Speech #450031831

In 1869 he addressed a series of letters to Hon. David A. Wells. reviewin that gentlemans report as Special Commissioner of the Revenue. in the fourth of which he said: When yon shall have carefully studied all this. yea may perhaps flid yourself enabled to account for the facts that in the closing year of the freetrade period t150 railroad property which had cost more than $t.00O.000.0O0 could not have eon sold for $350.00.005. that ships bad become ruinous to nearly all their owners . thet factories. furnaces. isills. mines. and workshops had everywhere been deserted. that hundreds of thousands of workingmen had been everywhere seeking. and vainly seeking. to sell their labor. that immigration had heavily declineif that pauperism hai existed to an extent wholly unknown since the greatfreetrade crisis of 1842. that bankruptcies had become genoral throughout the Union . that power to contribute to the public revenue had greatly diminished . and finally. that the slave power had felt itself to have become so greatly strengthened as to warrant it in entering on the great rebellion. Which is the more faithful historian. the enthusiastic gentleman from Ohio or the venenble master of social science ? Let us by an appeal to indisputable facts ascertain whether "1860 was a year of unusual prosperity in the United States." whether "the bounties of Providence were in that year scattered with a liberal hand over the face of our Republic." whether 1 all classes of our citizens were well and profitably employed." whether " it was a time of peace in which the apprehension of our groat civil war had not yet seized the ninds of our people." and whether "great general prosperity marked the era." And as specially pertinent to the question which elicited the gentlemans speech. the resumption of specie payments. whether the eurse of financial events during thatyear was such as to settle "above all other qnestions of financial policy in the American mind that the only sound. safe. trustworthy standard of value was coin of standard weight and fineness. or a paper currency convertible into coin at the will of the holder." wAs 1860 A YEAn OF PAcr I It was in October. 1859. that John Brown with his little army invaded the State of Virginia.