B., MARKISS O' BIG BOOSY.

[Footnote A: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the Mephitis.—H.W.]

* * * * *



TAXATION.

Milton, in his superb sonnet to Sir Henry Vane the Younger, declares that Rome, in the most prosperous age of the Republic, never possessed a better senator,—

"Whether to settle peace, or to unfold The hollow drift of States, hard to be spelled; Then to advise how war may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage."

The list of his writings appended by Mr. Upham to his instructive biography of our quondam fellow-citizen and governor[A] does not enable us to judge to which of his twenty-five works Milton particularly refers, in this magnificent commendation of Sir Henry Vane's financial skill. It might be inferred, however, from the significant union of iron and gold, as the "main nerves" of war, that he understood the importance of a specie currency, which in fact, in those days, was the only currency known.

[Footnote A: Sir Henry Vane the Younger, being then twenty-three years of age, arrived in Boston in 1635, was chosen governor of the Colony in 1636, and returned to England the next year. His house stood, within the recollection of the writer, on what is now Tremont Street, on a spot opposite the Museum.]

Our business, however, at present, is not with currency, but with taxes, which as long ago as Cicero's time were pronounced "the nerves of the State," and which, whether paid in gold or in what can in the present condition of the country be best substituted, must be allowed to be the great sympathetic nerve of the body-politic. Introduce a wise and efficient system of taxation, and life and energy will pervade the country. Without such a system it will soon sink into a general and fatal paralysis.

The country is engaged at this moment in a struggle of unexampled magnitude. The great wars of the last generation in Europe gathered no army equal in magnitude to that which the Government of the United States has, within little more than six months, called into being. Its naval operations, so far as concerns the extent of sea-coast effectively blockaded, and considering the condition of that branch of the service at the breaking out of the war, will not suffer in comparison with those of England in the wars of the French Revolution. England is now threatening to take part against us in this war, waged by the first State (according to Mr. Vice-president Stephens) ever avowedly founded on Slavery as its corner-stone, on the ground that our blockade of the Southern ports is not effectual,—forgetting, apparently, that our last war with her was in part to resist her pretended right to seal up with a paper blockade every port in the French Empire.

The great practical question which presses most heavily upon the mind, not only of every person responsible for the conduct of affairs, but of every intelligent and thoughtful citizen, is, in what way the vast expenditure is to be met, which is necessary to bring this gigantic struggle to a prompt and successful issue. It has been customary, from the first, to estimate this expenditure at a million and a half of dollars per diem, and it will not be lessened while the war lasts. How is this frightful expenditure to be met?

The answer is simple, and is contained in the one little word "Taxation." Without this, all else will be of no avail. Our civil rulers may have the wisdom of Solomon; our generals and admirals may equal in skill and courage the greatest captains of ancient or modern times; we may place in the field the bravest and best-disciplined armies that ever battled in a righteous cause,—but without an amount of taxation adequate to sustain the credit of the Government, all this show of counsel and strength will pass away, and that at no distant period, like a morning cloud and the early dew.

"Adequate to sustain the credit of the Government,"—for that is all that is required. It is by no means necessary, as it is by no means just, that the whole of this vast expenditure should fall upon the shoulders of the present generation. Engaged in a contest of which the result, for good or for evil, is, if possible, more important to posterity than to ourselves,—a struggle in which the great cause of civil liberty, as embodied and regulated by the Constitution and laws, is more deeply involved, not only for this, but for all future generations, than in any other war ever waged,—it is not right that the burden should fall exclusively on ourselves. Nor is it necessary. There is, perhaps, no feature in our modern civilization in which its beauty, flexibility, and strength, as compared with that of antiquity, is more signally displayed, than the well-organized credit-system of a prosperous State: the system which makes men not only willing, but desirous, to forego the actual possession of that darling property which has been the great object of desire through life,—which they have sought by all honest and, unhappily too often, dishonest means, to gain and accumulate,—provided only they can receive a fair equivalent for its use. By the wise application of this almost mysterious principle, the members of modern civilized States are not only, for the time being, much more effectually consociated in the joint life and action of the country than would have been possible without it, but even distant generations—men separated from each other by years, not to say ages—are brought into a noble partnership of effort in great and generous undertakings and sacrifices.

