The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1864-04-21
The People w mo want to he Taxed

The People who want to be Taxed.
The New York Eventng Post is of the
opinion that the people of the United
States are anxious to have Congress per-
feet the new tax laws as soon rs possible,
and put them in operation, and, with a
spirit of sublime contentment. similar to
that of the spinster who resided in a city
captured and given over to the soldiery,
arc only impatient for the ravishing to be-
gin. Like the pigs inhabiting some mil
lenial country whose name we do not re-
member, which run about The streets with
knives and forks stuck in their backs
squealing to be eaten, they are, in contem-
plation of the Post, spelling for somebody
to commence the work of consumption. 1t
is to be hoped that this is really the case.
1t is the mark of a great and noble spirit
to accept with checrfuncss things that are
inevitable; but it is a spirit of devotion
which even martyrs in bliss might envy,
to court suffering for its own sake. and
voluntarily turn the screw for ones ex-
tinction.
But many saint has gone shouting and
psalm-singing to the stake who hOwled
dismally at the first touch of the fire
brand. 1t may be an impeachment of hu-
man nature, but it is neverless true, that
men endure with much more herosm tor
tures in possibility than ey do those that
are present and actual. Great willingness
of spirit is not unfrcquently accompanied
By very preceptible weakness of the flesh.
Taxation in the abstract, has not hitherto
been numbered among the blessings which
governments confer upon the people. In
its effects upon the individual, it has been
considered to partake considerably more OF
a gricvous than Of joyous character; and
50 far as our experience goes, we confess
we have seen Il far greater number of our
loyal and patriotic fellow citizens willing
to see the burthens of taxation cast upon
their friends than TO fall upon their own
persons o- property. 1t is one of the cases
which men accept with little reluctance,
the doctrine of vicarious compensation;
and perhaps might be cited with advan-
tagc, by our thcologians as proof of the
soundness of that dogma deeply lmbet-
ded in the instincts of humanity.
The bankers, brokers, capitalists, mon
cy-changers, spectators and stock -jobbers
oc Wall street, who supply the public sen
timent for the most exemplary and consci-
entious public instructor, the New York
Eyeaiag Post, would doubtless be very
willing to see the laboring and industrious
masses of their fellow citizens put under
the screw and squeezed to supply means to
pay interest and principal of the goytr.-
mcnt securities in which they trade or have
invested. Convinced as they are, that
great national debt is great national bless
ing, they are beginning to discover that
the principle may be carried too far in
practice: at least too far for their conven-
| ience Splendid as was the device of man.
ulacturiug public promises by steam ma
chinery, and cordially as they welcomed
it for the time, as the greatest financial NJ
vention of this or any other country, 1T is
now occurring to them that in order to It's
perfection, a second part should have been
added to pay the promises which were Gre
ated by the first: which, in the JOY of the
occasion and amid the hurry of events, was
unfortunately neglected or forgotten.
The last foregoing paragraph is upon
the assumption that the taxation spirit Of
the Post owes its origin to breezes thai
blow from Wall street. But it should no
be forgotten that the Post is one of the
representatives of the malignant branch
of the Administration party-a branci
whose stores of hatred too copious to b'
all bestowed upon the south, have spTeae
over and included the rest of mankind
This section of the party had no sooner
adopted the doctrine that the last man ant
the last dollar might be expended in th'
prosecution of the war, than it progressed
to the position that the last man and th'
, last dollar must be expended, with pal
nable impatience that tho expenditure