I must not close this exposition without an attempt to display the inordinate expenditure by which the War System is maintained. And here figures appear to lose their functions. They seem to pant, as they toil vainly to represent the enormous sums consumed in this unparalleled waste. Our own experience, measured by the concerns of common life, does not allow us adequately to conceive the sums. Like the periods of geological time, or the distances of the fixed stars, they baffle imagination. Look, for an instant, at the cost to us of this system. Without any allowance for the loss sustained by the withdrawal of active men from productive industry, we find, that, from the adoption of the National Constitution down to 1848, there has been paid directly from the National Treasury,-- For the Army and Fortifications, $475,936,475 For the Navy and its operations, 209,994,428 ------------ $685,930,903[312] This immense amount is not all. Regarding the militia as part of the War System, we must add a moderate estimate for its cost during this period, being, according to the calculations of an able and accurate economist, as much as $1,500,000,000.[313] The whole presents an inconceivable sum-total of _more than two thousand millions_ of dollars already dedicated by our Government to the support of the War System,--nearly twelve times as much as was set apart, during the same period, to all other purposes whatsoever! [312] American Almanac, 1849, p. 162. United States Executive Documents: 28th Cong. 1st Sess., No. 15, pp. 1018-19; 35th Cong. 1st Sess., No. 60, pp. 6, 7. [313] Jay's War and Peace, p. 13, note; and "True Grandeur of Nations," _ante_, Vol. I. p. 79. Look now at the Commonwealth of Europe. I do not intend to speak of War Debts, under whose accumulated weight these nations are now pressed to earth, being the terrible legacy of the Past. I refer directly to the existing War System, the establishment of the Present. According to recent calculations, its annual cost is not less than a _thousand millions_ of dollars. Endeavor, for a moment, by comparison with other interests, to grapple with this sum. It is larger than the entire profit of all the commerce and manufactures of the world. It is larger than all the expenditure for agricultural labor, producing the food of man, upon the whole face of the globe. It is larger, by a hundred millions, than the value of all the exports sent forth by all the nations of the earth. It is larger, by more than five hundred millions, than the value of all the shipping belonging to the civilized world. It is larger, by nine hundred and ninety-seven millions, than the annual combined charities of Europe and America for preaching the Gospel to the Heathen.