and mutual interest mere things of a day? Are the professions of Peace vain? Else why not repose in quiet, unvexed by Preparations for War?

Enormous as are the expenses of this character in Europe, those in our own country are still greater in proportion to the other expenditures of the Federal Government.

It appears that the average annual expenditures of the Federal Government for the six years ending with 1840, exclusive of payments on account of debt, were $26,474,892. Of this sum, the average appropriation each year for military and naval purposes amounted to $21,328,903, being eighty per cent. of the whole amount! Yes; of all the annual appropriations by the Federal Government, eighty cents in every dollar were applied in this irrational and unproductive manner. The remaining twenty cents sufficed to maintain the Government in all its branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, the administration of justice, our relations with foreign nations, the post office and all the light-houses which, in happy useful contrast with any forts, shed their cheerful signals over the rough waves beating upon our long and indented coast, from the Bay of Fundy to the mouth of the Mississippi. A table of the relative expenditures of nations, for military Prepa rations in time of Peace, exclusive of payments on account of the debts, presents results which will surprise the advocates of economy in our country. These are in proportion to the whole expenditure of Government : In Austria, as 33 per cent., In France, as 38 per cent., In Prussia, as 44 per cent.,

In Great Britain, as 74 per cent.,

In the UNITED STATES as 80 per cent. ! * To this magnificent waste by the Federal Government, may be added the still larger and equally superfluous expenses of the Militia throughout the country, placed recently by a candid and able writer, at $50,000,000 a year! +

By a table of the expenditures of the United States, exclusive of payments on accouat of the Public Debt, it appears, that, in the fifty-three years from the forma tion of our present Government, from 1789 down to 1843, $246,620,055 have been expended for civil purposes, comprehending the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the post office, light-houses, and intercourse with foreign governments. During this same period $368,626,594 have been devoted to the mili tary establishment, and $170,437,684 to the naval establishment; the two forming an aggregate of $538,964,278. Deducting from this sum the appropriations during three years of war, and we shall find that more than four hundred millions were absorbed by vain Preparations in time of peace for War. Add to this amount a moderate sum for the expenses of the Militia during the same period, which, as we have already seen, have been placed recently at $50,000,000 a year; for the past years we may take an average of $25,000,000; and we shall have the enormous sum of $1,335,000,000

* I have verified these results by the expenditures of these different nations, but I do little more than follow Mr. Jay, who has illustrated this important point with his accustomed accuracy. —Address, p. 30.

† Jay's Peace and War, p. 13.

American Almanac for 1845, p. 143.

to be added to the $400,000,000; the whole amounting to seventeen hundred and thirty-five millions of dollars, a sum beyond the conception of human faculties, sunk under the sanction of the Government of the United States in mere peaceful Preparations for War; more than seven times as much as was dedicated by the Government, during the same period, to all other purposes whatsoever!

From this serried array of figures the mind instinctively retreats. If we examine them from a nearer point of view, and, selecting some particular part, compare it with the figures representing other interests in the community, they will present a front still more dread. Let us attempt the comparison.

Within a short distance of this city stands an institution of learning, which was one of the earliest cares of the early forefathers of the country, the conscientious Puritans. Favored child of an age of trial and struggle, carefully nursed through a period of hardship and anxiety, endowed at that time by the oblations of men like Harvard, sustained from its first foundation by the paternal arm of the Commonwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests and by the prayers of all good men, the University at Cambridge now invites our homage as the most ancient, the most interesting, and the most important seat of learning in the land; possessing the oldest and most valuable library, one of the largest museums of mineralogy and natural history, a School of Law, which annually receives into its bosom more than one hundred and fifty sons from all parts of the Union, where they listen to instruction from professors whose names have become among the most

valuable possessions of the land - a School of Divinity,

the nurse of true learning and piety — one of the largest and most flourishing Schools of Medicine in the country-besides these, a general body of teachers, twentyseven in number, many of whose names help to keep the name of the country respectable in every part of the globe, where science, learning and taste are cherished the whole, presided over at this moment by a gentleman, early distinguished in public life by his unconquerable energies and his masculine eloquence, at a later period, by the unsurpassed ability with which he administered the affairs of our city, and now in a green old age, full of years and honors, preparing to lay down his present high trust. Such is Harvard University; and as one of the humblest of her children, happy in the recollection of a youth nurtured in her classic retreats, I cannot allude to her without an expression of filial affection and respect.

It appears from the last Report of the Treasurer, that the whole available property of the University, the various accumulations of more than two centuries of generosity, amounts to $703,175.

Change the scene, and cast your eyes upon another object. There now swings idly at her moorings, in this harbor, a ship of the line, the Ohio, carrying ninety guns, finished as late as 1836 for $547,888; repaired only two years afterwards in 1838, for $223,012; with an armament which has cost $53,945; making an amount of $334,845,† as the actual cost at this moment

* Hon. Josiah Quincy.

+ Document No. 132, House of Representatives, 3d session, 27th Congress.

of that single ship; more than $100,000 beyond all the available accumulations of the richest and most ancient seat of learning in the land! Choose ye, my fellow-citizens of a Christian state, between the two caskets that wherein is the loveliness of knowledge and truth, or that which contains the carrion death.

I refer thus particularly to the Ohio, because she happens to be in our waters. But in so doing I do not take the strongest case afforded by our Navy. Other ships have absorbed still larger sums. The expense of the Delaware in 1842, had been $1,051,000.

Pursue the comparison still further. The expenditures of the University during the last year, for the general purposes of the College, the instruction of the Undergraduates, and for the Schools of Law and Divinity, amount to $46,949. The cost of the Ohio for one year in service, in salaries, wages and provisions, is $220,000; being $175,000 more than the annual expenditures of the University; more than four times as much. In other words, for the annual sum which is lavished on one ship of the line, four institutions, like Harvard University, might be sustained throughout the country!

Still further let us pursue the comparison. The pay of the Captain of a ship like the Ohio, is $4,500, when in service; $3,500, when on leave of absence, or off duty. The salary of the President of the Harvard. University is $2,205; without leave of absence, and never being off duty!

If the large endowments of Harvard University are dwarfed by a comparison with the expense of a single ship of the line, how much more must it be so with