West prove to you as they have been coming up calling for help. You can hear the cries now, as she feels her life's blood being drawn from her veins and her limbs chafed and swollen by the gyves of contraction. In the language of the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. BUTLER,] you have not done enough by simply leaving the tourniquet as it was; you must loosen it, let in more circulation. Why, pause for an instant and reflect; $200,000,000 of the life-giving current taken away since the close of the war, and you are no nearer specie payment than when the war closed. But, says my hard-money friend, the price of gold proves that we have a redundancy of money. No such thing; if it did we had less when the war closed than now, for gold was lower. When Atlanta fell the currency was reduced, the great cause that made gold go to 280 was the fact that there was a doubt in the minds of some as to our ability to conquer the South; not because we had too much paper, but too little confidence. And this same thing enters into the price of gold to-day, and any return to a gold basis before it is settled will be only at the expense of the people. All values are unsettled by it, and could we by any means return to a specie basis it would only be knocking off one third of the value of every species of property except the debts, public or private. You would take away one third of the debtor's means, while the creditor, Shylock-like, could claim his pound of flesh because it was so denominated in the bond.

I have no words of scorn for the bondholders. They made a good bargain with the Government, as the most of men would have done under similar circumstances. The blame rests alone upon that party and those men who decried the public credit; those men who, in the forum and on the stump, proclaimed that the nation was "dying, dying, dying," until our neighbors believed the cry and thought the dead man's estate would be far from solvent. Upon these rests the odium of this hard bargain. The country needed the money to carry on the war, to buy food and clothing for our soldiers, ammunition for our battle-fields. She had no time to wait, her necessities were immediate and pressing, and she was compelled to make such bargains as she could; but, thank God, the sick man" is recovering; in spite of evil predictions he is still alive and fast approaching convalescence. There is no doubt of our ability to pay; and now comes the great question of how we shall pay this debt hanging so heavily over us. For one, I am opposed to any repudiation. Not one dollar should be taken from the nation's creditor; but, on the other hand, not one cent should be taken from the nation's coffers and given to the creditor more than stipulated in the bond-"the flesh, but not one drop of blood." But I need not detain the committee to go over the arguments so ably adduced on this floor to prove that a large portion of our bonds, when due, will then be payable in the lawful money of the Government, let that be gold or greenbacks.

For my part I am willing to leave the construction of the contract to the courts and am ready to abide the issue; but to my mind the most serious point to be considered is the manner by which we are to provide the lawful money that is to liquidate these bonds, for a mere change of name without other relief does not reach the disease. Our people are burdened with taxes, pressed down by a weight that must be lightened or it will grow intolerable. How can we best relieve this pressure? Honorable gentlemen say let it alone, and as an argument say that the present generation has done enough; let the next pay the debt. I agree with my learned friends as to the argument; but does letting it alone relieve the present generation? Let any of those in favor of the let-alone policy but take pencil in hand and solve the problem when that debt will pay itself in interest alone at compound interest every six months, with gold at forty, and he will be surprised to find that this generation, by letting the debt alone, will pay it several times in interest and the

principal yet remain as a legacy for our children. Raising by taxation enough to pay the debt in less than ten years is not my plan of letting it alone. You might talk of leaving the debt for future generations were it not that it is day by day eating up our substance. We must have some plan to stop so much interest, and then we can let it alone, and in no other way. And now, Mr. Chairman, come the dangerous shoals of our financial course.

I know that many of the wise patriots and financiers of our land believe they see beneath every attempt to relieve the people the murky form of repudiation. For my part the hue and cry has no terror to me, as repudiation can only come when our people are crushed down; until every ray of hope is gone; only by keeping up the interest on the bonds paying the principal in gold; exempt them from taxation; then contract; reduce the currency -the means of the people; and in my opinion you are fast finding the road to universal bankruptcy, from which may be seen leading repudiation. For my part I would issue as many greenbacks as the country can carry; how great that amount may be I will not pretend to say. With these greenbacks I would redeem the five-twenty bonds as they become due; the balance not so redeemed I would refund at a low rate of interest taxable on its face, if not at such a low rate that the people might see that the bondholder was assisting in carrying the burdens of the nation. Bondholders, of course, will cry aloud, but the currency that you force upon our crippled soldiers and the widows and orphans of those who fell that our country might live, certainly ought to be good enough for the bondholder. I believe that the business of the country calls for and requires more currency, and our highest duty to a suffering people is to relieve them as far as is in our power from the crushing load of taxation.

But we are met by the hue and cry of expansion. I am distinctly in favor of expansion. Our country, as well as everything else, must keep pace with our growth as a nation. Already you can see-Brother Jonathan-likethe extremities protruding far beyond the financial unmentionables of our country. No wonder, then, that cold piercing winds cause the body-politic to shiver as we vainly endeavor to make upper and nether garments meet upon our fast-growing body. Expansion is the natural law of currency and a healthy growth as a nation. Hume well says:

"It is of no manner of consequence with regard to the domestic happiness of a State whether money be in greater or less quantity. The good policy of the

magistrate consists only in keeping it, if possible, increasing, because by that means he keeps alive a spirit of industry in the nation, and increases the stock of labor, in which consists all real power and riches. A nation whose money decreases is actually at that time weaker and more miserable than another nation which possesses no more money, but is on the increasing hand. This will be easily accounted for if we consider that the alterations in the quantity of money either on the one side or the other is not immediately attended with proportionable alterations in the price of commodities."

