The cost of maintaining a land army of even a hundred
thousand men, and a naval force to correspond, would have been,
in simple money value, only a tithe of what the rebellion has
cost the nation, to say nothing of the valuable lives that have
been sacrificed for the losses on the rebel side, as well as
those on the side of the government, are equally to be counted.
The actual losses to the country have been not less than six or
eight thousand millions of dollars, or nearly one-half the
assessed value of the whole property of the United States
according to the census returns of 1860, and which has only been
partially cancelled by actual increase of property since. To
meet the interest on the debt incurred will require a heavier sum
to be raised annually by taxation, twice over, without
discharging a cent of the principal, than would have been
necessary to maintain an army and navy adequate to the protection
of peace and the prevention of the rebellion.
The rebellion is now suppressed, and if the government does not
blunder much more in its civil efforts at pacification than it
did in its military operations, before 1868 things will settle
down into their normal order; but a regular army--not militia or
volunteers, who are too expensive--of at least a hundred thousand
men of all arms, and a navy nearly as large as that of England or
France, will be needed as a peace establishment.
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