owest depth, to rise no more forever! What American would wish to live,
and encounter such a destiny? And why fallen? From a cause more damning
than our fate. Fallen, let the truth be told, as history would record,
because faction was stronger than patriotism, and the degenerate sons of
noble sires extinguished the world's last hope, by basely surrendering
the American Union to the foul coalition of slavery and treason. This
rebellion is the most stupendous crime in the annals of our race, and
its projectors and coadjutors, at home or abroad, individual or
dynastic, are doomed to immortal infamy. With its demoniac passions, its
satanic ambition, desecrating the remains of the slain, making goblets
of their skulls, and trinkets of their bones, this revolt is a
heliograph of Dahomey, and Devildom daguerreotyped more vividly than by
Dante or Milton.

The plan of the Secretary is clear, simple, comprehensive, practical,
and effective. It is the plan of an uniform circulation, furnished by
the Federal Government to banking associations organized by Congress,
securing prompt redemption by the deposit of the same amount of U.S. six
per cent stock in the Federal custody, the principal and interest of
this stock being payable in gold. This plan, with me, is a necessity,
and not a choice. It is the plan of the Secretary, and not mine, and is
therefore supported by me from no vanity of authorship. Nay, more, it
required me to overcome strong prejudices against any bank circulation,
and especially any connected in any way with the Government. It is,
however, a strong recommendation of the plan of the Secretary, that the
proposed connection of the banks with the Government is not political,
and attended with none of the formidable objections to the late Bank of
the United States. Ever since the bank suspension of 1837, I have been a
bullionist, and sustained that doctrine in the Senate of the United
States, and as Secretary of the Treasury. The act establishing the
independent treasury in 1846, was drawn by me, avowedly as a 'specie
receiving and _specie circulating_' institution, and to restrain
excessive issues by the banks; but it is impossible now to carry that
system into practical execution. The suspension of specie payment by the
banks and the Government, has been forced by the enormous expenditures
of the war, and the sub-treasury, which never was designed for the
custody or disbursement of paper, has been so far virtually su