Dr. Johnson somewhat cynically says, that

"Mortgaged States, in everlasting debt, From age to age their grandsires' wreaths regret."

This may be true of debts incurred in wars of ambition and conquest; but what citizen of the United States, at the present day, would not, with a willing mind, if it were still necessary, bear his part of the pecuniary burdens of the American Revolution?

It is a well-established law of public credit, that it can be carried to any length to which it is sustained by an efficient system of taxation. So long as provision is made to secure in this way the regular payment of the interest on the sums borrowed, the Government holds the purse-strings of the capitalist, and has nothing to do but to call for whatever amount is needed for the public service. This, however, is the essential condition, and nothing else will, for any length of time, produce the desired result. In the first fervor of a great popular movement, and in confident reliance that effective provision to sustain it will eventually be made, a large loan may be obtained from the banks, from capitalists, or the mass of the people; but this will be a temporary, probably a solitary, effort. No Government can permanently sustain its credit, but by providing the means (independent of credit) to pay the interest on its public debt. To borrow more money in order to pay the interest on that already borrowed is bankruptcy in disguise.

With these general principles established and clearly borne in mind, we perceive the absurdity of the language which has been so freely used abroad and is even sometimes heard at home, since the suspension of specie-payments, that the United States are on the verge of bankruptcy. Let the expenses of the war in which we are now engaged against the "disappointed aspirants" of the South be estimated as high as six hundred millions of dollars. A loan to this amount implies, at the usual rate, the payment of an interest of thirty-six millions, certainly a large amount in addition to the ordinary expenditure of the Government, but not more than a fifth part of the annual interest on the public debt of England,—by no means a formidable percentage, allowing for a short war, on the annual surplus income of the country.

In fact, when we cast our eyes over the continent and contemplate the vast extent of fertile land already brought or capable of being readily brought into cultivation,—the productive agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial investments,—our internal and foreign trade,—our fisheries, and our mining operations,—the rapid increase of labor (the great creative source of wealth) by the growth of our own native population and the steady flow of immigration from abroad,—when we contemplate these things, the draughts which must be made upon the resources of the country in the successful prosecution of the war, great as they are, are really insignificant Let us take a single item, but one which may serve as a fair index of the resources of the loyal States. In the American Circular of Messrs. Hallett & Co. of New York, for the 6th of November last, the value of the tonnage of all kinds annually moved upon the public works (railroads and canals) of the Northern and Middle States is estimated in even figures at $4,620,000,000. This enormous sum, of course, represents only that part of the internal and foreign trade of the country which is moved upon the canals and railroads. All that portion of trade which is not transacted in this way,—all that moves exclusively on the lakes, rivers, and coastwise, without coming in contact with artificial communications,—the retail business of every kind in the large cities, and all that is transported in moderate parcels by animal power in the neighborhood of the places of production, is in addition to this vast amount.

The Secretary of the Treasury, in his patriotic appeal to the country last summer, calculates "the real and personal values, in the States now loyal to the Union, at eleven thousand millions of dollars," while he remarks that "the yearly surplus earnings of the loyal people are estimated at more than four hundred millions of dollars." A tax of nine per cent, on this surplus would pay an interest of six per cent, on a loan of six hundred millions. Now in this country, where we are so little accustomed to taxation, such a tax may seem to be a very serious affair; but the man who in times like these, and for objects like those for which we are struggling, is not willing to pay nine per cent—of his surplus earnings, does not deserve to enjoy the blessings of a free government.

