Year: 1861

War is an expensive luxury. How
ever humanely and discreetly waged, it
is serious drain upon the life of nation.


We shall come out of the present strug-


gle impoverished in many ways. With
the best success, we shall expend hun
dreds of millions Of treasures and sacri-
flee thousands of lives. We shall feel
the bruises of the conflict for years after
the rebellion has been crushed and
peace has been restored. Thousands of
fortunes will be wrecked-thousands of
homes will be made desolate-thousand
Of bright careers will be arrested. The
mourner will go about the Streets
There will be sorrow and anguish
there will be despair that no human
sympathy can assuage-in many gen.
tie bosom The wrecks will lie thick
around us-the charred and battered
ruins of high hopes and sublime en-
deavors-will attest how severe has been
the trial through which the country has
passed.


Will it pay the cost? Yes-a hun
dred-a thousand fold--if we come out
of the struggle conquerors! If we sue
ceed in crushing out this miserable re-
bellion-if we exterminate the fatal
heresy Of Secession-if we shall be able
to teach treason such lesson as history
will never weary of rehearsing-if we
shall succeed in convincing the world
that we have Government, strong, Wig
orous enough, determined enough, to
overcome all combinations and attacks,
whether from conspiracies within or in
vasions without; if we shall be able to
impress Christendom with the convic-
ton that our Western empire is built
upon a rock, which 10 convulsion can
shake and no tempest undermine; if we
shall be able to do this, and do it eff
tectively, the war, no matter how long
or how desperately waged, will be the
cheapest enterprise upon which the ma
ton ever embarked. Every drop Of
blood that has been shed-every dollar
that has been expended-every purpose
that has been banked and hope that has
been crushed-will fructify into future
blessings. We shall emerge from the
conflict stronger in all that goes to make
up the life of a great people. We shall
resume the calm pursuits of peace,
chastened by the trial thro' which we
have passed-puriGed by the afdiction
with which we have been visited. We
shall find ourselves elevated to higher
moral plan, and quickened by nobler
impulses to the performance of nobler
deeds. We shall find ourselves purer,
more self-reliant, more self-poised, more
able to grapple with future issues, and
avoid future dangers. We shall find
ourselves less bound up in selfshness,
less the slaves of toll and business, less
groveling in our tastes, less earthly in
our aspirations.


The successful termination Of the war
will be the dawn Of new era in the
history of the country. The Republic
will enter upon new stage Of its career.
The public heart will throb with more
generous pulsations. Broader, higher,
noblcr issues will engage the attention
of statesmen. \ loftier standard of
public morality will prevail. A better
class of public teachers will come upon
the stage. Purer aims and more exal-
ted conceptions Of truth and justice will
animate the people, The sterling metal
of our western life, purified as it were
by fre-abstracted from the dross that
has so long tarnished its lustre-will
shine out as it has never shone before.