The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-22

when the heads of hundreds of innocent
women were falling beneath the guillotine, !
and little children were being shot and |
drowned CH nlGsse in the name of liberty. |
If resistance to the course which the Federal |
Congress is and has been pursuing be not the
privilege, nay, the duty Of the people, then
the teachings Of all history are wholly false,
and the principles for which our fathers fought
were but 80 much cap-trap They became
butperiured traitors by taking up arms against
the successors of the Plantagenets and Tu-
dors, If Americans are TO be accounted cul
pable should they refuse to-day further sub
mission TO the DEGREES of the sham Congress
which now claims TO be the real and legal
representative of the people of the United
States The South is helpless. Maryland
stands alone and on the verge of deadly peril,
as did the prophet upon the edge Of the pit
of ravening lions. But the Democratic party
still exists The majority of the Northern
people cannot but deplore the ruin which is
being wrought, and despise the agitators who
recognize now no law but their own will and
their own interests. The timid subserviencv,
or to speak it plainly in this great crisis, the
cowardice of the Democratic leaders of the
large Northern States has made the radical
faction what it is. For years they covered
before military insolence and the threats Of
arbitrary power. They not only maintained
silence when it most became them to speak
out manfully but uttered from time to time
thoughts which they loathed and accepted
doctrines which they despised. Since the
red cloud of war has passed away they
have ceased to speak with bated breath,
and now utter defiant words; but, mistrust-
ing the honest instincts and noble
courage of millions who await the signal to
vindicate liberty and constitutional govern
ment, they are dallying with schemes by
which to cheat a bold, insolent faction out of
it's power, or seeking the channel through
which it may be most 'expedient' to tilch
back the rights and freedom which have been
taken from us. How long the true patriots
of the North propose to bear the yoke of an
untrammelled and despotic Congress, we
cannot know. How long they intend to con-
sent to a surrender of all they were taught to
hold so dear and priceless. we may not sur
mise. But in the name of State nowpower-
less, we protest against this shameless apathy,
this quiescent degradation. On her behalf
we demand of the intelligent and liberty
loving people of this land a reassertion of
the sacred right of revolution and when they
do show the knaves in power that they are
earnest and resolute in the determination to
defend themselves, a revolution will ensue
than which none has ever been more blood
less and peaceful.
THE ROBBERY OF THE SINKING FUND.
From the Lancaster Intclligencer.
The sinking-fund robbery has been per-
fected The frst-class securities which it
held, the price of the long line of public
works once belonging to the State, have ali
been gobbled up by a powerful combination
of capitalists. A few men will manipulate
the nine and a half million of bonds thus
recklessly disposed of, and will make immense
fortunes out of the money which had been
set apart as a sacred fund to be applied to the
payment of the State debt. One of the funda-
mental conditions upon which the sale of the
public works was based, was that the money
realized should be applied to the payment of
the existing State debt. No one then
dreamed that a future Legislature would
have the audacity to take these securities out
Of the sinking fund, and to replace them with
worthless second mortgage bonds of projected
railroads through the barren regions of the
State. To have exchanged them for first
mortgage bonds of such roads would have
been bad enough in all conscience, but to
part with them for second mortgages is about
equal to giving them as a bonus to the diff
ferent corporations named in the bill which
we publish elsewhere. When the heavy pay
ments provided for fall due, the probabilities
| are that the corporators will permit the roads
| to be sold, and the result, in all likelihood
| will be that they will not bring more than
enough to satisfy the holders of the first
mortgages. If they are really valuable, some
cunning device will be adopted by which bids
shall be kept just low enough to swindle the
| State out of its dues. We predict that the
| taxpayers will in the end be cheated out of
the nine and a half million dollars which
have been so summarily abstracted from the
sinking fund.
The haste with which this measure was put
| through both branches of the Legislature
| convinces us that it's advocates feared the
criticism of the independent newspaper press
| of the State. The authors of the swindle
| knew very well that it would not have borne
close scrutiny, and justly apprehended that
| any considerable discussion would be the
| death-Bnell of their ell-perfected project.
| The thing was securely set up, but ten days
| would have been sufficient to knock the
| props from under it. The country press
would have killed it, if the people had been
| allowed an opportunity to be heard, even if
| half the city Journals had been induced TO
! endorse it.
We have seen nothing in the arguments of
members of the Legislature or in the columns
of such newspapers as endorse this measure,
! to Justify what has been done. 1t is, in our
! opinion, a gigantic swindle upon the tax
! payers Of the State at large. The pretense
that it viii open up a section of the State full
of immense resources is nothing more than a
| specious pretext There is no Justice in thus
taking what belongs to the people at large
and appropriating it for the benefit of few
| in one section of the Commonwealth. If the
! projected roads are likely to pay money to
! build them could easily be procured in the
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