saved; and the
vaticinations of those prophets of evil who predicted disaster and ruin
to the national cause from the emancipation policy of the Government
excite no consternation in the loyal heart of the nation.

In a review of the conduct of the war, how little reason appears for
regret and how much for satisfaction in regard to all the great measures
of the Government!

THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

The successful working of the _financial system_ has demonstrated the
wisdom of its principles. Instead of following the old wretched way of
throwing an immense amount of stocks into market at a sacrifice of
fifteen to thirty per cent., the Government has got all the money it
wanted at half or a little more than half the usual rate of interest. It
would have been better if the currency had been made to consist wholly
of United States legal-tender notes, fundable in six per cent.,
bonds--with a proper provision for the interest and for a sinking fund.

But the financial system adopted is a matter of satisfaction, apart from
its admirable success in furnishing the Government with the means to
carry on the war: it is the inauguration of sounder principles on
currency than have heretofore prevailed, which, if unfolded and carried
legitimately out, will give the country the best currency in the
world--perfectly secured, uniform in value at every point, and liable to
no disastrous expansions and contractions. The notion that any great
industrial, manufacturing, and commercial nation can conduct its
business--any more than it can carry on a great war--with a specie
currency alone, is indeed exploded; but the notion that a paper currency
to be safe must be based on specie, still prevails--although the
currency furnished by the thousands of banks scattered throughout the
country has never been really based upon the actual possession of specie
to the extent of more than _one fifth_ of the amount in circulation. It
may be the doctrine will never come to prevail that a specie basis in
whole or in part is no more indispensable to a sound and safe paper
currency than an exclusive specie currency is possible or desirable in a
country like this. It may be that the people will never come to believe
that a legal-tender paper currency, issued exclusively by the National
Government--based upon the credit of the nation, constituting a lien
upon all the property of the country, and proportioned in amount of
issue to the needs of the people for