The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-18
Labor, Taxes, and Debt.

$toh9 the ". Y. tribune.
Our country was recently the theatre of a
vast and sanguinary civil war. civil war is
always more destructive of property than any
other; and this war, wherein not less than
three millions of men took part, and nearly or
quite fifteen hundred thousand were engaged
at one time, was destructive beyond precedent.
Railroads unknown to the warfare of former
centuries) were broken up, by one or other of
the belligerents, to the extent of thousands of
miles; steamboats, and costly bridges were
burned; considerable cities, even, We're laid in
ashes The Rebels burned at New Orleans and
at Richmond, when compelled to abandon
those cities, many millions worth of property;
while Charleston, Norfolk, Vicksburg, and
other cities, were scenes of ruinous devasta-
tion.
The war lasted more than four years, and
cost the country not less than five billions of
dollars. In other words, there are probably
FIVE thousand millions worth less of houses,
factories, furnaces, fences, railroads, steam
boats, cleariDgs, ETC., ETC., now included
within the area OF the United States, than
there would have been if Mr.. Lncoln's first
election to the Presidency had not been fol-
lowed by the Shareholders Rebellion.
DO you beiiece that heJeYion aOuS necessary or
lust? That is the fundamental question in our
pending political contest. For, if the Rebel
lion was Just then those who resisted it are
fairly chaTgeable with the cost of resisting and
defeating it. If the election of Abraham Lin
coin by the Republicans justified Howell Cobb,
Toombs, JEFF. Davis Slidell, Mason Il Co., in
conspiripg to sever the Southern States from
the Union and erect then into an independent
Confederacy, then the North, and not the
South, is to blame for the war, and ought to
pay its entire cost. Then the national debt is
fairly cbargeable to those who contracted it,
not to those whose rebellion was overcome by
means of it.
That debt is a stubborn fact. It will have
to be borne and paid. Even if the people
should vote to repudiate it, that would not di-
minish its burthen by single dime. The
American people would still owe it, and would
ultimately be constrained to pay every far
thing of it.
Over fifty years ago Great Britain and Spain
emerged from long and desolating war,
wherein each had incurred a heavy national
debt. Great Britain resolved to pay her debt
honestly, to the last farthipg; and she has ever
since been steadily growing in population aud
wealth. Spain sank into the bog of repudia-
tion, and there she lies stranded to this hour.
Her power has vanished with her forfeited
credit; her industry, commerce, and wealth
have steadily declined: she is the football of
the Great Powers, and of no more real weight
than Denmark or Morocco. Her people, abiect
and hopeless, have sunk at last into seeming
content under the double burden of despotism
and infamy.
Are there voters who blame the Republi-
cans for the war of secession They will vote.
of course, to turn the Republicans out, aud
restore Howell Cobb, TOombs, Wade Hampton
& Co. to power. These men raisad the flag OF
Rebellion because Mr. Lincoln was-thrOugh
their own conniyauce, in breaking up the De-
mocratio party-elected President. If they
were right in so doing, then the debt the pen
sion list, and consequent heavy taxes, are
rightly scored up against us who resisted
them. But if the Rebellion was wrong, and