The workman has not the same employment from the manufacturer and merchant, though he pays the same price for everything in the market. The farmer cannot dispose of his corn and cattle, though he must pay the same rent to his landlord. The poverty and beggary and sloth which must ensue are easily foreseen. Another English writer says:

"That the greatest distress among the laboring classes of England was in 1816, when gold was par, when the new sovereigns lay at the bankers uncalled for, and when Spanish dollars sold at four shillings and three pence."

How did our currency stand in 1861? Total amount of gold in country $275,000,000; silver $110,000,000. Total coin $385,000,000. Held by banks and the Government $97,674,507; amount of coin in circulation $287,325,493; bank notes in circulation $202,005,767. Total amount notes and coin in circulation $487,991,260. How stands the currency today? Legal tenders and fractional currency, $387,142,457; bank notes, $293,887,941. Total, $681,030,398; but to be deducted from this amount held by banks as reserve $157,439,099;

supposed to be held in Treasury probably $45,000,000 more. Total out of circulation, $202,430,099, leaving actual circulation $478,591,299; or $11,399,961 less than the circulation in 1861.

No wonder, then, that the giant of the last six years' growth feels the iron cutting into his flesh as you attempt to force his limbs into the iron boots of contraction.

My plan is to increase our circulation until it will be commensurate with the increase of our country in every other particular.

How stood the figures in 1863? From the best data at hand the New York banks in three years inflated their circulation $185,348,634. If other banks did the same we then had an entire inflation of $700,000,000, which, added to the circulation then out, $535,000,000, would give us $1,200,000,000. And when, financially, did we ever have a better year than 1863? No one broke up; and yet to-day you hear the cry of the dead and dying, financially, all around you.

France has a circulation per capita of thirty-dollars. England twenty-five; and we, with our extent of territory and improvements, certainly require more than either, and the Government should furnish it. The Government credit to-day furnishes the sole basis of the bank currency. I would remodel the national bank system so as to take away the power of issuing bills. I do not propose to blot them out of existence, but to take away that branch of their business, once, perhaps, a necessity, but now an expensive luxury.

Mr. BURLEIGH. I would like to ask the gentleman a question.

The CHAIRMAN, (Mr. CULLOM.) Does the gentleman yield?

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. Certainly. Mr. BURLEIGH. I would like to ask the gentleman where he obtains his data in regard to the circulation of our currency?

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I cannot give the particulars now. But I can assure the gentleman they are correct, and that I have obtained my information from authorized

sources.

But

Now, let me illustrate: A goes to B, and in order to assist him to pay his debts, says: "Now, B, you give me your notes for $100,000 and pay me the interest and I will loan you $90,000 of my notes that your indorsement will make good, and you can pay your debts with them." Now, if A's credit is better than B's he may in this manner get rid of his notes easier. if he is solvent and pays his notes and interest promptly, how much has he made by the transaction, as he has only borrowed of A $10,000 more than he returns to him, with this difference, that on the total amount of his own notes he pays six per cent. interest in gold while A pays nothing on his notes given in exchange? Then, as is readily seen, B is paying for the use of $10,000 the interest on the entire $100,000, that is sixty per cent. in gold on the $10,000, and this privilege of loaning is rendered a monopoly by restricting the amount of bank capital so that only a few have this golden opportunity.

I believe that Government alone should furnish the currency of the country, thereby sav ing millions in interest now paid banks for furnishing a currency that without Government indorsement would not be worth a farthing. And just in proportion as you change the bonds into greenbacks have you settled the question of taxation of bonds. The greenbacks entering into circulation can be taxed as so much money on hand without difficulty; and while you are reducing the taxes you are increasing the taxable property. That the bonds are to be taxed either directly or indirectly seems to be a foregone conclusion. Whether it is policy to tax the people of one State to be paid into the coffers of another is at least of doubtful propriety. The retention of one per cent. for distribution to the State can only result in this. The States paying the largest share of the taxes, either by internal revenue or by tariff, are to be the losers. You can hardly delude

the people into believing that it is right that the heavy tax-paying communities of the North shall be taxed to distribute to the southern States. Indiana may be allured by the glittering bait of $900,000 to be paid into her coffers by the General Government; but when she finds that this has been drawn from her hard earnings, and an additional sum to be paid as a bonus to southern States, she will spurn your offer. You may compare the tax tables and prove to them that the older States pay all the taxes, and she will in answer show that we of the West, the consumers, are the ones that after all bear the burden; we may not pay the tax to the collector, but we do to the manufacturer and the importer. Every cup of coffee, every draught of tea, the coat worn, and the wagons driven, have, by their enhanced value, paid the tax that is under this proposition given to the support of the South, and she will repudiate your plan as equally unjust to the East and the West. You can tax the bonds directly more honestly than by this method. And in connection with this point I wish to allude to the bill lately introduced by my colleague [Mr. HUNTER] on thus subject.

The first section provides for an issue of a new bond, principal and interest payable in gold at six per cent., interest payable semiannually, one per cent. to be retained and paid to the States in lieu of taxes; the holders of five-twenty bonds to be allowed to exchange their bonds for these, or refusing to do so are to be forced to take greenbacks. This bond is simply a five per cent. bond, interest and principal guarantied in coin. If my colleague had reflected for a moment he would have seen that we had a similar bond already out, the ten-forty; and let us see how much the bondholder has been obliged to disgorge, how much he pays for converting a greenback bond into coin and that coin-bond protected from taxation; he is forced to take a bond that now is quoted above par; for by looking at the market quotations of bonds in New York you will see the five per cent ten-forties above par. Should the gentleman be so lucky as to secure the passage of his bill, not a bondholder in the country but will see that he has achieved a glorious victory. He has changed his uncertain bond into coin.

