The burning of Washington furnished the President, in his message, an excellent occasion for making an appeal to the people. He was not constrained to fall back on the justice of the war, and persuade the nation that the invasion of Canada was both right and politic. The war had become defensive--men must now fight, not for maritime rights, not march to distant and questionable ground, but standing on their own hearth-stones, strike for their firesides and their homes. The Indian barbarities at the west, which inflamed to such a pitch of rage the Kentuckians, had been repeated by a civilized nation, and in speaking of them and the enemy, the President said: "He has avowed his purpose of trampling on the usages of civilized warfare, and given earnest of it in the plunder and wanton destruction of private property. *** His barbarous policy has not even spared those monuments of the arts and models of taste with which our country had enriched and embellished its infant metropolis. From such an adversary, hostility in its greatest force and worst forms may be looked for. The American people will face it with the undaunted spirit, which in our Revolutionary struggle, defeated his unrighteous projects. His threats and barbarities instead of dismay, will kindle in every bosom an indignation not to be extinguished but in the disaster and expulsion of such cruel invaders." The ardor and indignation of the people were easily roused, but these did not bring what just then was most needed, _money_. [Sidenote: Sept.] Campbell having resigned his place as Secretary of the Treasury, immediately after sending in his report, Alexander Dallas was appointed in his place, who brought forward a scheme for relieving the Government. Eppes, from the Committee of Ways and Means, also offered a project. He proposed to lay new taxes to the amount of eleven and a half millions, and make a new issue of Treasury Notes, redeemable after six months. Dallas agreed with him in the amount of taxes, but recommended also the creation of a National Bank with a capital of fifty millions, five of it in specie and the residue in government stock. This would regulate the currency by furnishing a circulating medium, and constitute a basis on which loans could be obtained. Bills were also brought in regulating the army.