Oh, yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, (For what can war but endless war still breed?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And Public Faith cleared from the shameful brand Of public fraud.

Of the twenty-five hundred millions which we now owe, whether in greenbacks or bonds, every dollar must be paid, sooner or later, or be ignobly repudiated.

The country must suffer inconceivably under such a dispensation.

I am now brought to the practical question, to which I have already alluded: How the public burdens shall be lightened.

Of course, in this work, the Public Faith, if kept sacred, will be a constant and omnipresent agency, powerful in itself, and powerful also in its reinforcement of all other agencies.

It will not seem trivial, if I insist on systematic economy in the administration of the Government.

Extravagance and recklessness, so natural during a period of war, must give way to moderation and thrift.

Every dollar, as it leaves the National Treasury, must be able to exhibit its passport.

Beyond this great saving there should be a constant watchfulness against those schemes of public plunder, great and small, from which the Nation has latterly suffered so much.

Another help will be found in the simplification of our system of taxation, so that it shall be less complex and shall apply to fewer objects.

In Europe taxation has become a science, according to which the largest possible amounts are obtained at the smallest possible inconvenience.

A proper tax on two articles, whiskey and tobacco, with proper securities for its collection, would go far to support the Government.

First, by the strict performance of all existing engagements, so that the Public Faith shall be our inseparable ally; and, secondly, by funding the existing debt in such ways as to provide a reduced rate of interest.

Therefore to the future we may tranquilly leave the final settlement of the national debt, meanwhile discharging our own incidental duty, so that the Public Faith shall be preserved.

Here is a notable difference between the United States and other countries, where population and resources have arrived at such a point that future advance is very gradual.

With us each decade is a leap forward; with them it marks a gradation sometimes scarcely appreciable.

This difference must not be forgotten in the estimate of our capacity to deal with a debt larger than that of any European power except England.

But we must confess our humiliation, as we find that our debt, with its large interest in coin, secured by mortgage on the immeasurable future of the Nation, is less regarded abroad than the English debt, with its smaller interest and its…

With the national credit above suspicion, our debt must stand as well, and, as our multiplying resources become known, even better still.

There can be no other reason for this higher price than the superior credit enjoyed by Massachusetts; and thus again is Public Faith exalted.

The obligations of the Government are fixed clearly and unchangeably beyond the assaults of politicians.

If this large portion of the national debt, with its six per cent. interest in coin, can be funded at a less interest, there will be a corresponding relief to the country.

It is by making the Public Faith so manifest that the holders will be induced to come into the change for the sake of the longer term.

It will be nothing less than Repudiation, with a certain loss of credit, which no saving of interest can repay.

You must continue to borrow on a large scale; but who will lend to the repudiator, unless at a destructive discount?