Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 2.
Frank Moore, Ed.

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[124] for warlike purposes in a single year is the fact selected to excite our horror. Well, the reply is that we have done it again and again. In 1813 we raised and spent one hundred and eight millions, and one hundred and five millions the year after. For eleven years together, during the war with Napoleon, our average expenditure was not less than eighty millions per annum, and the aggregate of our expenditure for the fourteen years ending 5th January, 1816, was upwards of one thousand millions. Twenty-seven years before the commencement of that period we also had an American rebellion on our hands. The population of the United Kingdom was not half what it is now. The whole number of our colonists in America did not much exceed three millions, and they were separated from us by the breadth of the Atlantic; yet to suppress that rebellion we borrowed one hundred and two millions sterling, adding it to our permanent debt, besides the extra sums obtained by increased taxation from the people. At the beginning of the war with Napoleon, our national debt was two hundred and thirty-three millions; by the close of the war we had trebled it. Every farthing of this money was spent in war, and hundreds of millions besides, the accumulating debt being bound, like a millstone, round our necks forever. The Russian war shows that we have only to get our blood heated to be as extravagant as ever. In 1856 our expenditure was eighty-four millions, the year after nearly as much, and the whole expense of the war has been estimated at not less than one hundred millions. And what was the object for which we threw away such vast sums of money? The integrity of the Empire was not threatened. An insurgent host was not encamped within thirty miles of the capital. We were not called upon to wage a struggle for national existence, and to preserve intact the glorious traditions of our country. No, the object which aroused us to such sacrifices was a paltry dispute in a distant corner of Europe. We fought not for the integrity of the British Empire, but in defence of the Turks. If Englishmen are told that they ought not to admire a Democratic Republic which spends a hundred millions in maintaining its own existence, what attitude must they assume towards a Constitutional Monarchy which lately expended the same sum in fighting Mahometan battles? A model which, when exhibited by others, we are bound neither to admire nor to imitate, we are also bound to destroy if it should unluckily prove our own. Here is a task worthy of the flunkies of Belgravia. In the name of the Morning Post, upset these extravagant institutions, and give us, ye powdered heroes, a cheaper form of government! Why, at this moment we are raising seventy millions a year on the mere surmise and suspicion of possible hostilities, besides sanctioning an expenditure of ten millions more on fortifications. If a hundred millions raised under the instant pressure of war dooms one form of government to perdition, what shall we say of another government which spends eighty millions on the mere expectation that war may break out in a year or two?

The practical inference from the foregoing comparison is, that of all known forms of Government, a “Democratic Republic” is the best because it is the cheapest; and we presume the verdict in its favor will not be disputed because, though economical as a rule, it is nevertheless ready to spend money to any extent when necessity requires an exceptionally large expenditure. This is not our verdict, nor is it our belief, but it is a conclusion which flows irresistibly from the premises furnished by our assailants. On these principles we ought to pull down the British Constitution, since, with all its virtues, it is unquestionably the largest spending machine ever constructed by the wit of man. For ourselves, we deny altogether the relevancy of the facts to the conclusion which has been forcibly wrung from them. We deny that the merits of this or that form of Government can by any ingenuity be legitimately imported into the contest now waging in the United States. The law of self-preservation acts with equal force upon all Governments. They are made to live; they make no provision for their own sepulchre; when assailed either from within or from without, they will fight to the last to defend themselves against extinction. It is so with Governments of all shapes, autocracies, mixed monarchies, and republics. The inference to be drawn from the money expended and the sacrifices incurred by any Government in defending its existence against inward or outward foes, relates to its comparative strength or weakness, its vitality or decay. Applied in this manner, the extraordinary exertions which the Americans are putting forth prove the vigor of their patriotism, the depth of their attachment to the institutions under which they live, the benefits which they believe to have derived from then, and, so far, the excellence of the institutions themselves. The vast sum that has been voted for the service of the year is not exacted by a despot's decree, nor will it be dragooned from them by military force. It is their own free gift, granted in their name by representatives whom they have all had a share in electing, and the costliness of the offering measures the worth of the equivalent. The expenditure may be wise or foolish; that is a question fairly open to dispute; but on the principles common to all Governments, on the principles which we have uniformly recognized ourselves, we are bound to regard it with admiration as a splendid act of patriotism. If, however, it is to be branded as an act of political delinquency, we ought, in justice, to acknowledge ourselves far greater culprits; and if it binds us neither to admire nor imitate the form of government established in the United States, we must first stop to curse our own.--Manchester Post.

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