Much must be pardoned to the urgency of the public service, in a crisis like that of last summer, when the Government was compelled to improvise the forces, military and naval, required for the suppression of a gigantic rebellion, long concocted and matured in treacherous secrecy.  With the capital of the country beleaguered by open foes without, swarming with hardly concealed traitors within, who privately thwarted and paralyzed when they could not openly defeat the measures of the Government, and conveyed information of them to the enemy with the regularity of official returns, some degree of improvident hurry in every branch of the service was inevitable, and must not be too severely scanned.  You cannot stand chaffering at a bargain as to the cheapest mode of extinguishing a fire kindled by a red-hot cannon-ball at the door of the magazine.  But the crisis and the necessity for precipitate action are past.  The rebellion, dragged to the light of day, has assumed definite proportions.  The means for its suppression are ample, and nothing is requisite but the firmness and sagacity to apply them.  In other words, the one thing needful for the successful prosecution of the war is a judicious system of taxation.

With such a system, as we have already intimated, there is no limit to the credit of the Government With an efficient system of taxation to sustain its loans, the entire property of the country—­that is, all that is needed of it—­may be consecrated to the public service.  We must not be terrified by the ghost of the paper-money with which the country was Hooded daring the Revolutionary War.  It became worthless because there was no limit to its issue and no provision for its redemption or the payment of Interest.  The Congress of the Confederation possessed no power to lay a tax, and the States which had the power were destitute of resources, without mutual concert, and often moved by influences at variance with each other.  In this state of things taxation was out of the question, and the paper-money, which had been manufactured by wholesale rather than issued on any system of finance, steadily and at length rapidly sank to its intrinsic worthlessness.  Its memory has left behind a wholesome dread of paper-money, but ought not to create a prejudice against a well-organized system of credit, sustained by efficient taxation.

No one will be better pleased than the writer of this article, if, before it sees the light, the vigorous action of Congress shall render its suggestions superfluous and unseasonable.

* * * * *

VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION.

  ’T is midnight:  through my troubled dream
    Loud wails the tempest’s cry;
  Before the gale, with tattered sail,
    A ship goes plunging by. 
  What name?  Where bound?—­The rocks around
    Repeat the loud halloo. 
  —­The good ship Union, Southward bound: 
    God help her and her crew!