Year: 1862




Mr. Cameron present the following resolution,
adopted so recently by this House, as part of
his credentials, and our degradation in that
quarter of the world will be complete:


Resolued That Simon Cameron late Secretary of War;
by investing Alexander Cummings with the control Of
large of the public money and authority purchase
military supplies without restriction without requiring
from him any guarantee for the faithful performance Of
his duties when the services of competent public officers
were available, and by involving the Government in
vast number of contracts with persons not egmaely
engaged i'm the business pertaining the subject matter
OF such contracts especially in the purchase Of arms for
future delivery has adopted policy highly injurious to
the public service and deserves the cenSue of this House.


1 have shown that, by the deliberate finding of
regular committee of the Senate, the present
Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, in con-
nection with his brother-in-law, George d. Nor
gan, has unlawfully extOrted from the tax-pay-
ers of the Government $4,000 of their money.
With neither justification nor restitution on his
part, he vet retains his seat at the board of the
Cabinet council, wears fine linen and fares
sumptuously every day, while the wives and
children of soldiers have died in the great phi
lanthropic cities of the North for the want of
bread.


1have shown that a commission of most emf
nent gentlemen appointed by the President him
self have proven, conclusively proven, that the
blighting touch of John G. Fremont duringshis
hundred days in Missouri palsied public credit,
defrauded the people of millions, filled the bloat
ed purses of his favorites by fraud, demoralized
the public service in every branch and sought to
destroy the Constitution ITSELF The exhausted
soldier is put TO death for yielding to irresistible
slumber at his post the victim of pinching power
ty is sent to the penitentiary for stealing provis
ion for his wife and children; but this exalted
criminal finds approval for his conduct, is
rounded by fiatterers, is restored the field and
sits in the saddle of command and of power. Sir,
! Cicero brought the naughty Verres to trial and
to condemnation for his fraudulent practices in
the Siciian province; and Burke enriched the
English language by his denunciations of the ex-
tortionate measures imposed by Warren Hastings
on the people of the East Indies; but inthe midst
of fraud and robbery in the very highest depart
ments of this Government we have as vet seen
no official delinquent brought to answer to the
! law for the plumber of the public treasury, but
rather we have seen the perpetrators of these
wrongs receiving still greater marks of confidence
and of favor and mounted to still loftier nights
of honor.


But, Mr.. Speaker, having established by the
highest proof, the charge which | make of fraud
in the management of our pecuniary affairs by
which our public debt has been so fearfully in
creased, 1 shall now proceed to the brief consid-
Grafton of few other points properly in this con-
nection, and which 1 conceive to be of public in
terest.


We seek to take refuge, sir. from theenormous
figures of our national Indebtedness whenever
they are brought to our attention in the fact that
we can defer its payment, and bequeath it as an
inheritance to coming generations. Admitting
that this unworthy thing may to some extent be
done, vet let us see, for a few moments, what
amount of money this Government will be COM
PEELED annually to raise in order to prevent open
and confessed bankruptcy before the world. /
will content myself with a specific statement of
the various items of current yearly expense which
must be regularly met Against the substantial
correctness of this statement challenge success
full contradiction:


The interest on the public debt, at a very low
estimate, lOOOOO,OOO.


The ordinary expenses of the Government, in
cluding appropriations for the increased magni-
tude of the army and navy after the war is over,
will reach $3.50 900, 900 at another low estimate.
/ am especially warranted in fixing this amount
in view of the declaration on this floor by the
Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs,
Mr.. Blair, of Missouri, that hereafter our peace
establishment will consist of standing army of a
| hundred thousand men.


The pension list comes next. This Govern
ment must not fail to meet the requirements of
civilization and humanity. 1t must and will
provide for the support of its manned and
wounded, and for the maintenance of the
widows and orphans of those who have fallen
on the field of battle, or been stricken down
by disease while in the public service. 1t is
of course difficult TO calculate the amount
which will be required to meet this item of
expense; but no we'll informed person will
pretend that it will be less than the sum of
100000, 900.


To the above must be added at least $50, ,OOO,-
600 more as a margin for claims against the
Government, contingent expenses and unforeseen
events during this convulsive and unsettled peri
cd of the worlds history.


We have thus an inevitable annual expendi-
ture, without making any provision whatever for
the payment of the public debt itself, of the sum
of S4OO, ,0O0, 900. This amount will make its de-
mands on the resources of the people in each sue
| ceeding year, as regularly as the seasons come
and go, and in voice as imperative and mex
orable as the cry of fate. You need not avert
your frightened gaze from the sore contemplation
of this terrible fact 1t is the lion in the pathway
of the future but it must be met. Death itself
is not more certain to all than is this monstrous
annual burden on the shoulders of the American
people. And now, sir, bearing this fearful fact
in mind from which there is now no escape,
the question necessarily arises with immense,
overwhelming force, to what system of fin
ance shall be adopted to raise annually this
monstrous sum of money. 1t is the vital





others save civil liberty and republican govern
ment.


live, Mr. Speaker in land of corn, in
land where the fruits OF the earth constitute the
reward of labor. l live in great valley beside
whose agricultural wealth the famed valleys of
the Euphrates and the Nile and the richest fields
of Europe sink into utter insignifcance, and
whose more than Egyptian granaries invite the
markets of the civilized world. The plow, the
Il
are our implements of industry, and compose the
coat of arms of our nobility. The soil is our
fruitful mother, and we are her children. We
| fill our cribs with grain and stock our pastures
with cattle, and with these we seek to purchase
those other necessary articles of life which are
not made in our midst. These are our possess
sions which we of'erl to barter and exchange
with the trading merchants of the world who
give us the best returns. This we conceive to
be our right, and that the Government in which
we live should protect US in its enjoyment


But turn to the contemplation of another re-
gion ofthis country. You there behold the land
of manufacturing machinery, and hear the sound
of the loom and the spindle. The people of the
North and East make fabrics of cloth, and manu-
fsature all those articles which man needs, and
which do not grow. These constitute their wealth
and their stock of merchandise for trade. The
markets of the world are open to them, and of
right ought to be. The West is an immense
consumer of those articles which they have to
sell. We are willing TO buy of them of our own
choice if we can buy them cheap can
elsewhere. But here averthat the unequal and
unjust system of finance now adopted by the par
ty in power gives to the vast manufacturing in
terests of this country the arbitrary power to fix its
own exorbitant prices, and the laboring agricul-
turist is compeledto pay them. To this no peo-
pie can submit. Against this outrage the people
| of the West will cry out. You have fastened