separate independence, and that all the debt created by the Lincoln Administration should fall upon the people of the States adhering to the old Union, the comparative amount of the Federal debt to the assessed value of the property, real and personal, which the people will have to meet, this debt obligation will be about as one is to two and a half. In other words, of every two and a half dollars' worth of property which the people of the States adhering to the Union may own, a portion equal to one dollar of every two and a half will be required to meet the obligations of debt incurred by the Lincoln Administration. And this estimate goes no further than to include debt authorized by existing acts and obligations already incurred.

By a reference to the Finance Act now under consideration, it will be seen that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized by the first section of that act to incur a bonded debt of $900,000,000, and without obtaining for such bonds an equal amount in money. He may sell the bonds for what they will bring in the market. And what might this be? Not more than seventy cents in greenbacks on the dollar, if as much, which would be about equal to fifty cents on the dollar in specie.

The second section of the Finance Act authorizes the issue of $400,000,000 in Treasury notes, making with the $900,000,000 in bonds, $1,300,000,000. The third section authorizes a further issue of $150,000,000 in other Treasury notes, if so much should be needed, as it of course will be, and more too, making in all $1,450,000,000. This added to the debt already incurred will make over two billions four hundred and fifty millions (2,450,000,000) of dollars. To pay this debt there was assessed property, real and personal together in 1860, in the non-slaveholding States, of the value of $5,579,692,449. Or adding to this the assessed value of property in such doubtful States as Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and we have in round numbers $8,000,000,000 worth of assessed property. But as that portion of personal property which is invested in United States debt is exempt from taxation, the remaining property, equal in a round sum to $5,500,000,000, will be made responsible for the whole debt. According to this estimate, the debt will be, as it stands now incurred and authorized, in the proportion of one dollar of debt to less than three dollars' worth of taxable property, including the property, real and personal, of all the States adhering to the Union, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee not excepted. This burden, it will not be too much to say, is intolerable. It will become unendurable, and the act of legislation by which it has been imposed, one of the most despotic

character, for despotism in government is nothing else than the imposition of burdens and taxation on the governed which they are not able to bear without suffering privations which mankind should not be required to endure by any acts of their public servants or rulers.

But the debts incurred already, and authorized to be incurred by this Finance Act, are not all that will be required in consequence of the existing war. The future annual expenses of the Government, should the American people adhere to each other under a government, will not be less than $100,000,000, without including anything but very ordinary expenses. To this must be added the interest on the public debt, which, if no more debt should be created than is already incurred and authorized, will amount to $2,450,000,000, the interest on this amount of debt at an average of six per cent. will be an annual sum of $147,000,000. This added to the lowest estimate that can be made of the ordinary expenditures of the Government will swell the amount required to be raised to carry on the Government and pay interest on its debt, to $247,000,000 annually.

Onerous as the existing Tax Law and Tariff Act are, these two means of raising revenue will not produce more than $200,000,000 in the aggregate by the most liberal estimates that can be made of these resources. This will fall $47,000,000 a year short of meeting the requirements of the Government, and this amount must be raised either by extra taxation or by adding that amount to the public debt, as is done usually by the governments of Europe. In either case the prospect is not flattering to a people who thought they were free, in the liberal sense of the term.

It is to be also taken into consideration that the estimate of $100,000,000 to meet the ordinary expenditures of the Government is far too low. The expenditures will be really nearly double that sum, unless there be a reform in our system of government. It must not be forgotten, in estimating future requirements of the Government, that the widows and orphans of soldiers who die in the existing war must be provided for, nor that the surviving soldiers who may be disabled by wounds or disease from making a livelihood, must be supported at the expense of the Government. The surviving soldiers will form a strong element in election contests, and their whole influence will be brought to bear, if necessary to secure that object, to compel the Government to support and pension themselves and families. Those among them who were demagogues before entering the army will not be the less so when they are obliged to return to civil life, nor will their appetite for public pap have become satiated by the pay and plunder which they will have received and secured in return

