Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1866-08-23
National Debt-Taxation-Dem,
ocratic Falsehoods,


National Debt-Taxation-Dem
ocratic Falsehoods,
That our country is at present
burdened with a vast national debt,
and that the people must for many
wears be subjected to heavy taxatiop
10 meet the payments of interest and
principal of that debt as they accrue,
are facts which no one can or would
deny. 1t is the price we pay for the
preservation Of our government and
our liberties, price which neither
we nor our children after US will
ever consider too dear. But while
all this is true, we do emphatically
denounce as false and criminal the
charge so freely made by the Democ-
racy of the North, that the respon-
sibil:ty of that debt rests upon the
Union party. How hopeless must
be that cause, and how abandoned
the men, that resort TO such false
hoods and Misrepresentation as this.
Yet the Democratic party, rotten and
corrupt in every part and fearing to
meet us upon the real, live issue OF
the day, resorts to this cry OF ''heavy
taxation" and 'tnegro equality" in
order to manufacture out of them
political capital before the people,
and thus by Misrepresentation and
trickery restore themselves and their
rebel friends of the South to power
and the spoils Of Office. Citizens of
Ohio, you are taxed to-day, not be-
cause the Union party has admins
tered this Government during the
last five years, but because ambitious
and INSCRIPTIONS politicians at the
South precipitated the country into
8 vast and bloody civil war. You
sre taxed, because traitors sought to
destroy, and you sought to save, the
best government God ever gave to
man. You are taxed, because these
same Democratic leaders encouraged
the South to rebel by promises of
aid, and by assuring her that the
North would tanely submit to the
dismemberment of the Union. You
are taxed, because Vallandigham,
Pendleton, Pugh, Fernando Wood
and the Copperhead party generally,
all through the war, stayed up and
strengthened the hands of the rebel
lion. You are taxed, because they,
by the material aid and moral en-
couragement which they furnished
the South, enabled her to continue
the prosecution of the war long after
she would otherwise have been com
PEELED to surrender. You are taxed
to support the widows and orphans
Of thousands of brave federal sol.
diers who gave their lives that theil
country might live, and who met
death at the hands of rebels arrayed
in arms against the Government. In
q word, you are taxed that you nigh
hare a Government. Without that ex,
penditure of treasure and blood, Sc
cession would have been successful
and the nation destroyed. The ma
tional debt of the United States
stands out before the world as ii
expression of the value which ths
American people place upon theil
Government and its free institutions
But let the responsibility for the
creation of that debt rest where j
truly belongs, not upon the Unlor
party who only sought to defend tbs
Government already assailed, bur
upon the men who inaugurated re
bellion and civil war. Had there
been no civil war, we should hay'
had no national debt; had the Soutl
not rebelled, we should have had nj
civil war; and the South would nevel
have rebelled, had she not been en-
eouraged to do SO by promises of aid
from the Northern Democracy. The
original cause of the creation of oul
national debt and our present heavy
taxation may therefore be legitimate
lytraced back to the very men, whose
mouths are now filed with these
false charges against the Union party
None 80 loud in the cry of "stor
thief" as the real thief himself. Let
an intelligent and loyal people mari
the falsehoods and misrepresenta
tions of these men, and brand then
with the infamy they deserve. They
were false to the Government, wher
1t was in danger, and their profes
sions Of loyalty win net save then
now.
E 1t is significant fact that no
single Union man in the South
those who stood by the Governmen
in its days of darkness and peril