It is therefore a gross exaggeration to say that the country is bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing more is true than that the Government of the country—the legislative power—has not as yet shown the sagacity and vigor to apply a moderate portion of its abundant resources to the preservation of all we hold dear. The wealth is here,—not merely what is locked up in the vaults of the banks, (for this, though ample for all the purposes of these institutions, is but a very small portion of the wealth of the country, not much over one-half of the annual surplus earnings,) but the entire accumulations of town and country, the whole vast aggregate of the property having a marketable value or capable of being applied in kind or by exchange for its equivalent to the public service. All this fund belongs to the people, to be levied upon and appropriated to the service of the country by the people's representatives and servants. It belongs only sub modo to those who are commonly deemed its owners. They are the stewards to whom Providence has confided it, subject to the condition, in time of need, of being employed, under equitable and equal laws, to defend the life of the country. And when we consider how small a portion of it is required to answer the demands of the public service, we cannot but be amazed at the language of despondency which is sometimes uttered at the state of the public finances. We call the individual man of wealth a miser, who hoards his income, instead of spending a portion of it in deeds of charity and public spirit, or even on his own comforts and those of his family. This expressive use of that word, says Bishop South, is peculiar to the English language. Although the word is Latin, we have improved on the Romans, in the bitter sarcasm of this application. But a Government deserves the same stigma or worse, which, with the exuberant wealth of a loyal people at its command, wants the moral courage to apply a moderate portion of it to obtain ample means for feeding, clothing, and arming the brave men who, on the land and the water, are risking their lives in the public service.

We speak of "the moral courage" to establish an efficient system of taxation, more in deference to the traditionary unpopularity of the tax-gatherer than because, in the present state of affairs, there is any just cause to doubt the willingness of the people to make the necessary sacrifices for the support of the Government and the defence of the country. In peaceful times and in an ordinary state of affairs, it may be admitted that the tax-gatherer is an unwelcome visitant. Mr. Jefferson relied upon him in 1799 to bring about a change of parties and administrations. But the country was then poor, the parties equally divided, and the political issues matters of temper and theory, on which men delight to differ and to argue, rather than those stern realities in which, at the present time, the very being of the State is wrapt up. Accordingly, it is a most remarkable fact at the present day, and one certainly without example in this country, perhaps in any country, that the unanimous desire of the people is for taxation, adequate, efficient taxation. Although the emergencies of the service, and the large amounts which it requires, are daily commented on by the public journals, and are perfectly well understood, not a voice has been uttered on the subject which does not call for taxation. The Secretary of the Treasury is censured, the Committee of Ways and Means rebuked, the patriotism of Congress called in question, because the absolute necessity for heavy taxation is not urged with sufficient warmth by the Executive, and the requisite laws for laying the tax are delayed in their introduction and passage. And reason good; for, while the legislation required to impose a tax lingers, the whole mass of the country's property is incurring the fearful peril of a prostration of the public credit.

But though the loyal people of the country are more than willing—are ardently desirous—to be taxed for the public service, they are not willing to be taxed for the benefit of fraudulent contractors, or to enrich the miscreants who, not content with plundering the Treasury by exorbitant prices, put the health and lives of our brave men in peril, and the success of the war at hazard, by furnishing arms that have been condemned as unserviceable, clothes and shoes that drop to pieces in a fortnight's wear, water poisoned by filthy casks, horses too feeble to be ridden, and vessels known by their vendors to be of a draught too great for the intended service. It is not unlikely that there may be exaggeration in the accounts of this kind that find their way into the public journals; but if any reliance can be placed on the reports of our legislative committees, frauds like those alluded to have been carried to a stupendous length. If we mistake not, a bill has been introduced into Congress for the condign punishment of the wretches guilty of these abominable crimes. The offences which have filled Forts Lafayette and Warren with their inmates are venial, compared with the guilt of the man who is willing to fatten on the sufferings of the country and the health and lives of its patriotic defenders. But the evil, enormous as it is, admits of an easy remedy. If, on the one hand, one or two cases of gross fraud, highly prejudicial to the public service, were summarily dealt with by a court-martial, while, on the other hand, fifty per cent, of the contract-price were habitually retained for three or four months, till the value of the article furnished was ascertained by trial, the evil would soon be brought within manageable limits. A little of the wholesome severity with which Bonaparte, in 1797, carried on what he called "la guerre aux voleurs"[B] would not only save millions to the Treasury of the United States, but protect the country from consequences still more disastrous.

[Footnote B: Thiers, Tome II., p. 337.]

