The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1869-09-17

j
e rebellion. In 1864, being yet meu
i Der of Congress, he was nominated a
= Vice President on the Democrat
= ticket. In that platform, you wi
c remember, was found the famous res
:. olutio1 which declared that "afte
a four years of failure by war to re
h store the Union the Democratic par
h ty demanded that there be resort {
S the arts of peace to procure that re
r suit" Gen. Mcclellan had bee
e nominated, not because of his repre-
1 sentative character, or as an exponen
D of the opinions Of the Democrat
c party, but because it was believe
t that he would take the votes Of tn
! people TO much larger extent thal
any other member Of the party ant
! to eonciliate those of the party VIII
: we're opposed to the war and any maj
who had been in it, Pendleton wa
nominated as the ablest representa-
/ tive Of the anti-war sentiment. Ii
that also was he consistent from tn,
, beginning to the end. Do we fine
! any change in 1866? No, fellow cit
!. liens. After all his vatieination o.
disaster had proven failures, aud the
war had been triumphantly closed
land the work of reconstruction was
upon our hands, how do you find Mr.
Pendleton? Did he join heartily in
reuniting the broken elements of the
North and South ? No. He, on the
other hand, threw in whatever of OBJ
structions he could to prevent reun-
ion. As [ have said before, we can
! take but glance at some of the
things said by Mr.. PendletOn. re-
fer you now to his speech of August
18th, 1866, at Edinburg, Indiana,
wherein he said
"When l next had the honor Of
addressing the people of Indiana. it
was in the midst of an exciting polit-
ical contest, forced upon us in its Bit
terness by the arrogance, the intoler-
ence, the superciliousness of our op-
ponents, and we are in the midst of
a great military contest of which the
occasion, and perhaps, l might say,
the pretext was the secession of the
Southern States, and their determin-
ed purpose to withdraw themselves
by force of arms from the jurisdiction
of the Federal Government.
= :; x "Some one asks if /
would have these insurgents and reb-
els represented in Congress. 1 would
unquestionably, Immediately. 1 will
tell you another thing. Much as 1
hate this system of government,
which now stands in such a danger
Gus attitude, with ten States debarred
the right of representation, on the
verge of revolution and despotism
much as 1 deplore it, 1 hope to God
the Southern States will have the
courage to stand out forever rather
than submit to that thing
Is this not enough, fellow citizens,
to show you that from the inception
of this rebellion until in the year
1866 Mr.. Peudleton steadily and con-
81 tently opposed, in every way that
he could, the conquering of the re-
bellion, and the return of the con-
quered rebels to their places in the
Union?
In 1867 we still find him perfectly
consistent with his former course.
No longer, now, could rebellion be
aided; no longer did it seem that re-
construction could be prevented, but,
out Of the war had grown an unnat-
ural condition of our fnances-not |
that it could well have been helped |
with the opposition we had in the
Nnrth; hat -snaL-zsa- sl.a-.-4l..,,a &c
our debt, such the amount Of inter-
est we were compelled to pay annual
Iy, that it was fit subject TO turn
the attention of the people to, and, if
possible, to excite their discomfort
The amount of the debt was very
much augmented in his statements
ar beyond what it really was; and
showing, as he did, this vast volume
IF debt, he then proposed that the
lebt which had been incurred in sup
pressing the rebellion, in eOnquering
lis friends, in overturning his pro-
,hesies, should now be used as an
instrument to destroy, if possible,
he friendly relations of the Govern.
nent and Overturn the party which,
n defiance of him and his cohorts,
lad saved the Union. What did he
Why, he proposes this:
That the national bank system, which
eemed to be necessarily @ produc-
ion of the emergencies of the hour,
hould be done away with, and in
leu Of it We should have Government
II Treasury notes. Let me remind
rou that while he could do harm to
he cause of the Union by abusing
he issue Of the legal tenders, he did
t, but when it was too late to pre-
'ent the preservation of the Union
y that means, he turns around, and
low, having like purpose, namely,
he destruction of the credit of the
Iati0n, and at last, if possible, make
lisaster universal throughout the
and, by reason Of the effort to crush
be rebellion, he announced himself
5 not only in favor of such of the
treasury or legal tender notes as are
ut, but in favor of much larger
ssue of them for purposes 20 be here
fter named.
BY many of his friends, and by
i'm not denied it was urged that the
Ihole national debt could be speedily
aid by simply issuing enough green
acks to equal in number the num-
er of dollars represented by the
ational bonds. Although we have,
nd had then, an aggregate volume
f about seven hundred millions, be-
ieved to be sufficient for the health
ul working of the finances of the
ountry, yet PendlOtUu proposed in
S67T to issue greenbacks enough to
axe up the five hundred thousand
20 bonds then soon to mature; he
in lieu Of the currency is
ued by the National Banks, to issue
sgal tender notes, thus not only in
reasing tie volume of the currency,
ut also, proposed to add, as 1 be-
ore stated, five hundred thousand
lore to it, so that, instead of having
even hundred millions of dollars,
! would have been one billion, two
undred millions. At the time our
urrency was far below par, and if its
olume had been increased, it must
ave many times more have receded
-om par value than it then stood
In the nlatform now announced by