The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-11-04
Johnson,s Essay on Finance.

Mr.. johnson, beginning his administration
with learned treatises upon constitutional
law and the philosophy of Republican gov
ernments, has about closed it with an essay
upon Finance. In a letter to Thomas Ewing,
which some of our readers may have read,
this eminent financier of the "whisky ring"
who was given a tax of two dollars gallon,
and ninety million gallons of whisky to col
lect it from, and raised but thirteen millions
of dollars, attempts to enlighten the country
upon the mystery Of the national debt. Be-
cause we ran government one hundred
years ago, under which there were, perhaps,
three millions of inhabitants, and which
stretched Westward about one hundred miles
from the Atlantic, and Southwark few
miles below the White House, and expended
only about one hundred millions annually,
therefore, we are in this day and generation
extravaganza people and in a fair way to go
to the bad the moment Gen. Grant is
elected
Mr.. johnson signed his name to some we'll
written vetoes for he had an able man in his
Cabinet to write them. He occasionally ut
tered something from the stump, even while
swinging around the circle, that did credit
to jeremiah Black. But in his late attempt
to enlighten the people upon the finances of
the country, he has made a most lamentable
failure, and proven to the world that, in
parting with Stanberry and Black, he parted
with all the brains his administration has
shown symptoms of possessing since he be-
came President. Nothing is more absurd
than to institute comparison between the
cost of the wars to resist Great Britain, and
the cost of the war to suppress the Great Re
bellion. The former were as nothing COM
pared with the latter, and the country and
the people who fought them were as nothing
when compared with those who poured out
their millions, to sustain on the one hand and
to suppress on the other, rebellion, the like
of which the nations of Europe never saw.
No one but a born and bred demagogue
would think seriously of instituting such q
comparison, and to institute it, proves how
hard-pressed Mr.. johnson is to find argu-
meuts to bolster up his rapidly dropping
policy. The country is better able to bear a
debt of ten thousand millions to-day than it
was one of forty millions when Washington
became President of the United States. The
State of Illinois, fifty years agoa wild prairie,
tracked by Indians and buffaloes, has to-day
taxable real estate to the amount of five
hundred millions, and during the late
war sent two hundred thousand men
into the field, double the number used by
Washington in the Revolutionary struggle.
And what of New York and Pennsylvania
and Ohio and other great States that gave
one-third more men each than Illinois Mr.
johnson thinks we live in an age of log
huts and stage coaches, and that our wealth
in houses and lands, in mines of iron and
coal, and gold and silver, have not increased
in value, or never been touched by the ad-
venturous and hardy explorer. In the days
he contrasts with these, not an iron bar had
ever been laid for railroad, and not a loco
motive with its shrek had ever startled wild
beasts or wild men from their hiding places.
Our whole country was comparatively will
derness. The father of the Astors was carrying
furs on his back from Indian encampments;
and Stewart, as boy, was carrying dry
goods in pack. from house to house in the
little town of New York. Vanderbilt was
dreaming of little one-horse ferry from Sta
ten Island, and Erastus Corning was sweep
ing out the dirt of hardware store in the
village of Troy. Men who to-day count
their wealth by the fifty million, were
then working eighteen hours day to pay
for their board and clothing. The Hudson
River and Long Island Sound were -naviga-
ted by sloops and schooners, and Fulton
was trying to beat into Dutch skulls the "a
pidity and economy of steamboats,. The
town of New York was tracked with cow
paths above old Trinity, and the region
above Canal street, or supposed to be an
undrainable swamp.
And what were we here inNorth Carolina9
Gov. Holden who knows as much about our
history as any one in the State, can tell us
if he will. Not quite SO much of State as
we are now, but with much more patri-
otto people than some who now curse it by
their rebellion and demagogueism.
The present debt of the United States, al