Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-11-09
About Paying National Debts.

a good deal of sensitivencss is manifest
ed in certain quarters, in respect to the
opinions Of individuals as to whether or not
the national debt will be paid TO believe
that the debt will be paid, is esteemed to be
loyal state of mind; to doubt whether it
will be paid, is disloyal. The belief is ac-
accepted as the equivalent of desire that it
shall be paid; the doubt as the equivalent
of corresponding unwillingnoss to its pay
ment. There is no necessity thus to con
found things, and no .propricty in charging
a man who simply believes that the pay
ment of the debt is impossible, or improba-
bic, with a propensity TO repudiatc. The
opinion may be the parent of the wish, but
it also may not; and where there is doubt,
it is always fairest to adopt the most favor
able construction
Whether or not the national debt can be
paid is one question; whether or not it ,cW
be paid is another; aud whether or not it
Dught to be paid is another. At present
the answer to these questions, one and all,
is simply matter of opinion. Opinions,
when they are genuine, exist in the mind
independently Of the will. Men, often,
with great reluctance, and in the face Of
severe struggles, arrive at opinions whose
entertainment, if they could, they would
gladly have avoided. An opinion may be
correct or incorrect; but to predicate merit
or demerit Of man simply because he
adopts or fails to adopt this or that opinion,
is unjust. We suppose that man may,
with entire innocence, be of the opinion
that the national debt can not be paid, that
it will not be pail, or that it ought not to
be paid and if he should be so unfortunate
as to hold either or all Of these opinions,
there is no one who has a right therefor to
call in question either his sense, his patiot-
ism or his honesty.
The question whether the national debt
can be paid is one of finance; the question
whether it will be paid is one of politics,
one of morals. We are not upon the point
of deciding either of them The solution
of the first and second must be left to the
logic of evcnts-the interaction of elements
material and political If the debt is paid
in our day, we shall cheerfully coincide in
the paym mt as a fact accomplished; if it
goes unpaid, we shall endeavor to make up
our minds to abide the mfiction, satisfied
that there was nothing people ever did
that they did not find means to Justify.
Mr. Jefferson was of the opinion that
national debts are not binding upon the
people He held that there was no right
in one generation to contract for another;
and as the race of men is in continual pro-
grcSsiOn and the generation of to-day is Il
different thing from the generation of to-
morrow. No one complains of Mr.. Jelfer-
son for the entertainment Of this opinion
With him it was simply an abstraction
there being, at the time it was delivered, no
state of things to which it was applicable
But if it was not wrong in Mr.. Jefferson to
hold this opinion in the abstract, can it be
considered wrong in any other to hold it in
the same manner? Five or six years ago
no man would have been accounted unwise
or dishonest had he professcd to believe as
Mr.. Jefferson believed; the question wheth-
err, within that period, things have so chang
ed as to render that which was once wise
and proper now unwise and improper.
There are those who hold that a public
debt is simply debt of the Administration,
and that while the Administration which
created it continues in power, the debt is
obligatory upon it. In Europe, where the
Administration and the Government are
identical-the one only changing when the
ruling dynasty is extinct--public debts ac-
quire sort of perpetuity which, in this
country, where the Administration changes
every four or eight years, can not attach to
them. We are not called upon to express
an opinion upon the correctness Of this
view of the national obligation, and only
present it rs one of the dogmas broached
upon a question which will, by and by, at
tract more attention than it does at present
- On. En9Utrcr.