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With our debt
and the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we can not
be too cautious of a policy which might by possibility impair the
confidence of the world in our Government. That confidence can only be
retained by carefully inculcating the principles of justice and honor
on the popular mind and by the most scrupulous fidelity to all our
engagements of every sort. Any serious breach of the organic law,
persisted in for a considerable time, can not but create fears for the
stability of our institutions. Habitual violation of prescribed rules,
which we bind ourselves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only
standard of civil duty being set at naught, the sheet anchor of our
political morality is lost, the public conscience swings from its
moorings and yields to every impulse of passion and interest. If we
repudiate the Constitution, we will not be expected to care much for
mere pecuniary obligations. The violation of such a pledge as we made on
the 22d day of July, 1861, will assuredly diminish the market value of
our other promises.


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