Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-02-11
CONGRESSIONAL REPUTATION.
The Bad Faith Of the National GOV.
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i
/ Correspondence of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
/ WASHINGTON, Feb. Cit is the FASH
ion Of certain politicians and journals of
q loyal turn of mind to dispose Of the
Arguments against the expediency or the
possibility of the payment Of the Ma
tionai debt with one grim and fearful
sentence to the effect that the govern
ment of the United States can never dis
grace itself in the eyes of the world by
repudiating its honest Indebtedness If
| this is to be accepted as q maxim in our
| code Of national honor, it must not date
/ further back than A. d. 1S6S-other-
wise it will be very strange sort of
contradiction. 1t happens that the So
called adoption of the fourteenth amends
rnent engrafts upon the constitution of
| the United States principle of repu-
diation quite as fragrant, though not on
SO large scale as would be involved in
the nonspayment of the public debt.
During the third or fourth year of the
war, Congress passed an act to pay every
loyal" slave~owner in the border
States $500 for each Of his slaves who
enlisted in the Federal army. The
money was appropriated and set aside
for the purpose out Of the draft commu-
tation fund, then in the hands of the
Secretary of War, and a commission
was appointed to sit in each of
the adhering slave States and make
the proper awards. On the faith
Of this pledge and contract, large NUM-
Der ofnegro troops were raised and mus
tered into the service. In Kentucky
alone, ! believe thirty-five thousand were
enlisted. And now comes the fourteenth
amendment and declares that neither
State nor national money shall ever be
appropriated for the enfranchisement Of
slaves. Ifthis be not reputation, what
in the name OF honor or OF common sense
is ? 1t is repudiating debt contracted
in good faith with '1oyal' men in loyal
States, and is, therefore, not amenable to
the recently trumped-up law of war,
which relieves the government Of all OBJ
legation to pay debts due to citizens ofthe
States lately in rebellion. By the terms |
Of the agreement itself the United States |
recognized the right of property in slaves.
Why else did it propose to pay for them
Very well suppose citizen of kentuc>
~, under the law of Congress, put ten cf
his slaves into the army, thereby making
the government his debtor in the sum of
three thousand dollars, and citizen OF |
Ohio loaned the government three thou
sand dollars by purchasing bonds to that
amount, is not each obligation on the part |
ofthe United States equally sacred ? And
is not reputation in the one case the es
Enlistment of the principle Of repudia-
ton for the other ? 1t will not do to an !
swer with a denunciation of slavery as |
a wrong. l have done my share of that |
denunciation, and have no regrets to
offer for it. 1t was a national Scourge
against which the greatest of American |
statesmen, Thomas Jefferson, lifted
his voice as early as IVA,
when he declared its abolition TO
be "the great object of desire" Of the
colonies, and upbraided the British King
for interposing obstacles to prevent it.
The right or wrong of slavery does not
enter into the merits of the contract be-
tween the slave>owners of 1864 and the |
Congress of the United States. A debt
for slaves is just as binding as debt for |
bonds, and Congress, in repudiating the |
first, has set an example which will only |
be initiated in the reputation of the |
second. MACK. |