13 good God who ruleth over all. The question is one of ways and means—not whether we shall do this or that, but how wisely and effectively it shall be undertaken and accomplished. The question before us is simply this, of helping the cause by a self-denial so paltry that I will not insult any American woman by apprising her of it here, even in advance. (Applause.) This matter has two aspects—a material aspect and a spiritual aspect—just as war has a body and soul. The soul of the war is faith of the American people in its object—in its settled and final triumph. And this soul of the war is unperishable, and cannot be annihilated and cannot die. But war has also a body. A recent issue of one of the Boston papers, so conveniently for rustic scholars, informs us that the phrase, “ the sinews of war,” is substantially as old as the eloquence of Demosthenes. Greek philosophers, Greek orators, and Greek warriors understood that war has muscles, and that these muscles must be fed. Now, what this organization of ladies proposes is, not to put an end to importations, as some have falsely alleged, as though this was a grand quixotic crusade against importation. The thing struck at is just this— only a moiety of what we import—that excess of importation over exportation, which has to be paid for in gold—that yellow blood of the war that flows as the blood of the man flowing on the field is red. What that excess was he would show them by some statistics. In the year ending June 30, 1860, we exported specie to the amount of nearly $58,000,000. In 1861, at the beginning of this cruel war, the balance of trade was the other way, and we imported specie to the amount of about $16,500,000. The people instinctively economized, but by and by the war brought its own alleviation, and they began to indulge themselves again in luxuries, and what was the result ? In the year 1862, the amount of specie exported was about $20,500,000; and in 1863, with a whole year of extravagancies between that date and to-day, they exported nearly $55,000,000 of specie, and he should not be surprised if this year the balance against us amounted to 70 or 75 millions of dollars. Now, the practical question is, women of America, will you
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