Yankees looking "the Situation" in the face.
The Yankee
Secretary of the Treasury, the
Yankee Congress, and the
Wall street gamblers, are beginning to look the condition of Yankee Government credit and Yankee prospects a little more fully in the face.
Mr. Chase writes to
Senator Fessenden,
Chairman of the Finance Committee, sending him a bill to check speculation in gold.
He had previously sent him one to check the issues of State banks — to the two causes he having attributed the depreciation of Federal greenbacks.
But while communicating these bills he expresses no great confidence in their efficacy.
He would be glad to infringe the rights of the States by shutting up their banks, and he would be more pleased to stop speculation in gold; but he plainly confesses he despairs of seeing this done by legislation.
In short, he sees no hope for "financial success to the
Government," but "taxation to one half the amount of" its "current expenditures, and a reduction of those expenditures to the lowest point compatible with efficiency." And even this he further confesses will not suffice without victories in the field. "
Without military success all measures will fail, " says
Secretary Chase.
The confession is highly significant.
Not that it announces anything more than a simple truth, apparent but that it should be officially confessed by a high officer of Government in a communication to Congress, argues a condition of things skin to desperation.
Like Richard, the
Yankee tyranny has reached the point where all is staked upon the hazard of the die about to be thrown.
The opinion of the
Secretary was echoed in the Senate.
Mr. Sherman said: ‘"The true remedy for our evils, as all know, is the success of our armies."’
Mr. Chandler thought victories of the
Yankee armies would make the "speculators suffer," and
Mr. Johnson (Reverdy) thought, "with a vigorous and successful war," the people would allow the debt to be trebled.
Of course they would.
But as everything, it is conceded, depends on military success, what becomes of Yankeedom if that fails them?
Last week there was a vibration of 18 cents in the value of gold — from 171 to 189.
It reached the latter, fell back to the former' and rose again to 173.
Mr. Chase hurried to New York when it rose so rapidly.
His presence stopped operations.
Dealers wanted to know what he was after, and would not buy or sell; hence sales were very limited and at a decline.
The New York
Herald, no doubt, expresses the sentiments and fears of the money changers in its notice of the excitement of the week on the subject, and also
Mr. Chase's presence in New York.--The
Herald does not intimate that
Mr. Chase did anything to help the
Government credit.
It concludes its article by an appeal to the public to be quiet and calm, yet plainly intimates in this that a "crash" must come; that they are like passengers in a vehicle whose team is running away, or in a boat going down
Niagara, and that they must hold their breath and await the "crash." It says:
‘
"The time for the great closing crisis has not yet arrived, and until it does it behooves us to be as calm as possible, and prepare our nerves for the Crash that these small events merely foreshadow !"
’
Thurlow Weed sees the "crash," too. He demonstrates against taxation by New York; says that her present debt is half as much as the whole debt of the
Federal Government at the close of the Revolution, and that, added to her part of the present debt of the
Federal Government, it would amount to $1,000,000,000--two-thirds of the aggregate value of the entire property of the people of the
State ! He asserts that the present debt of the
Federal Government is $4,000,000, 0000, and that pay day must come, when they "will see
values perishing and
fortunes evaporating. " Can the
Yankees stand this?
There is no hope but in victory over the
South--all see, all confess this.
But what do they want victory for?
To sustain the
Government credit, to secure their commerce and preserve their overgrown private fortunes.
In contrast with these sordid motives, what are those which impel us to fight to the last, and sternly determine upon the alternative of
victory or death? Why nothing less than our liberties, our homes, our firesides, and our altars — our dear native land, and all the sacred things therein.
Defeat surrenders them to the brutal invader, and degrades our race into the very dust.--We cannot count debt, nor blood, nor life.
We must sacrifice everything to defend what we have, and to avoid what we must be if we fall in the defence.
But it is grateful to the
South to hear the enemy confessing that the point is reached where all depends on the results, and those immediate, in the battle field.
Let the trial come.
It is welcome to the brave sons of the
South, who are ready and eager to settle the question between
their freedom and the
money bags of the
sordid Yankees ! 
