The daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1863-1864, 1864-10-03
A Bone for Abolition Farmers
to GnaW.

want to reason with you. Let your plough
stand in the furrow, breathe your horses,
and put on your thinking cap. You believe
in the emancipation proclamation Yes"
You don't want the President to back out
of it? "No." The war, then, must 60 on,
so far as your vote can influence it, till the
slaves are all free,
Now, honest friend, have you ever
thought what this experiment of freeing
all the negroes is likely to cost you? Are
you willing to mortgage your farm for half
its value for your share in defraying the ex
pense2 Why, dear man, 1t is already mort
gagged to nearly that extent, and every year
the war is continued patches this mortgage
| with another on the back of it. Give your
attention moment, and we will make thsi
| rs plain as the rail fence that divides your
farm from you neigbbor's. You must, of
course, see that the public debt is mort
gage on the property OF the whole coun-
try, for this property may be taken by law
to pay it. If you were so rich as to own
half of the property, you would owe hall
the debt; if you owned hundredth or q
thousandth part of the property, you would
| owe hundredth or thousandth part OF
the debt; that is, your share Of the debt Is
lust in proportion to your share of the pro.
perty. Now it 80 happens that this is a
thing that ia easily got at; so that if you
will tell us the value of your farm, we will
tell you what part of It is already mort
gagged to the Government. We are not 60
| ing to impose on you by any statements
| which we have cooked up to serve q pur-
| pose; the figures we will use are taken
| from documents prepared by Republican
officials and as for the arithmetic, you are
Just as competent to verify our calculations
as we are to make them. So, good Farmer
G ripe dollar. give heed.
Il you will call on the member OF Con-
gress, for your district, or at any newspa.
per office in your county, you can get an
opportunity to examine book prepared
by Mr.. Kennedy, chief Of the census bureau,
containing the figures of the eighth census.
Turn to page one hundred and ninety-four
and you will find table giving the assess
ed value of all the real estate in every State
and territory of the United States. You
will observe by the footing at the bottom
of the column that it amounts in all to
S6,973 lO6,049. If you will then take out
and add together the figures representing
the real estate of the slave States, the
amount will be $2,377 ,s04,357. Subtract>
| ing this from the whole you will have left
1895, 1862 as the total assessed value
Of all the land and buildings in the free
States and the territories; of which your
farm and the buildings and improvements
upon it are a part. Now in finding the
debt which stands against this property, we
will lead you on ground which you must
regard as equally solid. Look up almost
any file of a city newspaper for the month
of July last, and you will find in the 6nsn
cial column an official statement of the
public debt as it existed on the 5th OF July
purporting to be taken from the books o
the Treasury Department, and signed by
the acting secretary Of the treasury. Ac
cording to this statement the debt
was at that date 81, l,792, ,S67 ,040. A few
days previous to the publication OF these
i figures, the secretary made a semi ottica
statement that the debt was then increas
ing at the rate of $2,500,0O0 day. There
have intervened since the 5th Of July uptG
this 26th day of September eighty.thret
days, which, at that rate, would bring or
addition to the debt of S2l7, 500, 900, which
added to the amount on the 5th of July
makes the present debt $2OlO,367, ,O40
There are the best reasons for supposiRG
the debt to be much larger, but we tax
the official figures because they cannot ex'
pose us to any suspicion ofexaggeration.
With these data, it is easy to determine
the amount of mortgage which rests Of
any particular farm by reason of the publ
, debt. If the farm be worth $4,000, iti
) mortgaged to the government for $4,000;
it is worth S4,500, it is mortgsged 70
$1,000; and in the like proportion for an.
larger or smaller value. Nearly half
, your farm is already gone; four years NOR
of war would make the mortgage to tn
public creditors about equal to its assesse
value. Are you ,Oilling to prosecute To
4 experiment of freeing the negroes &C TN
> cost? By the time the experiment Is com
!, !, pleted, you will be as much slave as 10
negroes themselves For in what doe
It slavery contest, but in one mans laoerln
and another having legal title TO th