In fact, it will be one of the incidental benefits of an efficient system of taxation, that it will induce greater care in the expenditure of the public money. Fraudulent contracts are not the only, nor even the chief cause of our financial embarrassments. It may be hoped that what is extracted from it by downright swindling, however considerable in amount, does not cause the great drain upon the Treasury. But if money can be obtained by the simple issue of evidences of debt, and without any provision to sustain the credit of the Government by taxation, the process of supply is too facile. The funds so easily procured are in danger of being too profusely spent. Individual responsibility in money-matters, aided by direct self-interest, is usually more efficient in imposing limits to improvidence than a general sense of duty on the part of official personages. But if funds could be obtained ad libitum by the speculator, without the necessity of giving security for the payment of principal or interest, bankruptcy would soon become the rule and solvency the exception. Still more urgently, in the administration of the National Treasury, is the wholesome corrective of taxation required, to make economy a necessity as well as a virtue.

Much must be pardoned to the urgency of the public service, in a crisis like that of last summer, when the Government was compelled to improvise the forces, military and naval, required for the suppression of a gigantic rebellion, long concocted and matured in treacherous secrecy. With the capital of the country beleaguered by open foes without, swarming with hardly concealed traitors within, who privately thwarted and paralyzed when they could not openly defeat the measures of the Government, and conveyed information of them to the enemy with the regularity of official returns, some degree of improvident hurry in every branch of the service was inevitable, and must not be too severely scanned. You cannot stand chaffering at a bargain as to the cheapest mode of extinguishing a fire kindled by a red-hot cannon-ball at the door of the magazine. But the crisis and the necessity for precipitate action are past. The rebellion, dragged to the light of day, has assumed definite proportions. The means for its suppression are ample, and nothing is requisite but the firmness and sagacity to apply them. In other words, the one thing needful for the successful prosecution of the war is a judicious system of taxation.

With such a system, as we have already intimated, there is no limit to the credit of the Government With an efficient system of taxation to sustain its loans, the entire property of the country—that is, all that is needed of it—may be consecrated to the public service. We must not be terrified by the ghost of the paper-money with which the country was Hooded daring the Revolutionary War. It became worthless because there was no limit to its issue and no provision for its redemption or the payment of Interest. The Congress of the Confederation possessed no power to lay a tax, and the States which had the power were destitute of resources, without mutual concert, and often moved by influences at variance with each other. In this state of things taxation was out of the question, and the paper-money, which had been manufactured by wholesale rather than issued on any system of finance, steadily and at length rapidly sank to its intrinsic worthlessness. Its memory has left behind a wholesome dread of paper-money, but ought not to create a prejudice against a well-organized system of credit, sustained by efficient taxation.

No one will be better pleased than the writer of this article, if, before it sees the light, the vigorous action of Congress shall render its suggestions superfluous and unseasonable.

* * * * *



VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION.

'T is midnight: through my troubled dream Loud wails the tempest's cry; Before the gale, with tattered sail, A ship goes plunging by. What name? Where bound?—The rocks around Repeat the loud halloo. —The good ship Union, Southward bound: God help her and her crew!

And is the old flag flying still That o'er your fathers flew, With bands of white and rosy light, And field of starry blue? —Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft Have braved the roaring blast, And still shall fly when from the sky This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark! May I thy peril share? —O landsman, these are fearful seas The brave alone may dare! —Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, What matters wind or wave? The rocks that wreck your reeling deck Will leave me nought to save!

O landsman, art thou false or true? What sign hast thou to show? —The crimson stains from loyal veins That hold my heart-blood's flow! —Enough! what more shall honor claim? I know the sacred sign; Above thy head our flag shall spread, Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape Lies low along her lee, Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes To lock the shore and sea. No treason here! it cost too dear To win this barren realm! And true and free the hands must be That hold the whaler's helm!

Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay No Rebel cruiser scars; Her waters feel no pirate's keel That flaunts the fallen stars! —But watch the light on yonder height,— Ay, pilot, have a care! Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud The capes of Delaware!

Say, pilot, what this fort may be, Whose sentinels look down From moated walls that show the sea Their deep embrasures' frown? The Rebel host claims all the coast, But these are friends, we know, Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil," And this is?—Fort Monroe!

