England when peace returned to her in 1815,--how will
the ability of this country to sustain and pay its debt compare with the
ability of England to do the same at the time above referred to?

The simple fact that England was able to assume so vast a debt, and to
sustain the burden through half a century, during which her prosperity
has scarcely known abatement, and her wealth has been constantly and
largely increasing, ought to satisfy every American citizen that his own
country can at least do as well. But we can do more and better; for a
comparison of the two countries in the matter of ability shows that the
preponderance is greatly in our favor.

At the respective periods of comparison just named, to wit, 1815 and
1869, the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain was less
than _one half_ of what the population of the United States will be, and
its amount of foreign trade was less than _one third_. In 1815 the
"factory system" was in its infancy and imperfectly organized, the
steam-engine was unperfected and in comparatively limited use. The
railway, the steamboat, the telegraph, the reaper, the thresher, and
many other important improvements and discoveries which tend to augment
the productive power of nations, have all come since that day. So far as
relates to the question of ability to sustain heavy financial burdens,
England, in 1815, can hardly be compared for a moment with a country
like our own, possessing as it does, in abundance and perfection, the
potent agencies of productive and distributing power just referred to.

It is true that England is now enjoying, to a large extent, the benefit
of these important agencies; but she had to supply the capital to create
them, after she had assumed the maximum of her enormous debt,--whereas
those agencies were all in active operation among us before any part of
our national debt was incurred. I hardly need suggest that it makes a
vast difference whether a nation has or has not these material
advantages at the time when it is contracting a heavy debt, and that our
position in this respect, so far as the question of ability is
concerned, is a position of immeasurable superiority.

In regard to the paying of our debt after the return of peace, we
possess some decided advantages, to which I will very briefly allude. Of
these the most obvious are, a greater ratio in the increase of
population, and more extensive natural resources. During the decade
which ende