The bill proposes to settle the dispute as to whether the principal of the five-twenties is pay. able in gold or currency by agreeing to pay gold, and in return for this the bondholder deducts one per cent. interest. How stands the bargain, taking it for granted that the bonds are payable in lawful currency? Say the bonds are, in round numbers, $2,000,000,000 and gold forty per cent., then the gold value of the bonds would be $1,428,571,428. Then to settle this matter we give $571,500,000 in gold, and to compensate us for this we deduct one per cent. of the interest. Let us see how much that would be. One per cent. on the principal, $2,000,000,000, having fifteen years to run, would be $30,000,000 per annum. The present worth of an annuity of that kind would be far less than $200,000,000, that is, the Government gets $200,000,000 while the bondholder gets $571,428,572, the bondholder making by the bargain the snug little sum of $371,428,572 in gold, and he has escaped what the people demand, that the bondholder's property should share the burdens of the Government.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Does the bondholder in this case get more than the Government agreed to pay him for the money he advanced?

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I think he does. I believe the five-twenty bonds are payable in greenbacks.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Then it ought to be corrected by the Supreme Court of the United States, or by the Congress of the United States.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. If the gentleman had been here when I began my speech, he would have heard me say that I thought the matter should be left to the Supreme Court.

Mr. BURLEIGH. There I agree with the gentleman.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. The differ

ence between us is that I believe I will beat him when I get to the Supreme Court.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Do the people demand repudiation of the national debt?"

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. The people do not demand repudiation, and the only way to save repudiation is to make all the property of the country pay taxes equally. If that is repudiation, then I am for repudiation.

Mr. BURLEIGH. No doubt of it. Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. If it is proposed to tax a part of the property of the people to protect the property of another part of the people, then I am opposed to it.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Did the Government agree to give greenbacks to the man who came forward in the hour of its need and loaned the Government the gold he had earned and saved? Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. The Government made the man take greenbacks who risked his life in its defense, and when they made the pension list they promised him the same they promised the bondholder; and today they make him take greenbacks. What is the superior merit of the bondholder who took bonds at forty cents on the dollar that he should be preferred to the soldier of the war and his widow?

Mr. BURLEIGH. I desire to ask the gentleman this question: the Government having taken my gold and agreed to repay me in gold, am I to be required to take payment in greenbacks at forty cents below par?

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. That is exactly what I say, that where the Government agreed to pay in gold it will pay in gold; but where the contract is otherwise it will pay in the same currency in which it pays the rest of its debts. The Government did not come and beg the soldier to go into the ranks; it said, You shall go."

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Mr. BURLEIGH. I was not a soldierbroker or anything of the kind. It was gold that I gave, and not soldiers; and the Government agreed to pay me in gold.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. If the gentleman had been a soldier, and had given his blood for the preservation of the Government, he would appreciate the difference between a bondholder and a soldier, and he would realize the injustice of distinctions in favor of the bondholder as against the soldier.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Mr. Chairman, I understand the situation of my friend. He is, as I understand, a candidate for reëlection in his State.

my remarks at the point where I was interrupted.

Not a single greenback will be added to the currency under this bill, for greenbacks are being daily exchanged for a similar bond and a premium paid. The only result arising from this bill will be this: under the guise of giving the country more greenbacks you provide the means by which our only chance to pay our indebtedness in lawful money will be closed entirely and a guarantee given that the bondholder will not be taxed. The people will not be so easily hoodwinked. You must either tax your new bonds as other property is taxed or you must reduce the rate of interest so that it will be plainly seen that the holders of the bonds are doing something for the Govern ment. What rate of tax does many on-handnotes at interest pay in your several States, and then answer why these bonds should only pay one per cent. For my part four per cent. is as high as I can be got to go if you are to exempt them from taxation. What is the difficulty? Now, in the West the Government has been paying too high a rate of interest until all the surplus is locked up in bonds. Suppose a farmer wants to borrow a thousand dollars by mortgaging his farm, he cannot find an opportunity, for he is met at every hand by the response, My money is in bonds at six per cent. in gold, equal to nine per cent. in currency, and no tax. If I take your note I will be taxed from two to three per cent." No wonder he refuses to change the investment, for many cannot and ought not to bear any such rate.

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The last clause of the sixth section of the bill under review [Mr. HUNTER's] is as follows:

And the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to collect from duties upon imports only such proportion of the same in coin as may be necessary to meet the obligations of the United States which are payable in coin, and the residue ho shall receive in the lawful currency of the United States.

And I here enter my solemn protest against legislating upon the tariff bill in this covert manner. Here is a proposition to reduce the tariff just in proportion as the amount so collected should bear to the whole and the price of gold, in other words, gold now at forty per

cent.

If one half the customs are collected in greenbacks, it will reduce the tariff on everything twenty per cent. Now, those manufac turers who claim that they are only kept alive by protection, will by this fell swoop have that protection taken away; but the West complains not so much of the tariff, but of the unjust discrimination against our western products. How will it be with our grain, our pork, our beef, now just sufficiently protected as to

Mr. BURLEIGH. Does the gentleman suppose for one moment that I advocate that party or its candidate? I would sooner affiliate with the devil and his host. [Laughter.]

