The Waynesburg Republican. [volume] (Waynesburg, Pa.) 1867-18??, 1867-09-25

moment to any proposition calculated
to impair the valne Of the currency,
the coppefheads resorted to the dodge
of claiming that the legal tender act
was Unconstitutional, and therefore
null and void. Had such a judgment
been pronounced by the Supreme Court
of the United States, death blow
would have been given to the green
back currency. Banks, fiscal institu-
Itions, municipal corporations, etc.,
unable to use it under such decision,
would soon have placed it at an enor-
nous discount in consequence of the
sudden demand for gold for the trans
action of business. Ofall the forms
of reputation this one was the most
dangerous, the most insidious, and the
most plausible. 1t rested upon legal
quibbles about constitutional law, and
sought its way to success through the
courts, in which the people have little
control. ..
Yet this form of repudiation was
gravely adopted by the present cop
perhead candidate for Supreme Court,
Judge George Sharswood, who, in his
capacity as President Judge ofthe
District Court of Philadelphia, deliv-
cred a written opinion, arguing at
length against the constitutionality of
the act, declaring it invalid on that
ground, an opinion fortunately over
ruled by the loyal majority of the
same court. 1t matter& not to Judge
Sharswood that this currency was the
basis upon which was reared the whole
financial fabric of the civil war; that
upon it was based the banking system,
the general trade, the revenue policy
and the debt of the government, and
that in the value of that currency were
destroyed the most terrible ruin must
overspread everything. He only saw
his old State sovereignty theories, his
antiquatcd antipathy to paper cur
rency.
There were all the old worn-out
cries about rag money and rag barons,
and all the stupid clamors about the
danger of the national government
grasping the purse and the sword, and
all the exaggerated notions about the
value of hard money and although
these notes were issued by the govern
ment and not by banks, and were bas-
ed upon all thcssresources of the nation,
the Judge could not see that they had
any special or important value. He
still clung to his old faith that State
issues We're the best and safest. The
control of the currency is one of the
greatest attributes of sovereignty, and
the Calhoun school of politicians, to
which the Judge has all his life be-
longed, insists upon this point more
strongly than upon any other, as es-
sental to their idea of the Federal
characterof the government, as against
she theories and principles of nation
ality.
This is why the Chllounitcs have
so strenuously endeavored to invalidate
the grcenbacks by taking away from
them their legal-tendcr character. All
the onslaught upon the legal-tender
provision had this aim. For this
reason they ransacked all the resources
of legal quibbling to prove the act un-
the invariable resort of
this party at all times and under all
circumstances. They prolonged the
incessant cry they have kept up for
thirty years against every measure that
tended to strengthen the national pow
er Or give efficiency to the government
"a cry that has been so abused as to
lead people to pay no attention to ar
guments about constitutionality, even
when well founded. They have held
up the Constitution as a thing so re-
strictcd in its grants as to give to the
national government no power even to
defend itself against destruction. They
alleged that we had no constitutional
power to cocrcc a rebellious State that
we had no authority to libcrate the
slaves, even when they were being
used to build rebel forts and to sup
port rebel armies; that we had no
right to raise national armies by con-
scription when volunteering failed, but
must depend solely on the free action
Of the States separately for men and,
as a corollary to the rest, that we had
no right to issue paper currency,
which we could not have car
ricd on the war. Most appropriately |
they now Pronounce it unconstitutional
to refuse to allow the conquered rebels
to monopolize entire control of their
States, and to oppress the freedmen
and the Uuionists, and insist that we
have no right to prevent their usurp-
ing the representation Of those States
in Congress.
This is the political school of con-
stitutionalists to which Judge Shars-
wood belongs. The constitution to
which he addresses his cndeavors would |
be a most elastic instrument for all |
State sovereignty purposes, but a most |
rigid and unbending one for all ma
ional uses or snecessitles. With the
same facility that these men could re-
pudiate the control of the national
government over rebellious States, they
the right of that govern
ment to raise armies for its own de-
fence, and sought to repudiate the cur
rency upon which the civil war was
conducted, and upon which the entire
business and credit of the nation rest