The breakers roar,—how bears the shore? —The traitorous wreckers' hands Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays Along the Hatteras sands. —Ha! say not so! I see its glow! Again the shoals display The beacon light that shines by night, The Union Stars by day!

The good ship flies to milder skies, The wave more gently flows, The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas The breath of Beaufort's rose. "What fold is this the sweet winds kiss, Fair-striped and many-starred, Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls, The twins of Beauregard?

"What! heard you not Port Royal's doom? How the black war-ships came And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom To redder wreaths of flame? How from Rebellion's broken reed We saw his emblem fall, As soon his cursed poison-weed Shall drop from Sumter's wall?

On! on! Pulaski's iron hail Falls harmless on Tybee! Her topsails feel the freshening gale, She strikes the open sea; She rounds the point, she threads the keys That guard the Land of Flowers, And rides at last where firm and fast Her own Gibraltar towers!

The good ship Union's voyage is o'er, At anchor safe she swings, And loud and clear with cheer on cheer Her joyous welcome rings: Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave, It thunders on the shore,— One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation, evermore!

* * * * *



RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS

RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

For Better, for Worse. A Story from "Temple Bar" and "Tales of the Day." Complete. Boston. T.O.H.P. Burnham. 8vo. paper. pp. 165. 25 cts.

Prayers. By Theodore Parker. Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 16mo. pp. 200. 75 cts.

Lilliesleaf: being a Concluding Series of Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside. Written by Herself. Boston. T.O.H.P. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 398. $1.00.

The Seven Sons of Mammon. By George Augustus Sala, Author of "A Journey due North," etc. Boston. T.O.H.P. Burnham. 8vo. paper, pp. 212. 50 cts.

Pilgrims of Fashion. A Novel. By Kinanan Cornwallis. New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. xvi., 337. $1.00.

Religio Medici, A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-Burial, and other Papers. By Sir Thomas Browne, Kt., M.D. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. $1.50.

The Magnet Stories for Summer Days and Winter Nights. By the Author of "A Trap to Catch a Sunbeam," etc. With Illustrations. Boston. J. Munroe & Co. 16mo. pp. 296. 75 cts.

Report of a Committee of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, on the Alleged Dangers which accompany the Inhalation of the Vapor of Sulphuric Ether. Boston. David Clapp. 8vo. paper. pp. 36. 25 cts.

Montrose, and other Biographical Sketches. Boston. Soule & Williams. 16mo. pp. 400. $1.00.

Notice to Quit. By W.G. Wills, Author of "Life's Foreshadowings." New York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. paper. pp. 156. 50 cts.

Tales of a Grandfather. History of Scotland. By Sir Walter Scott, Bart. With Notes. In Six Volumes. Vols. III., IV., V., and VI. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 291; 298; viii., 283; viii., 310. per vol., 75 cts.

Ceremonies at the Dedication of the Bigelow Monument, Worcester, Massachusetts, April 19, 1861. Boston. Printed by John Wilson & Son. 8vo. paper. pp. 37. 25 cts.

Streaks of Light; or, Fifty-Two Facts from the Bible for the Fifty-Two Sundays of the Year. By the Author of "More about Jesus," "Peep of Day," etc. New York. Harper & Brothers. 16mo. pp. 344. 75 cts.

Spare Hours. By John Brown, M.D. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 458. $1.50.

Cheap Cotton by Free Labor. By a Cotton-Manufacturer. Second Edition. Boston. A. Williams & Co. 8vo. paper. pp. 52. 12 cts.

Manual for Heavy Artillery, for the Use of Volunteers. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 16mo. pp. 72. 75 cts.

Providence in War. A Thanksgiving Discourse, delivered at the Thirteenth-Street Presbyterian Church, New York, November 28, 1861. By the Rev. S.D. Burchard, D.D. New York. E.D. Barker. 16mo. paper. pp. 24. 10 cts.

Thanksgiving. A Sermon preached in the Arch-Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, on Thursday, November 28, 1861. By Charles Wadsworth. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. paper. pp. 32. 15 cts.

War and Emancipation. A Thanksgiving Sermon, preached in the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, November 28, 1861. By Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson & Brothers. 8vo. paper. pp. 31. 15 cts.

THE END