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I am glad to hear the gentleman say that he does not affiliate with that party. I was fearful that he had been affiliating with the party that nominated Seymour at the New York convention.

Mr. BURLEIGH. The gentleman certainly had no ground for any such suspicion.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I was certainly justified in thinking that the man who could stand on this floor and boast that he had obtained more official appointments at the hands of Andrew Johnson than any other man, would support that party.

Mr. BURLEIGH. Does the gentleman from Indiana boast of anything of that kind?

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I do not say who made such a boast. I leave it for the gentleman to say.

Mr. BURLEIGH. The remarks of the gentleman are a fitting commentary on his loyalty and fidelity. I never made any boast of that kind.

Mr. WASHBURN, of Indiana. I resume

the markets of New York and New England to Canada. Articles of luxury, now but little taxed, instead of being increased, decreased; all the mistakes and blunders of our present tariff made more glaring. What we need is a reduction of interest, equal taxation, a fair and judicious tariff, and time will take care of our national debt and solve our financial trouble.

Mr. BLAIR addressed the committee on the issues of the present political campaign. [His remarks will be published in the Appendix.]

Mr. ELA. Mr. Chairman, I take this opportunity, lest I may not get another, to say a word in defense of a vote given on the resolution of the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. COBB,] and the bill so ungraciously reported by the Committee of Ways and Means taxing the interest on Government bonds ten per cent. These bonds now bear comparatively none of the burdens of the country, and their exemption from taxation causes great dissatisfaction and discontent which ought in some way to be remedied. They are not allowed to be taxed under State authority, because the right to tax is without limit as to rate or amount, and might be used by States adversely to destroy the whole credit of the Government.

The power of the General Government to

tax bonds is unquestioned. The acts of Congress only prohibited taxation by or under State authority. We have taxed the income from bonds for the last six years, and if we have no right to do so that tax ought to be refunded. We are proposing no new principle by taxing incomes unequally.

The first year of internal revenue taxation incomes from Government bonds were taxed one and one half per cent., while incomes from other sources were taxed three per cent. Subsequently incomes under $5,000 were taxed five per cent, while incomes above $5,000 were taxed ten per cent., which is the amount fixed in this bill to tax interest on these bonds, and which is, in my judgment, rather below than above the amount we ought to impose.

All our taxes have been laid unequally, and with regard to whether the commodity to be taxed was an article of luxury or necessity, and in proportion to its supposed ability to bear taxation. We have taxed shoes and leather two per cent., woolen fabrics two and one half per cent., paper three per cent., cotton manufactures five per cent., and whisky five hundred per cent. Congress having the right to tax, it is confined by no limits but such as tice, expediency, and necessity impose.

Justice requires that the present bonds should be taxed that the burdens upon property may be equalized, or that a new bond should be immediately issued bearing a low rate of interest to reduce the expenses of the Government. A new bond will not be easily put upon the market. Persons who get six per cent. in gold will not take less willingly. Those who have fastened themselves upon the revenues of the country and are sucking its life-blood will not release their grasp unless enticed to by the same measures which were taken to entice State banks out of existence to make way for national banks. Expediency requires that exemption from taxation, which has already caused discontent and dissatisfaction and raised the banner of repudiation shall no longer continue. But few comparatively would repudiate, yet the fact that some propose it had better be heeded in season. We must bear in mind that to those discontented we must add those who were engaged in the rebellion, who will never willingly pay for being whipped. Their allies in sympathy will pay, if at all, grudgingly. The interests of bondholders require that bonds should bear just taxation, and an overtaxed people require it.

I notice that the press, who are par excellence the defenders of the bond interest, are free to denounce all who would tax bouds as repudiators. They raise the idiotic cry if you have the power and right to tax ten per cent. you have a right to tax fifty or a hundred per cent.; granted. But does it follow that because you have the power to do an unjust thing that you will therefore do it? We taxed all manufactures five per cent. We had a right to do it. Did it therefore follow that we should tax them one hundred per cent. instead of removing it altogether, as we did when it became oppressive? Am I to be branded as a repudiator because I am tired of seeing the sons of toil bending their backs to the sun and their faces to the earth, building highways and keep ing them in repair, and may only look up to see their bondholding neighbor roll by in his coach and exempt from that burden? Am I to be branded as a repudiator because I am unwilling to see the poor man's children kept in ignorance and at toil to build school-houses and provide schools for the bondholder's children, while he makes no contribution to that object? And worse than that, to pay the policeman who stands guard over the bondholder's safe, while I have a right to tax him, and am following established precedents by doing it. The whole debtor community have had one third added to their interest by exemption from taxation, and high rates of interest on bonds. It has also vastly increased taxation by the high rates of interest States, counties, and towns have to pay on their indebtedness. If we fail to tax bonds others will take our 40TH CONG. 2D Sess.--No. 252.

The bugbear that foreigners will send back their bonds which pay them five per cent. or more, while the rates of interest, according to the tables of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. GARFIELD,] are two per cent. in London, one and one half per cent. in Paris, three per cent. in Berlin, two and one half per cent. in Frankfort, three per cent. in Amsterdam, and two per cent. in Hamburg, may frighten the gentleman from Maine, [Mr. BLAINE,] who presented it; but it ought not to prevent the House from doing an act of justice in providing additional revenue from a source better able to bear taxation than any other.

If these bonds come back it is so much the better. It will check importations and give additional employment to our own labor. They ought never to have gone abroad, and did not to any extent until the war was over. We have received in exchange for them imported luxuries which our people had been better without, and which have tended to depress our labor while being taxed to pay interest abroad.

