las been borne with
comparative ease, and a peaceful future
would hardly feel its weight. AS price
paid for national existence, and the pre-
servation of free institutions, it does not
deserve a moments consideration.
Thus far the war has been supported
and carried on, as i! only could have
been, by people resolved, at whatever
cost of blood and treasure, to transmit,
unimpaired, to posterity, h e system OF
free government bequeathed to them by
the great men who framed it. This de-
lberate and patriotic resolve has devel'
oped power surprising even to them
selves. 1t has shown that in less than a
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 I'M
impaired in all the material elements Of
power. 1t has, at the present moment,
great armies in the field, facing an enemy
apparently approaching period of utter
exhaustion, b u t still struggling with a
force the greater and more desperate as
it sees, and because it sees, the near APP
proach Of final and fatal consumma-
ton. Such, in my deliberate judgment,
is the present condition of the great con
test for civil liberty in which you are
now engaged.
Up to the present moment you have
re d / y and cbeerfully afforded the
means necessary to support your govern
ment in this protracted struggle. 1t is
your war. You proclaimed it, and you
have sustained it against traitors every
where, with patriotic devotion unsur-
passed in the worlds history.
The securities offered are such as
should command your ready confidence.
Much effort has been made 10 shake pub
lie faith in our national credit, both at
home and abroad. AS yet we have ask
ed no foreign aid. Calm and self-reliant,
our own means have thus far proved
adequate to our wants. They are yet
ample to meet those of the present and
the future. 1t still remains for a patri-
otic people to furnish the needful supply.
The brave men who are fighting our bat
ties by land d sea must be fed and
clothed, munitions of war of all kinds
must be furnished, or the war must end
in defeat and disgrace. This is not the
time for any lover of his country to in
quire as to the state Of the money mark
ct, or ask whether he can so invest bis
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 profit,
thus acquired, is but the procure or of fu-
ture and speedy destruction. No invest
ment can be SO surely profitable as that
which tends to insure the national exis-
tence.
] am encouraged in the belief that by
the recent legislation of Congress u r
finances m y soon be placed upon a
sounder and more stable footing. The
present deranged condition of the cur,
rency is imputable, in great degree, to-
disturbances arising from the withdraw
al of necessary checks, often inevitable
in time Of war. when exnenditnres must