If the national revenue exceeds the national expenditure, a simple appropriation for the payment of the principal of the debt and coextensive with the object is sufficient and will infallibly extinguish the debt.

If the expense exceeds the revenue, the appropriation of any specific sum and the investment of the interest extinguished or of any other fund, will prove altogether nugatory; and the national debt will, notwithstanding that apparatus, be annually increased by an amount equal to the deficit in the revenue....

What appears to be of vital importance is that _the crisis_ should at once be met by the adoption of efficient measures, which will with certainty provide means commensurate with the expense, and, by _preserving unimpaired instead of abusing that public credit on which the public resources so eminently depend, will enable the United States to persevere in the contest until an honorable peace shall have been obtained_." On March 14 Congress authorized a public loan of eleven millions of dollars, leaving it optional with the banks who subscribed to take stock, or to loan the money on special contract.

The books were opened May 1 and 2, and in the two days $6,118,900 were subscribed: $4,190,000 by banks and $1,928,000 by individuals.

The rate was six per cent.