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

view Of his Political Record an,
si,e Financial Policy of the re
publican Party.
IConcluded.l
THE EFFECT or A RETURN TO SPECIE PAY
NENT.
But il is now said that soon these vita
questions of the law, the contract and th
decisions of the C, urls viii lose their i'm
portancr, that we are plunging headlong to
wards specie payment, and have nearly
touched that standard. We hear this pro
claimed as a glorious contamination, de
vOutly to be wished at this time. Let VI
for a moment examine its workings upoI
4 people who are deeply in debt. Every
man, woman and child in Indiana, excep
those who own national bonds, is heavily
a debtor. You all owe something. None
-<-e so poor or obscure as TO escape. EY
cry substance, real and personal, is mort
g,aged The bondholder holds the mort
gage, and the tax gatheTer step by steI
forecloses It. Your labor is not all you
own. You are serving an apprenticeship
to masters who demand and receive the
proceeds of one day in six. II is more
than an apprenticeship. The apprentice
has his day of freedom named in his in.
dentures. There is no such day fixed for
your relief. by the present system you
and your children yet unborn, look for
ward 10 an endless bondage of debt. There
is NO land of promise given or fOreshad-
owed where the wicked shall cease from
troubling and the weary be at rest. The
funding system promulgated by the Secre-
tary of the Treasury and advocated here
by Gov. Morton, means simply to make
the debt permanent and everlasting, as the
British debt has been made in the same
way. Il is wholly in the interest of idle,
amassed capital it is entirely the bond
holders scheme.
Listen to what General Butler said,
July II, 1868, on the floor Of the House,
in speaking of spectators who seek in
Sestment for their indolent, untaxed mil
lions in your bonds. read from volume
GO, second session, fortieth Congress page
AIT:
They will pay more to-day for a per-
petual annuity at four per cent than for
yoTr twenty-year bonds at six per cent,
or more than they will pay for forty year
bonds a. five per cent. What they want
Is permaaency of investment The rea-
son why your securities are not higher
to-day is the danger of their being paid.
In Europe, there is no fayorite security
that is ever expected to be paid. What
people want is permanent investment"
THE FUNDING PLAN.
You are therefore not only in debt to-
day but you are to remain in debt forever.
The party in power will not issue legal.
tender notes to pay the bonds as they fall
due, bot advocate the funding plan which
gives a permanent investment for the
capitalist, Prepayment employment to the
aithing man, and permanent oppression
and slavery to the labOrer. The bill
which has passed the Senate and is now
pending in the House embOdies all these
heavy curses. tits the financial measure
Of the administration. 1t provides for
1he funding Of twelve hundred millions
of the public debt in new bonds at four,
four and a half and five per cent. interest,
principal and interest in gold. The bonds
are to become due and payable Ct the end
Of forty years. Let the tax payer mske
his calculation as I have made mine.
During these forty years the industry of
the nation would pay, as interest, on the
five per cent. bonds eight hundred millions
on the four and half per cent bonds
seven hundred and twenty milliOns-on
the four per cent bonds six hundred and
forty millions, making in all, as interest
alone. two thousand one hundred and
sixty millions iA gold, being more than
.be entire debt Is s. this time, and nine
hundred and sixty Millions more than the
whole amount funded, and still not one
dollar Of the principal paid, nor the Origi-
nal debt diminished a single farthing.
And this is the wise policy offered to the
people ass measure of relief! This is
all
As time, with its ceaseless step, moves
un, you will in few years have paid the
whole face Of the bonds, dollar for dollar,
in gold. This is not the law, but it is the
unlawful system of the party in power,
and soon that much of your substance
will have been transferred TO the bond
holder. But the paying process will then
only have fairly commenced. There IS
an eternity of torture yet lying behind.
The debt is to be paid over and over
again.
PAYING TIE DEBT OVER AND OvER-THB
CURsE OF DIET.
The Senator from Indiana says:
Il would therefore relieve the present
genera ton by turning over to the next g
considerable portion of the debt, which
in their vast increase of population and
resources, will rest upon them as tritiing
burden"
But the solemn truth is that he and the
Administration which he supports, re-
.Juire this generation and the next each to
nay it. They require you TO pay it, and
thea your children to pay it, and all the
other succeeding generations, running into
the far distant and indefinite future, when
we shall all have turned TO dust, to pay II
over and over again. 1t will be there
then, as it is here now, 6 permanent in.
vestment for a moneyed aristocTScy-for.
ever being paid, and yet unpaid; forever
drinking the life-blOod of the laboring
millions, and never satisfied. The jaded,
blind horse in the tFead-mill, peeTing will
his sightless eyeballs into hopeless dark
ness, and toiling up the revolving PLANE
beneath his feet, in an endless and de
aspairing struggle TO reach the end Of hi'
gyearis0me task, now and then smartlng
under the remorsa!ess lash, is the perfec
picture of the sunburnt labOrer in thi
or any other land fastened witt
perpetual chains 10 q funded debt
roaded ON to his drudgery by th
lvarice Of his taskmaster, and toll
ing forward into the dismal futur
without hope, or light, or rest, except tn
+ a.. Ubic hoe hoo
the bAne and curse of Europe, which ha
driven Der laboring population in sue
ahrongs to our shores. 1t has ground tn
working men and working women of th
ancient monarchies OF Che East into th
very earth beneath the feet OF S Honeye
nobility. The same results viii fOio'
the same laws here Do you want sp(
Gle payment now with such curse
this Should it not be delayed until th
bonds lave been paid according to th
contract-until the demands of the isont
holder are liquidated, in the language
Senator Sherman, in " the same kind
money he paid for the bondf" In
sueed towards the resumption OF spec
.nsyment at this time is a race against IL
law which calls for the issue of legal tel
der notes, against the contract which pr
vides for the payment of more than thre
fourths of the bonded debt in that chara
ter of currency, and against the rights {
labor which demands a release from deb
When once the goal is reached the N
nopolist expects this cry of the people
stop. When he can say that gold is 4
only legal tender for the payment OF
debts as it was ten years ago, he thin
the taypaver viii no longer clamor for q