To meet the emergency
and provide for the expenses of the Government, a loan of $23,000,000
was authorized at the same session, which has since been negotiated. The
practical effect of this bill, had it become a law, would have been to
add the whole amount appropriated by it to the national debt. It would,
in fact, have made necessary an additional loan to that amount as
effectually as if in terms it had required the Secretary of the Treasury
to borrow the money therein appropriated. The main question in that
aspect is whether it is wise, while all the means and credit of the
Government are needed to bring the existing war to an honorable close,
to impair the one and endanger the other by borrowing money to be
expended in a system of internal improvements capable of an expansion
sufficient to swallow up the revenues not only of our own country, but
of the civilized world? It is to be apprehended that by entering upon
such a career at this moment confidence at home and abroad in the wisdom
and prudence of the Government would be so far impaired as to make it
difficult, without an immediate resort to heavy taxation, to maintain
the public credit and to preserve the honor of the nation and the glory
of our arms in prosecuting the existing war to a successful conclusion.
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