With manly dignity he declared, "I am utterly unconscious of any act, word, or design which should make me less eligible to an honorable place among the soldiers of the Republic than upon any day of my past life.

The eight days within which he should be notified of the charges against him had been long passed; the ten days had certainly expired; but by the construction of the War Department the victim was still in the power that wronged him for…

I know I should claim that power if any man under my command were arrested.

The responsibility for the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone must, according to the official record of the case, rest on Secretary Stanton, Major-General McClellan, and the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

A soldier who will betray his command belongs by the code of all nations to the most infamous class--his death but feebly atoning for the injury he has inflicted upon his country.

The instances in which this disposition of the public mind works cruel injury are innumerable, and only time, and not always time, seems able to render justice.

Too often the object of popular vengeance is hurried to his fate, and placed beyond the pale of that reparation which returning reason is eager to extend.

His case will stand as a warning against future violations of the liberty which is the birthright of every American, and against the danger of appeasing popular clamor by the sacrifice of an innocent man.

But there had been such gross mismanagement of the Treasury, either from incompetency or design, under the administration of Howell Cobb, that the credit of the government was injured.

With unblemished credit at the opening of the war, the government could have used its military power with greater confidence, and consequently with greater effectiveness.

The task of Congress might well strike some thoughtful legislators as that of making bricks without straw.

It is no disparagement to the leading statesmen of that era, that they did not at first propose measures adequate to the emergency, because no standards existed by which the magnitude of that emergency could be estimated.

We are so familiar with the vast sums which the war against the Rebellion caused the National Government to disburse, that it is difficult to appreciate the spirit with which the legislators of 1861 approached the impending burdens.

This measure indicated the disposition to provide for pressing exigencies by devices which covered only the present hour, and left heavier responsibilities to the future.

The aim had been to see with how small an amount the National Government could be supported, not how large an amount might be collected.

The plea may perhaps be pressed in defense of Congress, that financial legislation, laggard as it was, ran before popular readiness to raise money by taxes.

There was a wide-spread opposition among the strongest advocates of the war, to all measures which would, at an early stage, render the contest pecuniarily oppressive, and hence make it unpopular.

As the struggle proceeded, it was demonstrated that those calculated most justly who relied most completely on the popular purpose to make every sacrifice to maintain the national integrity.

The eloquent fact about the Loan Bill is that Congress made haste to enact it.

Unfortunately also the attempt to levy a direct tax was received by the people with grave manifestations of disapproval.

Happily all considerate and reflecting men saw that, desperate as the struggle might be, it must be accepted with all its cost and all its woe.

That was a calamity so great as to be immeasurable, and it left to the loyal millions no choice.

If the struggle then in progress had been with a foreign power, popular opinion would have overthrown any administration that would not at once make peace.

But peace on the basis of a dissevered Union, a disintegrated people, a dishonored nationality, could not be accepted and would not be endured.

The consequence was that during the decade preceding the war our exports of specie and bullion exceeded our imports of the same by the enormous aggregate of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars.