I will make no apology for the length to which I have extended these remarks. The importance of the subject demanded it. The decision we shall reach on this question will settle or unsettle the foundations of public credit, of the public faith, and of individual and national prosperity. The time and manner of paying the bonds, the refunding the national debt, the continuance or abolition of the national banks, and many other propositions, depend for their wisdom or unwisdom on the settlement of this question. I know we are told that resumption of specie payments will increase the value of the public debt, and thus add to the burden of taxation; and we are told, with special emphasis, that the people will not tolerate any increase of their burdens, but that they demand plenty of money and a return of high prices. But, sir, I have learned to think better of the American people than to believe that they are not willing to know the worst and to provide for it. I remember that, after the first defeat at Bull Run, many officers of the government thought it not safe to let the people know, at once, the full extent of the disaster; but that the news should be broken gently, that the nation might be better able to bear it. Long before the close of the war, it was found that Cabinet and Congress and all the officers of the United States needed for themselves to draw hope and courage from the great heart of the people. It was only necessary for the nation to know the extent of the danger, the depth of the need, and its courage, faith, and endurance were always equal to the necessity. It is now, as ever, our highest duty to deal honestly and frankly with the people. who sent us here, in reference to their financial and industrial affairs; to assure them that the path of safety is a narrow and rugged one; that by economy and prudence, by much patience and some suffering, they must come down, by slow and careful steps, from the uncertain and dangerous height to which the war carried them, or they will fall at last in financial ruin more sudden and calamitous than any yet recorded in the history of mankind. Let it be remembered, also, that the heaviest of the pressure has already been felt; the climax of suffering is already past. The spring has opened with better prospects, and indications are not wanting that the end of stagnation and depression is near. The hitherto unknown extent of our resources, the great recuperative energies of our industry, and the generous loyalty of the people, have brought the nation safely

thus far through the dangers and difficulties of the rebellion. Patience and steady firmness maintained here and among the people a little longer will overcome the obstacles that yet lie before us.

For my own part, my course is taken. In view of all the facts of our situation; of all the terrible experiences of the past, both at home and abroad; and of the united testimony of the wisest and bravest statesmen who have lived and labored during the last century, it is my firm conviction that any considerable increase of the volume of our inconvertible paper money will shatter public credit, will paralyze industry and oppress the poor; and that the gradual restoration of our ancient standard of value will lead us, by the safest and surest path, to national prosperity and the steady pursuits of peace.

STREWING FLOWERS ON THE GRAVES

OF UNION SOLDIERS.

ORATION DELIVERED AT ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA,

MAY 30, 1868.

"He has not died young who has lived long enough to die for his country.".

MR.

Schiller.

R. PRESIDENT,-I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden, it must be here beside the graves of fifteen thousand men, whose lives were more significant than speech, and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung. With words we make promises, plight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be kept; plighted faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue be only the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men made, one pledge they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country, they accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue. For the noblest man that lives, there still remains a conflict. He must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune, must still be assailed with temptations, before which lofty natures have fallen; but with these, the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on them the great seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years can never blot.

I know of nothing more appropriate on this occasion than to inquire what brought these men here. What high motive led them to condense life into an hour, and to crown that hour by joyfully welcoming death? Let us consider.

Eight years ago this was the most unwarlike nation of the earth. For nearly fifty years no spot in any of these States

had been the scene of battle. Thirty millions of people had an army of less than ten thousand men. The faith of our people in the stability and permanence of their institutions was like their faith in the eternal course of nature. Peace, liberty, and personal security were blessings as common and universal as sunshine and showers and fruitful seasons; and all sprang from a single source, the old American principle that all owe due submission and obedience to the lawfully expressed will of the majority. This is not one of the doctrines of our political system, it is the system itself. It is our political firmament, in which all other truths are set, as stars in heaven. It is the encasing air, the breath of the nation's life. Against this principle the whole weight of the rebellion was thrown. Its overthrow would have brought such ruin as might follow in the physical universe if the power of gravitation were destroyed, and,

"Nature's concord broke,

Among the constellations war were sprung,

And planets, rushing from aspect malign

Of fiercest opposition, in mid-sky

Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound."

The nation was summoned to arms by every high motive which can inspire men. Two centuries of freedom had made its people unfit for despotism. They must save their government, or miserably perish.

As a flash of lightning in a midnight tempest reveals the abysmal horrors of the sea, so did the flash of the first gun disclose the awful abyss into which rebellion was ready to plunge us. In a moment the fire was lighted in twenty million hearts. In a moment we were the most warlike nation on the earth. In a moment we were not merely a people with an army, we were a people in arms. The nation was in column, not

all at the front, but all in the array.

I love to believe that no heroic sacrifice is ever lost; that the characters of men are moulded and inspired by what their fathers have done; that treasured up in American souls are all the unconscious influences of the great deeds of the AngloSaxon race, from Agincourt to Bunker Hill. It was such an influence that led a young Greek, two thousand years ago, when musing on the battle of Marathon, to exclaim, "The trophies of Miltiades will not let me sleep!" Could these men be silent in 1861, these, whose ancestors had felt the inspiration of battle

on every field where civilization had fought in the last thousand years? Read their answer in this green turf. Each for himself gathered up the cherished purposes of life, - its aims and ambitions, its dearest affections, and flung all, with life itself, into the scale of battle.

We began the war for the Union alone; but we had not gone far into its darkness before a new element was added to the conflict, which filled the army and the nation with cheerful but intense religious enthusiasm. In lessons that could not be misunderstood, the nation was taught that God had linked to our own the destiny of an enslaved race, that their liberty and our Union were indeed "one and inseparable." It was this that made the soul of John Brown the marching companion of our soldiers, and made them sing as they went down to battle,

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me ;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on."

With such inspirations, failure was impossible. The struggle consecrated, in some degree, every man who bore a worthy part. I can never forget an incident illustrative of this thought, which it was my fortune to witness, near sunset of the second day at Chickamauga, when the beleaguered but unbroken left wing of our army had again and again repelled the assaults of more than double their numbers, and when each soldier felt that to his individual hands were committed the life of the army and the honor of his country. It was just after a division had fired its last cartridge, and had repelled a charge at the point of the bayonet, that the great-hearted commander took the hand of an humble soldier and thanked him for his steadfast courage. The soldier stood silent for a moment, and then said, with deep emotion: "George H. Thomas has taken this hand in his. I'll knock down any mean man that offers to take it hereafter." This rough sentence was full of meaning. He felt that something had happened to his hand which consecrated it. Could a hand bear our banner in battle, and not be forever consecrated to honor and virtue? But doubly consecrated were these who received into their own hearts the fatal shafts aimed at the life of their country. Fortunate men! your country lives. because you died! Your fame is placed where the breath of