Tax these bonds as they should be, and the rates of interest paid by States, municipalities, and individuals will be lessened, and all State and local taxation will be lessened. If it is not done labor and business must continue to sink and stagger under the enormous load until the evil corrects itself by business reverses and financial disaster, strewing their wrecks on every hand. Then by leaving capital idle and labor unemployed the payment of the debt, otherwise certain, will be subject to doubt.

Mr. JULIAN spoke on the policy of land bounties and in defense of the existing homestead system. [His remarks will be published in the Appendix.]

Mr. ARCHER. Mr. Chairman, when the civil war between the North and South terminated, chaos ruled supreme in the latter. State governments there were literally "without form and void," if those States were to be regarded as subjugated territory, and not a parcel of our common country existing under and by virtue of our Constitution. That they were a part aud parcel of that country, and that they did exist under that Constitution, had never been denied by any one of the three coördinate branches of the Federal Government. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive had, time and again, by resolutions, decisions, and proclamations, asserted and reasserted that they were within the Union of the States and must then remain as States. It was in pursuance of this doctrine that President Johnson, soon after his accession to the Presidency, proceeded to restore order where this chaos reigned, by reacknowledging the rights of the States. Occupying the position of Commander-in-Chief of the armies, and martial law still prevailing, he spoke to those States as Commander-in-Chief when he said to them

that slavery had ceased to exist in fact; but he at the same time showed the necessity of action on the part of the States themselves before it could legally cease to exist. His democratic training had instilled this doctrine of the rights of the States firmly into his mind-rights of the States, I mean, under the Constitution and within the Union.

The southern people, acknowledging the results of the war and wearied with its fearful carnage, appalled by their desolated homes and threatened with starvation, hastened to avail themselves of the opportunity to return to their allegiance-not sullenly, but cheerfully; so cheerfully that northern people and northern capital flowed into their midst and were welcomed warmly. Peace and quiet reigned supreme where a few months before the dreadful carnage of war had prevailed. This peace and this tranquillity proved the humanity, patriotism, and statesmanship of Andrew Johnson. A man of the people, he knew their wants; a lover of the Constitution, he knew that adherence to its principles would accomplish the desired end. Would to God that his humane, patriotic, and statesmanlike plan had been adhered to, and that this poor, bleeding country, North and South, had been allowed to return to the old fraternal feeling. Would to God that the same chivalrous feeling which, on the termination of the war, animated the soldiers who had fought on both sides, had animated our law-givers. Had it been so, we should then have challenged the admiration of the civilized world, and the people of this great Republic would have been spared an untold amount of suffering.

No one doubts that it was the desire of President Johnson that the war should so terminate. No one doubts that it was the desire of those patriotic Republicans who joined the great Conservative party of the country that the war should so terminate. No one doubts that it was the desire of the great Democratic party that the war should so terminate. No one will doubt, in next November, that the great masses of the people of this country desire that it shall so terminate.

Who, then, prevented the consummation of this desirable end? I do not hesitate to say the Radical part of the Republican party. And for what purpose was this interference? Simply to retain in their grasp the power and patronage of the Government by the enfranchisement of an ignorant and degraded race. By the elevation of this race to the elective franchise all obstacles were to be swept from their way to power. The plan, revolutionary as it was, was to be carried out to the desired consummation let the consequences be what they might. If a twinge of conscience stole in the soul of one of their number who still retained a vestage of love for the old landmarks of liberty, he was to be upbraided with a taunt that he had splinters from the ghost of the old Constitution sticking in his kidney." If a general of the Army, like the gallant Hancock, asserted the cardinal doctrine of a free Republic, that the military should be subservient to the civil authorities in times of peace, or that the writ of habeas corpus should be respected, he was to be dropped from the Army roll by the passage of a law over the President's veto. If the Supreme Court dare intimate its intention of maintaining its proper dignity by considering the constitutionality of one of their laws, then special legislation was to be resorted to for the pupose of depriving that court of its jurisdiction. If the President asserted his constitutional prerogative, he, too, was to be assailed and hurled from his place, to make way for some supple tool who would bow the pliant knee to their tyranny.

In this contest for power the Republican party resembles in their recklessness Sampson of old when led into the temple of the Philistines. He, blind with fury and hate against the surrounding masses, who scoffingly looked upon him and upbraided him for the loss of power and strength which his own folly had destroyed, stood between the mighty pil

We have stood for the last few months upon the verge of a precipice, a dark abyss of anarchy yawning at our feet. This giant Republican party hoped by one last wild effort to throw off the life-sustaining restraints of the Constitution of our fathers. This was to be done by the impeachment and displacement of the constitutional head of our Government. They would then arrogate to themselves, as an oligarchy, all the powers of the Government. In other words, the aim was to establish just such a power in the Congress as was usurped by the Assembly of France during the reign of terror. But do any of them for a moment dream that, along with the attainment of such a power, they may also reach the fame and fate of Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, their counterparts in French history?

