Nor, indeed, can the result be otherwise.
A portion of the French debt is the consequence of two successive invasions; and the Union has no similar calamity to fear.

A nation placed upon the continent of Europe is obliged to maintain a large standing army; the isolated position of the Union enables it to have only 6,000 soldiers.

The French have a fleet of 300 sail; the Americans have 52 vessels.

*n How, then, can the inhabitants of the Union be called upon to contribute as largely as the inhabitants of France?
No parallel can be drawn between the finances of two countries so differently situated.
[Footnote n: See the details in the Budget of the French Minister of Marine; and for America, the National Calendar of 1833, p.228.

[But the public debt of the United States in 1870, caused by the Civil War, amounted to $2,480,672,427; that of France was more than doubled by the extravagance of the Second Empire and by the war of 1870.]] It is by examining what actually takes place in the Union, and not by comparing the Union with France, that we may discover whether the American Government is really economical.