The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1857-06-24
the GREAT DEFALoArfoN.

THE GREAT DEFALCATEON.
A brief notice of the s~tupendous de-
falcation in the efiee of thcTreasarcr
of State appeared in this paper last week.
We have no disposition to indulge in
those fierce anathenlas which have been
so literally hurled against the persons
implicated in this great wrong. In the
tumble of official contradictions put forth
by the party now in control of the State
Administration, it is difficult to deter
mine which particular enc of the confed.
crates is the greater offender. Without
wasting cur time, therefore, in idle spec
,ulations as to which of the present dy-
nasty is the chief of sinners, We will
address ourselves to the more profitable
inquiry as to which POLITICAL
PARTY it is that is responsible for
the state of things that has brought this
oft FORETOLD and FOREWARN-
ED condition of things upon our State.
We choose to evolve THE MORAL de-
ducible from The deplorable facts
Vituperation and inYective are material
but they avail nothing. Personal rep
utation has been blasted-the honor IF
our great State has been furnished
the people upon whose enterprise and
industry such onerous exactions have
been made,fhayo been ~defrauded.
Such, 10 brief, is the calamity that
has overwhelmed the parties accused,
the State and the people.
Now, what is THE CAUSE-and
what THE REMEDY
The great dcfaloation of SwARrwoUr,
PRIcE and Others, some twenty years
ago, provoked an inquiry and discussion
which resulted in the application Iof a
remedy that has ever since secured en-.
tire safety in the receipts and disburse:
ments of the immense revenues of the
General Government, although those
revenues and expenditures have more
than doubled. since t~hat.period.
The defaulters under Tie old United
States Bank and State Bank Deposit
systems were men they were led into
temptation by the MOj they were the
victims of an unsound and corrupt sys-
tenn Of governmental policy. So it is with
the late Ohio defaulters. They are the
victims of a system. Our Legislation,
ever since Ohio was a State, has offered
. perpetual immunity to defaulters and
peculators. The crime, then, lies at the
doors of those acho hare arrayed them
sczUes against the aceA established prin-
cipLes and policy efhhe Democratic Par
tyt A reference to the record will
clearly demonstrate the truth of this po-
sition.
We will go back nc farther~than the
year 1851. In the spring of that year,
the Democracy of Ohio adopted the pres
ent radical and liberal Constitution. In
the autumn Of the same year, camo on
the contest for the election of the FIST
officers under it. 1t was the object of
the Democratic party to place that Con-
stitution !" in the hands of its friends /"
Ito nominate and select men Of firm
ness and honesty, who were ~inhexihly
opposed to the loose and corrupt man.
agement Of the stockholders and Bank
ers, who, ander the lead of ALFRED
KELLY, had several times brought the
State to the verge of Bankruptcy and
Reputation. That hard-fought contest
was one of PRINCIPLE. The people de-
manded a change of men and of meas
nres-and the same public sentiment
that introduced into the new Constitu-
tien the radical refosms that secured It's
adoption by the People, also secured the
triumph of the Democratic State ticket
IN 1851, by a majority then unknown il
the political struggles of Ohio. Every.
thing looked suspicious for the inaugu.
ration of a policy w%hichIwould be a last.
ing monuments to the wisdom and virtue
of those who framed the new organic
law, and of the men who were called tc
put the new system in harmonious order
snd to organize the first government I'm
der IT. The Democracy had every
branch of the Observation-Disclosures
Executive and judicial. The old regim'
was all swept away. For the first tim
during q quarter of a century, We had
Democratic Treasurer of State.
Soon after the Inauguration of Thu
new administration, it was discovered
that in the latter Office (the Treasurer's
there had only been a change of men
The old abuses were continued. Tn
corrupt and hazardous alliance will
Bankers and STOCKHOLDERS, which hat
rendered the old dynasty a stencil in th,
nostrils Of all honest men in the State
was continued. Mr.. BREsL1N's Demo
cratic colleagues demonstrated with hin
and protested against his course. The.
insisted that he had no right, for per
considerations, to be