That power, like that which existed in the French Assembly, was not attained, is due to the wisdom of the framers of our Constitution, who wisely gave us two branches of the legislative department. The one to act as a check on the other. The Senate, thank God, existed, and stood as an effectual barrier against the rushing storm to check "the waters wild" of this storm. The Senate saved the Republic at least for the time. The Senate saved a patriot, and in saving him from partisan persecution they have made for themselves names which will be revered by generations yet to come. The Senate, by their verdict, have given peace and quiet to the North, and the people in the coming contest will, by the election of a Democratic President, give such a verdict against the misdeeds of those now legislating as will revive the desolated South, and she will be again the "sunny land," with blooming fields and happy homes. She will once more be brought fairly and equally into the sisterhood of States, and cause the wealth of Europe, and even of the Celestial Empire, to flow into our coffers, and thence into the hands of our laboring artisans. As " straws show us which way the wind blows," so the recalling of one or two little occurrences here may serve to illustrate the intensity of the hatred entertained by the impeachers against the President. Foiled in their plot of ruining him, they immediately cast about them for minor objects on which to wreak their long pent-up vengeance. A few days since, by resolution of the two Houses, a room was furnished and fitted up in the Capitol that an accomplished woman might there, without danger of interruption, pursue her noble and ennobling profession in the interest of the nation. In the midst of her quiet labors, although guaranteed by Congress against disturbance, behold her charged upon most furiously by "a gallant band of brothers from the old"-impeachment clique, supposed to be more capa ble of conducting this sort of campaign than the kind in which they had just failed so sig

onslaught upon Miss Vinuie and her helpless statues, the casus belli, so soon after a solemn treaty of peace, was the fact that she-although her sentiments are said to have accorded with those of the Republican party had refused to truckle to extreme Radical behests or to work the wires of the impeachment machinery. To this bold charge these iconoclastic womanfighters were unflinchingly led by a doughty warrior who has ever shown himself eager for such a fray. Although the concussions produced on Fortress Freedom by the violent explosions of his wrath, on this occasion appeared to the veteran sentinels on duty far more startling than formidable; yet poor woman and poor art were terrified, and fled appalled before the fiendish charge and the brimstone cloud. The frenzied and persistent attempts of this great champion of the "woolly-head" to ride the woolly-horse were not quite so successful; and, unless he beware the former, though more docile just now than the mule ridden by a still greater general and sometimes bottle-corker in his strolling boyhood, may throw him at the November races.

The plan of reconstruction which President Johnson proceeded to carry out in May, 1865, was the identical one previously agreed upon by Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet in accordance with the views then entertained by the Republican party. The States yielded ready obedience to the conditions imposed, and up to this point all moved smoothly toward restoration. The old constitutional lights, which had been dimmed by war clouds and threatened with total extinction, blazed forth again; old land-marks loomed up once more in the hazy distance, and lent their friendly guidance to wanderers over the benighted waste. But the Republican party, just here, snuffed danger. They knew that after the nation's long winter of discontent, the fruition of a spring-like peace would be to them but bitter, || or, like Dead Sea apples, become ashes on their lips. They knew that the scepter of power must slip from their grasp and pass into the hands of their untiring foe, the great constitutional party of the North. It was at that critical juncture that they made a closer league with the powers of darkness. It was then that they concocted the hell-broth of African rule, and gloatingly stirred it into the political caul dron. They are now dancing, hag-like, around it as they administer the paralyzing potion with no stinted hand to the best, the bravest of the southern people.

It has been said that to crush the rebellion nearly a half million men lost their lives. Three years of almost uninterrupted Radical rule have followed, and thus far with what results? Three momentous results, indeed. We see now a truckling, mongrel platform, without an infinitesimal portion of patriotism, justice, or magnanimity in it, substituted for the glorious Constitution of better days; and while the dark hues of bondage have in one sense been lightened by the substitution of white slavery for black, the nation's hopes have been thereby most hideously darkened. It has been customary with those in authority to refer for guidance to the acts of their predecessors. With what degree of safety to the liberties of the people, to the observance of constitutional guarantees, or to the stability of the Government, can future parties, as they come into power, regard as guiding precedents the congressional acts of the last two or three years? Why, each party, as soon as it obtained sway, would, were such examples followed, throw everything into chaos; and, although the people might rise each time in their boasted majesty and vote them out and a new party in, it would be, at best, but exchanging one chaotic condition for another-the Radical for the Democratic, or the reverse, as the case might be; the void and formless monster would still brood above the waters.

In the name of justice and peace and national prosperity; in the name of good government, ay, of any government in contradis

tinction to this ruinous anarchy that menaces our favored land; a land that has been, and may be again, the hope of the world and the terror of oppressors; but most of all, in the sacred name of the constitutional republican Government established by our ancestors; honored by their faithful observance; hallowed and sealed by their blood; in the name of five millions of suffering people; their homes desolated, hearts crushed, hopes blighted; in the name of all these I appeal, through its constituted and acknowledged leaders here assembled, to the great Radical party; a few years ago unborn from the womb of time, but lately Titan for strength; breaking from its bonds; shaking the land with its strides of progress; knocking fetters from millions and welding them on double the number; wresting scepters from sovereign States; sweeping those States themselves from existence and blotting out their lines in blood. I appeal to this great power in the land to say where, with those glaring examples of high-handed usurpation on record for the use of unscrupulous factions, ever prompt and eager to avail themselves of precedents in justification of contemplated villianies; where and when and how is such chaotic state to have an end? Do they envy and would they fain perpetuate here the eondition of our wretched neighbors of Mexico? All hope of peace and order solemnly promised, but indefinitely postponed on each accession of a new party to power; a chronic, mortal anarchy rankling in the nation's heart eating out its very life; pillage, oppression, and reeking murder eternally ramping through the land. Can such be the condition they have in store for this proud people, this model Republic?

