rve to complete the process of exhaustion and to hasten the
final catastrophe.

After two years of civil war, maintained under great embarrassments and
disadvantages--two memorable years, during which all the malignant
powers of treason and hate have been arrayed against the Union with the
determined purpose to destroy it--the condition of the Federal
Government is wonderfully good, presenting a vivid contrast to the
wretched poverty and prostration of the ambitious States which have so
rashly assailed it. It would be vain to deny the vast injury suffered by
the whole nation, from the inauguration and continuance of this most
unnatural strife. It is chiefly this widespread mischief which
constitutes the stupendous crime of the rebellion. Thousands upon
thousands of valuable lives have been sacrificed; the maimed victims of
the war appeal to our sympathies on every side; widows and orphans fill
the whole land with lamentation. These are calamities that cannot be
compensated by any material prosperity, however great and imposing.
Besides, it is impossible to conceal from ourselves, upon mature
reflection, that in the present marvellous activity of business and the
great abundance of money, we are drawing largely on the future, and
maintaining present prosperity at the cost of burdens which will weigh
heavily both on ourselves and on coming generations. Nevertheless, the
wonderful success of our financial measures and the evidently increasing
strength of the Government, in spite of its immense efforts, and with
all the alternations of triumph and defeat, of success and failure, of
good fortune and disaster, cannot fail to inspire every friend of the
Union with hope and confidence. That this great struggle for national
existence can be conducted with so little disturbance to the prosperity
of the loyal States, and, indeed, with actual increase of activity and
immediate success in almost all departments of business, affords the
best evidence of the solidity and greatness of our country, and of its
ability finally to maintain itself against the vast and powerful
conspiracy by which it has been so vigorously assailed. At this moment,
the domestic foe, notwithstanding his defiant attitude, is actually
writhing in the grasp of an outraged nation; and the foreign enemies of
our cause, so recently rejoicing in our misfortunes and elated with the
envious anticipation of our utter overthrow, are now looking on with
silent apprehensi