Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-09-26
IConcluded.l


in desperate resistance the whole body of
the South? Wasthere ever such spirit
out of the nethermost realm? Yet this is
the spirit of the fiends who, like Mcneil,
Hunter, Butler, and others, echo in deeds,
what confiscation and emancipation teach
i'm idea-the last man and the last dollar
This is the spirit of Robespierre, who vaunt-
ed that the colonies should perish, but not
his principle! This is the spirit of Wade,
that the South should be reduced to ruin
and desolation, and yet who had the pro.
fame effrontery to say that, though Lincoln
himself was not then fully UP to the idea,
Providence would soon be fully on that side!
The last man The last dollar! Can you
wonder that the Richmond paper hopes for
the retention Of Lincoln in power? EN-
peror Lincoln" their best friend, from
whom they expect, if not the arms and
POWDER the arguments and power to hold
the South in unison against the imbecile
and reckless policy proclaimed by the
Executive!
The last dollar! Is it not enough that our
debt-bearing interest has been increased
since July l. 1861, from 90,S57,92S to ST.
827,492171, with an interest of $4,000, 900?
On the 4th of March next our debt will be
three billions How long will it take the
dollars to disappear before such a ravenous
consumption? Four millions for the past
six months, each day has seen glide away
into destruction? So much industry turn
ed to ashes; so much sweat to blood! Add
to these sums three hundred million more,
for the new levy of 100000, and how long
before we can bid adieu to the last dollar?
do not mean the last golden or silver dol
lar whose farewell chink already rings
across the st. Lawrence, or is heard in the
stealthy shot-bag of some Pennsylvania
farmer; but l mean the last greenback
with Chase's face, all serenely bidding us
good by.
DO we realize what this lastdollar means?
BY the last census we have in the adhering
| States, real estate valued at over five bill
lions (s5, lO4, ,54O675), and personal property
valued at over seven and half billions ($7,-
| 693,O1O,597), making nearly thirteen bill
| lions! Our public debt, not counting the
| local debts OF towns and States, is more than
| 51.9 per cent; more than one-half of our
entire real estate in the loyal States and
| Territories 1t is more than one-third of
| the entire personal and real estate of our
| people, or 34.5 per cent! Add four more
| years to this most stupendous and resultless
extravaganza, and the entire property of
this nation is under a mortgage so broad
that its foreclosure would disposscss every
/ man, and every woman and child between
: the oceans The last dollar! Already the
debt is a billion beyond the aggregate value
! of the individual and manufactured produc-
tions of the loyal States.
observe in the "Annual Review of the
| Commerce of Cincinnati" for the year past,
that the writer is quite happy over the
wonderful prosperity of your city the past
| year. He finds that its wealth has increas-
ed, as if by the magical aid of Aladdin. He
does not believe this increase to be imagin-
ary. He even goes beyond the city to find
that the whole people of the loyal States
are rich beyond their anticipations. They
feel ii, he says, and are eXtravagant! "We
could not reasonably expect different re-
suit when we consider that the Government
has spent close up to two billions already,
in the prosecution of the war, and but a
SIN all portion of this was spent in foreign
countries; for not only the men but the
material have been found at home" Was
there ever such downright drivel in econo-
| my as this? Does the writer think whence
this money comes? TO whom 1t goes Who
pays this money? The people at last,
with their sweat and toll. To whom is it
paid? To the few; to the East; to the job
| bers in stocks, and to the manufacturers
| who get their $50 per cent. tariff bount es,
wherewith to buy up refuse negroes to save
their sons from the bullet, and to buy up
bonds whose interest is paid in gold Oh!
it is prosperous to run in debt, is it? 1t is
prosperous to consume, and not produce, is
| 1t? 1t is prosperous to have three millions
| of men withdrawn from active industry
and fed on rations, raised at double prices by
those at homer 1t is prosperous because
the debt is held at home? and because the
| iron for the bomb which kills the man, hap
| pens to be dug out of our own soil; and the
| pork that feeds him is fed at one of our own
| distilleries? Happy thought! Has not this
wiseaere read the fallaeies, exploded long
| since in England las to the English debt--how
that debt represented so much value vast
ed-so many lives destroyed; and how the
| bonds really represented that much capital
| whose value nowhere appeared in England,
but which had travelled abroad-only to re,
| turn in the ghostly form of poor-houses and
| destitution? Has he not read that at last
| all this debt, postponed for posterity to pay,
| Is really drawn year by year, in interest
| and sinking fund, from the hard worked
| thews and sinews of England's lab0ring
classes? You may boast of your prosper
ity here. warn you that it is as delusive
as fairie money, which will turn to ashes
when you come to use it. Your dollar no
longer represents even half dollar. Your
pound of coffee represents three times the
old labor which bought it. You do not tax
wages, but yor tax, and tax, and tax, that
pleasant delirium which indicates an active
head, but 1t forebodes prostration. You may
have corpulent currency (as you have q
corpulent Governor), but corpulency in
money or man is no sign of health; but of
disease. You may dance around in your
glee over present prosperity; SO does the
chicken with its head off--a little more
lively than when it is picking up corn IN
the barnyard. Even Greeley, in June last,
warned his friends that 'debt was not
wealth; that in our present position the ma
tional bank-notes represent not wealth, not
property, but debt, He warned them that
| when s'we actually fall from the heaven of
our apparent wealth, to the hard and dis
tasteful business of paying our debts and
our taxes--a great many people who
| thought themselves rich will discover that
they are not the owners of the splendid
Ired And personal estates which stand in
| their nance. ~ Or let them read The New
| YORK 7'A6Ss which warned us . fbW days
| E{Io6 t6at sWeEwere movingD step<by stsp
| toward 3liel bottomless pit TOT bankruptcys'
Englandthas awsged her wars in'vsin;