Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-08-09
SPEAKER BLAINE'S LETTER or
ACCEPTANCE.
Augusta, Me-, Aug. 4, 1870.

! Chairman District Contention
DIAN SIR: Various circumstances have
caused delay in my formal acknowledgment
had again been nominated for Representative
from the Third Congressional District. l
desire through you to express to my political
friends the profound sense of obligation l feel
for this renewed and emphatic expression OF
their confidence. Approaching as l do most
fully. the moral worth, the general intelli-
gence and the high character of my consttu-
ency. confess that it is source of grateful
pride that l have been enabled to retain stead
lastly and for so long period their goodwill
their sympathy and their support. In accept
/ ing the nomination with which am thus again
honored | may be pardoned, trust. for dwell
| ing at some length on the issues involved in
the pending election, and the relative claims
of the Republican and Democratic parties to
popular confidence.
1t is seventeen months to-day since General
! Grant was inaugurated as President of the
| United States. When he was invested with
the Executive authority, the National Debt
amounted to s., 1925, 1853, 260. On the first
day of the present month the total debt was
S2,369 1924, 476, showing a reduction in the
period referred to of the enormous sum of
| $l56, 1873, 7S4-at the rate ofconsiderably more
than one hundred millions per year. During
the seventeen months Immediately preceding
Gen. Grants accession to the Presidency,
when the Democratic party had control in the
councils of Andrew johnson, the National
Debt was increased more than thirty millions
of dollars. am writing with the official re-
ports of Secretary McCulloch and Secretary
Boutwell, before me, and the accuracy of these
figures cannot be successfully questioned.
But suggestive as these results are, the
whole truth is not yet told-for it must be re-
membered that the enormous reduction of the
| National Debt under the administration of
Gen. Grant has been achieved with diminished
sources of taxation as compared with those in
existence when the debt was so largely in
creased under Andrew johnson. This fact
demonstrates very conclusively two very i'm
portant points, viz: first, that the revenue has
been collected with far more scrupulons hon
esty and cxactness under President Grants
Republican administration than it was under
President Johnson's Democratic administra-
tion-and second, that the public money has
care under the one than it was under the other.
Contrasting the two periods of equal length,
the one under Democratic influence the other
under Republican influence, and the difference
to the National treasury in favor of the latter
exceeds one hundred and eighty six millions
of dollars, just about eleven millions per
nigh four hundred thousand dol
lars per day. And this difference is exhibited,
be it remembered, when the Democratic party
did not have full sway in the government
under the continual and wholesome restraint
of a Republican Congress. What the Demo-
cratic party would do, if clothed with entire
power in all the departments of the govern
ment, will we trust be left for long period to
the imagination of men, without giving us the
bitter fruits of its practical realization. What
forms of reputation of the National faith
would be rcsorted TO may be inferred from
the declarations of their conventions and the
speeches of many of their leading men. One |
of the most insidious and dangerous and prob
able modes of destroying the National credit |
under Democratic rule would be the paw
ment or attempted payment from the National
treasury of all Southern claimants for losses
inflicted by the war. This is not an inference
for it is boldly avowed by leading Demo-
Gratis in both branches OF Congress. In April
last, during the tendency of bill in the SEN
ate introduced by Mr.. Howe of Wisconsin, to
pay "ioyat citizens for quarter master and
commissary stores taken during the rebellion"
a Democratic senator, Mr.. McCreery, moved
to strike out the word ''loyal," and supported
his motion by an earnest speech. On the 2lst
of May, Mr.. Knott of Kentucky, an able,
frank and fearless gentleman, one of the lead
ers on the Democratic side of the House,
speaking on this question used the following
language:
:" But sir, this is not all, half. | have been
speaking of only much of our debt as We have
given our notes for. Besides this owe, at the very
lowest calculation, 50 900 100000 not to the bloated
bondhOlder, OF whom We have heard so much, but
to class of our people to whom of all others we
under the most sacred obligation to pay. We owe it
to the poor whose horses and cattle and sheep and
hogs and corn and wheat, and everything else,were
taken from them to sustain your armies in the Held"
If the Union army had the right to make
war for the maintenance of the government,
it had the right to forage on the enemy but
the Democratic proposition now is, that every
rebel in the South shall be paid for what he
lost during the war, and we have a leading
Democrats authority for saying that the
amount required will be three thousand mil |
lions of dollars
While maintaining the integrity of the Ma
tional debt, against all forms of reputation
and all classes of regulators, the Republican
party do not believe in keeping up high rate
Of taxation for the purpose of paying it off with
undue rapidity. The rate at which the debt
has been paid since the Inauguration of Presi-
dent Grant, would leave none of the burden
upon the next generation. Aside from the in
justice of laying the whole pecuniary cost of