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”[27] would not only save millions to the Treasury of the United States, but protect the country from consequences still more disastrous.
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;