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for their patriotic efforts to preserve the Union. Fifty millions a year for some time to come will not be too large an estimate of what will be required to support and pension the widows and orphans of deceased soldiers and the survivors of the existing war. Add this to the $247,000,000 which will be required to carry on the Government and pay interest on its debt, and the annual aggregate required to be raised by taxation or by new loans amounts to $297,000,000. It will be impossible to raise this amount by taxation. The alternative must be re. sorted to of raising a portion of it by loans, and thus will the burdens upon the people be increased from year to year, until it becomes so exacting that it will require all the surplus accumulations of labor, industry, and capital to meet its requirements, and leave the great mass of the people no more on which to eke out their existence than have the over-burdened, misgoverned, down-trodden people of Europe. Such will be the effects of some of the Acts of the Thirty-seventh Congress, and of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln. Reader,

if you doubt it, bear in mind the reflections placed before you for consideration; if you have the discernment to perceive the prospective reality, does it not become you as a true American to aid in restraining our rulers in their mad career?

THE CONSCRIPTION ACT.

THE preamble to the Conscription Act sets out with the declaration, "that there exists an insurrection or rebellion in the United States, and that it is the duty of the Government to suppress it, to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, and to preserve the domestic tranquillity.” But it does not follow from these assertions that the Federal Government, or rather the constitutional authorities who administer that Government, become vested with any new power or authority on that account which they did not possess before. It is the duty of the Government to suppress insurrection, but it is also a requirement of the supreme law that the Government conform itself in the performance of that duty to certain rules prescribed for its conduct. As Government is but a creature of law, it must conform itself to the will of the law, which in this country is presumed to be the will of the people. Now the law which is above the Government says that the authority of training the militia and of appointing officers of the militia shall be reserved to the States respectively. This reservation of State rights is disregarded and violated by this Conscription Act, which takes no notice of States but acts directly on individuals, and subjects them to the immediate domination of Federal powers instead of securing to each State a republican form of government. The President and Congress by this Conscription Act reduce the States to subjection and deprive them of the power of government. State authority is entirely ignored by this act, and not only ignored in the States, but usurped by the Federal Government.

It is a provision of the Federal Constitution, that "a well-regulated militia" is necessary to the security of a free State, and that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the President and Congress by the Conscription Act put the State militia out of existence, or take no notice of this constitutional security of a free State, and make conscripts of American citizens instead of State militia. This the Federal authorities have no right to do. They have a right to call out the militia, when organized

and officered, in accordance with State laws, but they have no right to call out the people against their will to perform military service in any other manner than in accordance with the Constitution and acts of legislation which conform to the Constitution.

As an act in antagonism to the Constitution and to the sovereignty of States, this Conscription Act is manifestly of no binding effect upon the people of the United States; but admitting that it were constitutional, it is so repugnant in some of its provisions to the rights of persons, that it will not be endured otherwise than under the duress of armed force. When any government assumes this relation to the people, it becomes, ipso facto, a despotism, for despotism is nothing more than subjecting the people to a domination of power against their will. It is not the name or form of government that makes it a despotism, but the relation it holds to the people who are governed. If the people of a country choose the form of absolute monarchy for their government, it is not a despotism in relation to those people; while, on the other hand, if a government chosen by a free people becomes different in its relations to the form which they instituted it to be, and it becomes in its relations absolute and despotic, such a government, whatever be its name or form, is really a despotism. So that despotic governments may exist under the name and form of Democracy or Republicanism, as well as under the name and form of Monarchy or Absolutism. It is not the name nor the form of a government that gives it the character of despotism, but the relation it assumes to the people governed. People may be as free under absolute monarchies as they are under democratic or republican forms of government; for in absolute monarchies the government may conform itself to the popular judgment and will, as nearly as do republican governments, if not more so. It is the conformity of government to the popular will that makes the people free, as it is the non-conformity of acts of government to the will of the people that makes a government despotic.

Applying this hypothesis to the existing relations of the Federal Government to the people of the United States, it can not be said of the Government, in truth, that it is what is understood by a free Government, nor can it be assumed with propriety or truth that the American people are any longer a free people.

None but a despotic government would attempt to divest the people of their constitutional rights, and put a price upon their lives as the Federal Government does by this act of the President and Congress. This Conscript Act exempts a millionaire from giving his personal service to the country on the payment of three hundred dollars, and