It puts us right before Europe; it brings us back to our traditions; it animates our soldiers with the same spirit which led our forefathers to victory under Washington; they are fighting today, as the Revolutionary patriots fought, in the interests of the human race, for human rights....
There was a lesson for all radicals in the resentment which, at even that late date, many Northern newspapers showed over the President’s act. The _Journal of Commerce_ had “only anticipations of evil from it,” and believed that an immense majority of Northerners would view it with profound regret. The _Herald_ predicted that it would ruin the white laborers of the West by bringing the negroes north to compete with them. The _World_ held that it was nugatory--the South would have to be whipped before it could be given any effect. The _Courrier des Etats Unis_ had deplored many errors since the republic “began rolling down the slope which promises to land it in the abyss,” but it thought this blunder the most wanton and complete. What would such papers and the great body of citizens they represented have said six months earlier?
Another and highly praiseworthy evidence of the “radicalism” of the _Evening Post_ was its eagerness for a far-reaching system of taxation, and for having the financial conduct of the war kept as strictly as possible upon a sound-money basis. Having been active in obtaining Chase’s appointment to the Treasury, Bryant felt a special solicitude for that department. During the latter half of 1861 he repeatedly urged Congress to tax to the limit. He believed that the government should be able to pay for the war by heavy taxes, supplemented by the sale of long-term bonds, and only as a final resource should issue Treasury notes payable on demand. It was a disappointment to the paper that Chase took no early steps for the development of an appropriate tax system. A remarkable editorial of Feb. 1, 1862, pictured the wealth of the nation: the universal possession of property, the high per capita prosperity, the bursting granaries, the rich output of precious metals. It recalled the fact that three times the national debt contracted in great wars had been wiped out, while in the thirties the treasury overflowed until men racked their brains with plans for spending the superfluity. Never was a nation more cheerfully inclined to accept high taxes; “the general feeling is one of impatience that Congress is so slow in performing this necessary duty.”