The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1870-01-05
Financial.

| Mr.. AIunEen's Speech in Favor OF Inn
mediate IEepudiRtfOn of the War
Debt.
Mr. Mungen, on the 10th inst, spoke in
the Committee of the Whole House, under
the hour rule. He said substantially:
That no man nor party was responsible
for his opinions in favor of the repudiation
of the whole war debt, except for pensions
1 to the poor and disabled soldiers, and to
their needy widows and orphans. The
Presidents Message had followed the line
of bankers and bondholders in respect to
the public debt. He intimates that the
President was with the September opera
tors in the New York market, and in favor
of subjecting the people by the money
power.
The leaders of the Republican party are
governed only by two motives: one is to
keep the Radicals in power, the other, to
get all the peoples money they can, short
of the point of forcible resistance The
American people are made slaves by Re
publican legislation, and the speaker quo
ted Walker and Webster to show the def
milton of slave 1t is where one man
works, and another man enjoys his wages !;
and that, he says is the condition of the
producers, and it is one to which they
would not submit for a moment, if the ap-
plication for his interest was personally
made by the bondholder He thinks it
were better if the bondholder did apply,
for then it would do away with the
swarms of the assessors and their depu-
ties, collectors and their assistants, and
spies, detectives, and all the tens of thou
sands of revenue officers who yearly take
up and receive one-half of the revenue
tax collected for all purposes, collected to
pay the interest on the bonds, to support
a large and unnecessary standing army, to
feed and clothe indolent negroes through
the agency of that immense swindle called
the Freedmen's Bureau, to educate little
negroes at school and educate big negroes
at Gen. Howards college, and for the nu-
merous other useless, not to say infamous
corrupt and fostering sores of the body
polite"
He quotes from Commissioners Wells
and Clarke the statement that. not more
than fifty per cent of the assessed internal
revenue is received into the Treasury
The people, in order to satisfy the claim
of a bondholder for 800 interest in gold
for instance, with gold at l3O-have to
pay to the tax collector $3.50 in currency
one half of which goes to the bondholder,
the other half to enrich corrupt Govern
ment officials, perhaps to enable thensfo
pay the enormous levies of black mail put
upon them by the Radical leaders fol
election purposes each year.
'The public debt in bonds amounts tc
about 50, 2,6OO.0OOOOO, the interest on this
in gold is annually $l46,OOO,OOO. To pay
this interest the people are taxed twice
that amount, or $292,OOOOOO in gold
$4SS, 100000 in currency, under Radica
legislation"
The President seems to lay particulal
stress upon the economy of his administra
ton, but says nothing about the numer
Gus pleasure trips of his Excellency anC
; his Excellency's Cabinet on Government
, vessel, the Tallapoosa, and at the Govern
5 ment expense, He says nothing abou
Long Branch, or the other fashionable pla
ees of resort where he was ''wined anC
dined" and distinguished himself in vari
= Gus ways, nothing about his Secretary O
the Treasury, Mr.. Boutwell,, paying pre-
MUM of twenty-five per cent for five
!, twenty bonds, which were redeemable il
' currency by virtue of their terms and G
the act of July II, 1862, known as the le
, gal tender act, and in clear violation G
!. section twenty-three of the national BAN
act, by which illegal tenders" are made re
ceivable for bonds and interest on the wa
n debt. He also mentions that Ingersoll'
$ bill, authorizing an issue of 100000 {
greenbacks requires the Secretary of tn
Treasury to use the same in buying bond
+ up at current market rates,
Mr.. Mungen thinks now is as good
- time as any for the people to throw 0
these burthens which have become insu
ferable. He says the bondholders do nc
want their money, but to hold on to the
bonds, and receive perpetual interest fc
g the principal, which is a mortgage on tI
lands, labor and flesh and blood of ii
p whole people until it shall be shaken ot
,ss and he declares himself in favor of imm,
diate Reputation of both principal and il
terest. He then proceeds to show by hi
t, torieal examples from ancient and model
g history, that such so-called public deb
ei e; are never paid. He cites Greece, and r
fers to England and France, and to Ma
sachusetts, which was the first of the Co
se Onies to repudiate, Virginia following
5a77 From the repudiation pamphlet of NJ
: Butts, he gives the history of the tot
!, failure to pay the Continental money
How Congress passed legal tender Law
penal laws, and laws regulating prices
no effect. At last it was funded at hu
dred for one, and dropped out of life al
,e, memory at one thousand for one, notwit
0i standing it had been the financial prop
- the Revolution Mr.. Mungen said he h
N. himself tried the Secretary of the Treasu
MIR Mccullough with Continental bi
but he replied that there was an act
,ara Congress forbidding redemption. Says \
. Mungen:
=, That act was reputation. But the
'e- pudiation of the Continental currency q
not retard the growth of this country, n
. did any of the repudiations mentioned
serious injury to the prosperity of the Il
tions and countries so repudiating The
= populations affected few of the citize
. of those countries, perhaps one in fl
L thousand, just as reputation here wou
but they relieved the masses of the pc
pie of the burdens of taxation, which We
In every instance crushing the life out
them, they knocked the fetters from thu
wrists and bade them hope, for the eff,
n was that they might be freemen, I
tbAir own toll and energy They on