Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-04-06


Mr.. Johnson's administration, the debt
was only reduced $5,959, us, although
the taxation was greater than it is now. "
4 Even If this were true, what does it
prove to tile credit of the administration
Where, beneath the sun, are the people of
the earth paying such an amount of
taxess4s the American people are to-day,
yield hg up to the Federal authoritiesl
Whit other government, now in existence,
in either hemisphere, levies such contri-
button on its citizens, in proportion to
their numbers and resources, as the
American republic? Before the war,
seventy millions year Was a heavy
assessments for Federal expenditure.
| Now the blighting column foots up
nearly four hundred millions year for
the same purpose. And in the face of
| these facts the Senator from Indiana
makes bold claim of merit that some
| portion of this tremendous taxation has
been applied to the payment of bonds.
| 1t is boast that not quite all of this ter
rible sum taxed from the people has been
squanderei and wasted in reckless expen-
ditures. 1t is an assumption of virtue,
because out of the vast millions 10 their
hands the Government officials used a
small fraction to relieve the people from
debt. Surely, il is no difficult task for
man to pay a debt if boundless treasures
belonging to others are given to him in
trust for that purpose. There is wicked
ness, however, here in this connection
that battles the power of human tongue
properly 10 denounce 1t is claimed that
-, &c har
deemed. If so, how has it been done ?
Have they been paid according to law or
according to the rule of robbery BY the
plain provisions of the contract, as / have
demonstrated from the most eminent Re-
publican authorities, they were payable
in legal tender notes. In the very teeth of
this contract the Secretary of the Treas
ury announces that he paid them in gold
at time when gold was worth twenty
per. cent more than the kind of money
which ws.s legally due to the bondholders.
This Republican official, therefore, in
open violation of law, made a present TO
the usur,r of your money, your sweat
stained taxes, as follows: Twenty cents
on every dollar twenty dollars on every |
hundred; two hundred dollars on every |
thousand two hundred thousand dollars |
on every million, and exactly sixteen |
millions one hundred and twenty |
nine thousand nine hundred and ninety |
four dollars on the whole amount, |
which tie Senator says has been thus re. |
deemed and paid off. Over sixteen mil |
lions in this meager transaction taken di- |
rectly from your pockets and placed in |
the Golfers of the bordholder, with no |
more law to support or sanction it than |
there is for an act of piracy on the high |
seas! There can be no answer to this, |
save a confession of guilt, and there is no |
escape from its blistering infamy. Over |
sixteen millions taken before your very |
eyes and bestowed as bare gratqity,
naked gilt on the full fedmonopolist Is |
this the system by which you wish the
debt to be paid2 1t is shameless robbery. |
Shall it continue? 1t is a naked and con-
fessed plumber of the poor, in order to add |
to the stores of the rich. 1t is committed |
in your own view, and deliberately avowed /
in your hearing. Shall it stop, or shall it /
go on? Will you uphold an adminstra-
ton thai has its favorite class, for whose
benefit it seizes your taxes in def
ance of laYG There is no denial
that can be made. The six
teen millions are In excess of the con-
tract. They legally belong to the people
and should be back in their hands. They
are illegally in the hands of the bond
holder, and should be taken away. And
the administration which placed them
there should be driven from power. But
the sirangest and most extraordinary fea
ture of financial legerdemain ever known
in this country before, remains to be told.
Though your earnings have been taken,
and more than sixteen millions of them
thrown like offal to a shoal of hungry
sharks, yet the interest bearing bonded
debt has not been reduced The loud /
pretense that it has been diminished
single dollar, is simply partisan false
hood now resounding from one ocean to |
the other from partisan lips, and in the |
columns of a partisan press. l hold here |
in my hand the official statement of the |
public debt of the United States, March l, |
1870" the first day of the present month. |
1t is signed ''George S. Boutwell,, Sec
rotary Of the Treasury" read from 1t |
in your presence as follow:
Debt bearing interest in coin.
Bonds at Eve per CENTS 221, 5S9, 300 |
Bonds at six per cent..,.,..,,, 1856, 35O, $50 |
Amount outstanding. ...... 81, 107, 939, $50 |
Two thousand one hundred: and seven |
millions, nine hundred and thirty nine |
thousand six hundred and fifty dollars. |
now declare to you that the ''debtSbearing
Interest in coin" was less than this amount
on the first day of March, 1869, little
more than one year ago. The books of
the department are of easy access to the
friends of the administration. | repeat
that the debt bearing interest in coin has
grown larger tnsteSd of smaller in the
hands of the party that 6lains to have
paid off more than eighty millions. If
the records will refute this statement let
them be produced. l have verified it
from official sources, and l challenge in
yestigltion, and defy contradiction. l
made it upon tie floor of the House within
the last two weeks, and asked for q denial.
No denial was made, but an eXplana-
ton was rendered by the chairman of the
Committee on Appropriations. He said
the bonds that had been redeemed had
been placed in the sinking fund, and that
they still bore interest 1t not this a
marvellous mode of paying debt9 You
are told that you have PAID tie principal,
and yet you are to keep on paying the in
terestl When you have paid the face of
a note with all the intetest then due, who
ever, until now, heard of the collection of
further annual sums of INTEREST," Yet
this is the precise and only explanation
made by the friends of this ADMINISTERS
| ton Of the undeniable fact that the of
| fetal records of the Department show no
decrease of the public debt, but rather an
enlargement They say that the amount
YOU nave actually paid, and in the pay
mens OF which you have been robbed
over sixteen millions, Is still carried on
the books, and interest on the same still
collected from your pockets! This is
frightful and a hideous mockery. The
whole financial system is delusiOn and
snare; swindle and crime; felony
committed upon the Taxpayer by well
mounted, booted and spurred highway
men, burglary upon every humble
homestead whose inmates lie down at
nightfall after day of wearisome toll;
cheat and an imposition, in contempt of
the law; a fraud whose advocates and
authors should be scourged from their
abused places of trust, honor and profit
by the EeTy scorpion lash of an incensed
and outraged public opinion. %heIe nov
is cur boosted payment of over eighty
millions of the public debt Where now
is the towering vaunt of relief to the peo-
} pie? Their account with the tax gatherer
, is no smaller. The annual drain of inter-
| oc+ 70 r,,k I;,nipicbed The demands of