He reviewed at some length the minor provisions of the bill, objected to them as unwarrantably interfering with the local administration of justice, and declared that a system for the support of indigent persons in the United States was never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution. "Nor can any good reason be advanced," said the President, "why as a permanent establishment it should be founded for one class or color of our people more than another." He objected to it on the ground of its expense. "The appropriations asked for by the Freedmen's Bureau, as already established, for the current year, amount," he said, "to $11,745,000; and it may be safely estimated that the cost to be incurred under the pending bill will require double that amount,--more than any sum expended in any one year of the Administration of John Quincy Adams." The argument of the message based on expense and extravagance was much applauded by the opponents of the Republican party, and there was a great expectation that it would create a strong re-action in favor of the President; but those who thus reckoned utterly failed to appreciate the temper of the public mind. The disbursement of vast sums in the war had accustomed the people to large appropriations of money, and the pecuniary aspect of the case, upon which the President had much relied, made far less impression than he anticipated. The philanthropists did not deem the question at issue to be one of dollars and cents; and those less disposed to sympathize with the humanitarian aspects of the subject had not yet learned the lesson of economy which the adversity of after years taught them. The great expansion of our currency, the ease with which money had been obtained, and the extravagance with which it had been expended in all the walks of life, produced in the minds of the people an indifference to the question of economy. The President, in his own long career, had exercised a rigid watchfulness over the disbursements of public money, and he did not fully realize the great change which had been wrought in the people--a change sure to follow the condition of war if historic precedents may be trusted--a change in which economy gives way to lavishness and careful circumspection is followed by loose disregard of established rules. It is a condition not implying dishonesty or even recklessness, but one which follows from a positive inability in the public mind to estimate the expenditure of money by the standards which are applied in the era of peaceful industry, careful supervision and prudent restraint.