In this gigantic and unscrupulous struggle of the Republican party for power thousands and tens of thousands of whites-most of them men of intelligence and education-have been practically disfranchised in the South, while more than that number of ignorant, imbruted, vagrant, penniless negroes have been suddenly invested with the right of suffrage. And for what have this abject race been thus clothed with new rights, of which their enlightened masters have been so ignominously stripped? Perchance, to reward their loyalty. Did they give any appreciable proof of loyalty during the war? On the contrary, they toiled and sweated, if they did not bleed, in aid of the rebellion; and although numbering two thirds as many as the whole white population; although, in numerous instances, inhabiting sections of country many miles in extent, where scarcely a southern soldier was to be seen for months, they never struck a blow for freedom. There was not, throughout the whole war, a single instance of even the feeblest attempt at insurrection. Thus did the negro falsify even in the "glorious" hour of his emancipation one of the noblest of sentiments, a sentiment hitherto accepted by none more cordially than by his present eulogists and vindicators— "Who would be free, himself must strike the blow."

Was it done for the Union, for which this race cared not, and never will care, a copper's toss? Far from it; in truth, the very reverse of this. Their real aim, as is now well understood by all and pretty generally conceded by themselves, was to keep the country in a state of disruption until their party might be able to secure permanent control. Instead of investing those half million negroes with the right to vote had they doubly enfranchised as many intelligent whites of the North by giving each one of them two votes it would have been, for decency's sake, far better, and would have accomplished their fell purpose quite as effectually. Would the northern people have endured this? And yet the wrong inflicted thereby on the remaining voters of that section and the shock to good government would not have been one whit greater.

To show how insatiable is their lust of power and to what a fearful length it goads them on for spoils, a recent occurrence may be briefly

referred to. A prominent member of the Radical party in answer to a direct query put to him during debate, declared, without shame or even hesitation, that the condition imposed by his party for the removal of disabilities from southern whites was, virtually, that they would vote the Radical ticket. Now, as to the admission of the African race to a prominent share in the conducting of our political affairs, this outrage has been blindly consummated in the face of certain disastrously resulting experiments made by pseudo-philanthropists and ignorant, wretched, vicious fanatics. The tottering relics of these miserably abortive governments, the fruits of these experiments, still stand; yet they stand only as a butt for satire, for true philanthropy a warning beacon, for civilization a reproach. They are a stench in the nostrils of the world, and if such absurd innovations of mongrelism here, such wild ingraftments on our political stock, be not speedily receded from, the repetition of Jamaica and St. Domingo must needs be upon us; and the black incubus that now weighs so horribly on the South must soon cause her to sleep the "sleep that knows no waking."

With the same object they gagged the judiciary, and wrested from the Executive the clear constitutional right of selecting the heads of Departments, who are not only his counselors, but his agents, for whose acts he alone is held responsible, and have aimed in various other ways to curtail and abolish his rightful powers. Why should they tamper thus by degrees with the Constitution and the Government? Why not at one fell blow destroy them both, then merge the three branches into onea result to which all their acts have lately tended-by legislative enactment, and dub that one the Congressional oligarchy of the free and independent States of America ?"

The most solemn obligations imposed by the Constitution are no longer regarded when expediency demands their infraction; and, for all that Constitution can ever avail the country while under Radical rule, it may as well be at once buried away out of sight. But let the undertakers of this melancholy sepulture perform it with a solemnity befitting the momentous occasion. Perhaps some "suppressed" judicial ermine might be obtained as a shroud. The coffin might be appropriately made of slivers from the charter-oak, or the parchment of poor habeas corpus, if there is no further use for it, or the door of the Woolley bastile. Let the pall-bearers be the district satraps, both past and present, with a few of the Republican leaders from the Capitol here, if, indeed, they have respect enough left for the deceased to accord a decent burial, or sympathy befitting the sad office. Let the chief mourners be the southern States, (for heaven knows they have chief cause to mourn this illustrious dead,) and let them be represented at the grave by as many sad-faced maidens draped in the habiliments of woe.

The bor

der States might follow these, their tweeds not quite so black; then the great throng of the sorry and indifferent, the glad and the gay, mixed and merged, like all funeral crowds when the great have departed. Let the solemn cavalcade then pass beneath the shadow of the Bunker Hill shaft, where it is no longer likely Mr. Toombs will call the roll of his slaves. Let them pause there a while, and call a far different roll, that of the great fathers of the deceased Constitution and of those famous signers who hurled defiance at King George, and hear or imagine their answer from the spirit world. Let them then wind through the inevitable hub of the Juggernaut, whose wheel has so horribly mangled the deceased, and proceed to Plymouth Rock. Out of this a sarcophagus might be hollowed for its reception, and some of the "loyal" New England clergy-some of the far famed "three thousand"—might be induced to read the burial service, and offer up a "petition" (this time to Heaven, and not to Congress) as earnest and no doubt as sincere as the old one, that the defunct may rest in peace and never rise.

Now, seeing the danger which impends this great charter, let us inquire what is the object of the Constitution, (of all constitutions, in fact,) or, rather, what was its object, since it is to be, at least for a little while, a thing of the past? It cannot be designed for the protection of the majority, for they are self-protecting. It is to shield the weak against the strong. Take away this guarantee, and the minority have no earthly appeal from oppression. It is then a mere mob that rules. But the Republican party have found a precious though it seems a rather fluctuating substitute for the Constitution. That substitute is any platform (amended, altered, and juggled to suit immediate and pressing party necessities) by which they may hope to retain their supremacy. Their cardinal doctrine is that the majority may, without any curb or check whatsoever, do even as they will. As was done in times of full Puritanical sway, they virtually resolve, first, the world is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, (which most probably means thespoons of office ;) secondly, what is the Lord's belong to His saints; and thirdly, we are His saints.

