Looking at the scene in its political aspects, we behold one class of disorders, and looking at it in its financial aspects, we behold still another,--both together constituting a fearful sum-total, where financial disorder mingles with political. Turn, first, to the political, and you will see States, one after another, renouncing their relations with the Nation, and constituting a new government, under the name of Confederacy, with a new Constitution, making Slavery its corner-stone,--all of which they sought to maintain by arms, while, in aggravation of these perils, Foreign Powers gave ominous signs of speedy recognition and support. Look next to the financial side, and you will see business in some places entirely prostrate, in others suddenly assuming new forms; immense interests destroyed; property annihilated; the whole people turned from the thoughts of peace to the thoughts of war; vast armies set on foot, in which the youthful and strong were changed from producers to destroyers, while life itself was consumed; an unprecedented taxation, commensurate with the unprecedented exigency; and all this followed by the common incidents of war in other countries and times,--first, the creation of a national debt, and, secondly, the substitution of inconvertible paper as a currency. In this catalogue of calamities, political and financial, who shall say which was the worst? Certainly it is difficult to distinguish between them. One grew out of the other, so that they belong together and constitute one group, all derived ultimately from the Rebellion, and directly depending upon it. So long as Slavery continued in arms, each and all waxed in vastness; and now, so long as any of these remain, they testify to this same unnatural crime. The tax-gatherer, taking so much from honest industry, was born of the Rebellion. Inconvertible paper, deranging the business of the country at home and abroad, had the same monstrous birth. Our enormous taxation is only a prolongation of the Rebellion. Every greenback is red with the blood of fellow-citizens. To repair these calamities, political and financial, the first stage was the overthrow of the Rebellion in the field, thus enabling the Nation to reduce its armaments, to arrest its accumulating debt, and to cease anxiety on account of foreign intervention so constantly menaced. Thus relieved, we were brought to a resting-place, and the Nation found itself in condition to begin the work of restoration. * * * * *