The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-09-09
why n Change is Needed /.

2Lt why n Change is Needed.
The national debt is now twenty
six hundred millione of dollars. Lee
surrendered on the 9th day of April.
1866; the national debt on that day
was twenty-three hundred and thirty
three millions. rt...
In three years of peace the debt
has increased two hundred and thirty
three millions.
The people have paid into the
5 Treasury in those three years, fifteen
hundred and twenty millions. In
1866, $561, 572, 900; in 1866, $780,.
634, 900, and in 1867, $471, 700, 900.
The official statements show that
in the last two months the debt has
increased $13, 259, 593.
ALI of the money came from the
earnings of the people, and should
have been applied to paying the
debt; for it is a mortgage upon all
of our property, and encumbers and
3 oppresses us in our business.
Every article that enters into our
daily use and consumption is taxed
to raise this money. Thelpoor mans
tea pays twenty-five cents in gold !;
his sugar four cents; his coffee, five
cents; the leather out of which his
shoes are made; the matches with
which he lights his fire; the shovel,
the pick, the plow and the harrow,
p all bear. their share of these taxes,
and all these increase the cost of hv-
ing.
This system of taxation is more
severe on the poor than the rich-for
the necessities Of man land not his
property are taxed, so that a poor
man with family of six, pays three
times as much tax rs the rich man
with family of two.
In the year ending June so, 1868,
four hundred yand seventy millions
of dollars were taken from the COM
forts and necessities OF the daily lives
Of 1.-The people, and were put into the
Treasury of the nation.
There are thirty millions of people
III the Union, and this is more than
fourteen dollars for each man, woman
and child.
This is mainly paid in buying what
we eat, drink and. wear.
About eight days work are now re-
quired from the laboring man to buy
a barrel of -four, while in 1860 four
days work would buy as good q one.
One days work now will only bny
five pounds of coffee, while in 1860
it would buy twelve pounds.
The farmer, the mechanic and the
merchant, find their profits all spent
in the increased cost OF living; in the
large taxes imposed for State, Coun-
ty, municipal and city purposes; in
the increased cost of tools, of cloth
ing, of labor hired, and of taxes
upon income, and they have nothing
left. a.1 ffqa
Increase OF the debt means in.
creased hours of labor, increased
taxes, and increased privations to the
mass Of the people.
The radicals have wasted your
money and ought to be turned out.
The reconstruction of the South,
with the negro above the white man,
prevents prosperity there. The
enormous taxes we pay go to main
tain the army and the Freedmen's
Bureau In the South for this pnr-
pose. Instead of us paying over one
hundred millions each year TO do this,
the South ought to be put to work to
earn two hundred millions to help us
to pay the debt and the taxes.
y Take away the army and the Bu-
reap, and give the white man as good
q chance as the negro, and it will be
done. s4,.,.s5 80 .sl8 ha4reas
p They cannot buy our iron, cotton
and woolen manufactures as long as
we persist in keeping them poor.
Put them to work to develop their
resources, and allow them to aid in
governing themselves, and we will
relieve ourselves from o igrievons
burthen.2 = 0@t noaisJt 8 Stts..a { 8
The radicals have put the negro