Now, let us examine the platform which, if the Radical party be continued in power, is to supersede the Constitution. To the most of it the sarcastic utterance of a great Frenchman is peculiarly appropriate. The object of language," said he, "is to conceal our ideas." Some portions of it, had it not been adopted in solemn conclave, might well be regarded as ironical, and might have enabled it to pass as one of the grandest jokes of the age. Take the first paragraph:

"We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced in the adoption in the majority of the States lately in rebellion of constitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all," &c.

Now, even the Republicans themselves-at least such of them as are not either fanatical or demented, or utterly unhumanized-must feel in their hearts and consciences, whatever poliey may prompt their tongues to say, that with two exceptions there is not a gleam of truth in that whole paragraph. One of these exceptions is that the convention really do congratulate the country; but it is just as though one individual might congratulate another on having been robbed by him, delicately suppressing the fact that he is soon to be also hung, or destroyed in some other way. The other exception is that "constitutions were adopted in a majority of the States lately in rebellion"-adopted in the States, not by them. Mark that well; it speaks volumes: adopted in the States by carpet-baggers and vagabond negroes; even the unscrupulous Radicals, then, have not the hardihood to contend that these infamous constitutions were adopted by those States but only in them.

Paragraph the seventh abounds in the same species of sarcasm. The assertion that 66 corruptions call for radical reform," emanating, as it does, from that incorruptible source, is withering; the play upon the word radical, and its juxtaposition to reform, is quite inimitable.

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In the twelfth paragraph, where the convention declares its sympathy with all oppressed peoples," and in the last, where it recognizes the great principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence as the foundation of democratic government," the irony becomes so glaring that the wonder is the convention did not organize some of its trained ferrets into a "smelling committee" to spy out whether there might not be a traitor in their camp in the person of the member-whoever he might be that drafted the platform. Was he not endeavoring to "sell" them? The more especially should they have suspected this as there is another fine piece of pleasantry perpetrated here, and this time upon the word democratic, as before upon the word radical: "The great principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence are the foundation of democratic government." How scathing to them who adopted the platform! for while it

cannot possibly, in consistence with truth, refer to the Radical party, it is, in every respect, applicable to their opponents.

Paragraphs ninth and eleventh are simply a bid for the foreign vote, with a swagger and a shaking of the fist in John Bull's face; for, with all the powers of the Government in their hands, they have done nothing. The eighth is such a wide plank and occupies such a conspicuously central position in the platform as to necessitate the belief that it was constructed by some one whose vindictive wrath had been foiled, or whose chances for political preferment had been hopelessly blasted by the sudden collapse of the impeachment bubble, pricked by seven Republican free-lancers. It sounds like the last growlings of a baffled fiend when he has failed to drag down to perdition an innocent victim, whose high estate he envied, on whose ruin he has built his hopes, and gloatingly set his malignant heart. The concerted growl of their sanction, as it rang around the walls of the menageries when read to them, may be better imagined than described. President Johnson is therein denounced as a villain of the deepest dye. He is called a usurper, a traitor, a wholesale dealer in corruption, and a dabbler in moral filth generally. Such are some of the vituperative and indecent expressions applied to the great head of the nation, merely because he will not debase himself to their level or be molded to their sinister designs. And these foul-mouthed maligners are the same, or cordially indorsed by the same, who have lately arrogated to themselves, with sanctimonious hypocrisy, to inculcate upon others the use of what they are pleased to style "decorous language." There surely should have been a special paragraph inserted recommending that this exceedingly courteous style of theirs should henceforth be adopted as a model of decorum in all communications between the three great coördinate branches of the Government.

This eighth paragraph also professes that they "profoundly deplore the untimely death of Abraham Lincoln.' This they do just about as sincerely as they would "deplore" the sudden demise of Andrew Johnson at this time; the the latter having simply endeavored to carry out, in good faith, the pledges to which the whole Radical party, with Abraham Lincoln at their head, had, time after time, committed themselves. For, with the recent history of that party before us, no one can doubt that had Mr. Lincoln persisted in executing the then fully indorsed reconstruction measures of his party, which there is every reason to believe he would have done, the blot of infamy attempted to be affixed to his name would have been of as deep and damning a dye as in the case of his successor.

The tenth paragraph says, "Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen.' Now, the ironical man, the traitor in the Chicago camp, has been along here, too; the mark of his slimy trail is visible all over this plank; there is one little word among those just quoted which is unmistakably in the interest of their opponents. "There were none,' " the sentence reads, "entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen." We are justifiable in inferring from this that although there were none there are some entitled to more honor than the soldiers and sailors; but they are not content that we shall merely infer this; for a few days since, in an election held under the very shadow of this Capitol, they gave us a substantial illustration of it by excluding from the count all the soldiers' tickets on which, as they slid them into the ballotbox, they had slily scratched, with their hyena claws, an "ear-mark" of infamy by which they were identified as soldiers' votes when the counting commenced. These soldiers had been duly registered, and the recognition of this "ear-mark" afterward was sufficient to cause the rejection of every ticket so branded.

The truth is they were thought to be Radicals