The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-08-05
From III. National InteIlicenccr.

Citizens Is il not Time for n Change'
Fifteen hundred millions of dollars
have been paid by the people to the
Government of the United States since
the war ended! ~
All the public buildings in the Union,
from the magnificent Capitol at WASH
ington to the county court-houses in all
the States, have not cost so much public
money. It would buy the navy of
Great Britain. { 1t would lay q pontoon
bridge across the Pacific ocean. 1t
would dig down and cart into the sea
the highest mountain in America. 1t
would rebHild Baalbee, Persepolis, or
Palmyra. It weuld buy n barIel of
Hour for every family ON the globe. and
the quarter of it would give Bible
apiece to the human race. This enor-
nous sum is more than three hundred
dollars geacht to every white voter in
the United States. 1t has been paid by
the peopfe. What has been done with
Has the national debt been paida The
nationrl debt is growing larger instead
of smaller - II drinks up every year .
sum greater than any Administration
ever cost before the. war, without max.
ing the debt dollar less. =. rarr.
Has it heen expended in csmpen-
sating faithful Union men on the border
for the spoilations and impressnentsI
rendered necessary for the Union cause
during the-wari No. The laws allow
ing the liquidation and settlement of
that part of the public Indebtedness ex-
ltIn Low on1l in, -
N.Y. IL they wero residing within cer-
tain States. More just slegjslation will
yet cost q score of millions under that
head.
Has it gone to uphold civil authority
in these times of military vice to
strengthen the law;agafnst the sword
to pay the expenses Of administering
justice by beneficent jHdiciary' No.
The entire judiciary fund is less than
two millions of dollars. it
Has it gone to pay the expenses of the
postal servicei That service Imports
itself substantially, without D dollar
ont of the Treasury. 1t is not the
courts nor the mails whose blessings
cost the money
is it any branch of the civil service ?
The figures show sums so inconsidera-
bic for all the expenses of carrying on
OH the basis Of peace,
fer which governments are made, that
they leave the tremendous sum of fif-.
teen hundred millions almost unatlcct-
cd, MS q startling conception of quanti-
ty. Whittier bas it gono'
Nearly two-thirds of it (S9l7, III ,043)
was disbursed by the War Department,
exclusively of what was derived from
the vast sales of war material; of the
known and unknown millions poured
forth from the department of vagabond-
age; of expenses of the navy, and Of
everything else but strictly army ex-
penses. Nine hundred millions to sup
port an army without foe! Every
white voter in the Union, as it were,
paying $50 for negro soldier TO stand
guard with his bayonet over him and
his vote!
But it is not only that this prodigious
I'm has gone to army account. II is
morally certain that. mOst Of il has been
phRdered. The army is known to have
been Immediately reduced after the
war, and is now set down ut Sc, ,000men.
Before the war tho military establish
ment was, we believe, estimated at
q 900. But tho whole expenses of
the Buchanan Administration for the
last year was S70000,00O; while here,
with an army scarcely more than
treble, the money swallowed up by it
alone is nearly four times greater than
The whole expenses of tho Government
in 1860, being at the rate of nearly two
hundred and eighty millions n year
Citizens! is il not ime .for a chdRgG'