The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1871-08-23
HON, GEO. /. PENDLETON,
He Makes His First Speech
Of the Campaign.
An Eloquent Arraignment of
the Ad ministratiOn.

Ao' ELSND, univ, huSuos --' wv
II. Pendleton made his first speech in
the present campaign to-day to large
audience. He commenced by paying a
glorious tribute to the memory OF Val
landigham and denounced what he
termed the crusade against the South.
He said the Government took to itself
credit for paying two hundred and
thirty millions Of the public debt, yet
in doing so it unjustifably lost twenty
five millions besides paying twenty mil
lions more, each year as bonus to
bankers Of the country than was ne.
cessary while labor groans and trade is
stagnant under its effect. Ask bank
ers railroad merchants, manufacturers,
farmers, laborers, all will tell you there
is no country in the world has sys-
tenn of taxation so Unerous as ours.
The Internal Revenue system is un-
equal and unjust, and has held out
temptation to dishonesty, rewards to in
formers has made perjury common and
has filled the land with spies.
In the meantime taxation has been
kept up to more than four hundred mil
lions per annum. The bonded debt Of
the country, though nominally reduced
two hundred and thirty millions, has
actually increased in weight and op-
preston. The earnings of the country
are sixteen hundred millions, while
the taxation is equal to twenty-five per
cent. OF all the earnings, Of all the in.
tellect, all the ingenuity and labor Of
every man woman and child in the coun'
try. Nothing could have saved us from
ruin by this policy except improved fer.
tility of the soil, and the wonderful
energy and activity of the people. He
said, cannot portray the enormity Of
the tariff it is tariff for protection,
not for revenue; a tariff for the benefit
OF special interests at the expense of the
whole people. The legislation Of Con-
gress on taxation, tariffs, banks and
railroads is controlled by rings influ-
enced by money. In political questions
on Ku-Klux bills or the San Domingo
treaties, by the interference Of the Pres
ident and the bribing of his patronage.
public offices are bought by presents,
or awarded to ready relatives. Defal-
cations are frequent, and neither is res
ti:ution enforced nor punishment
awarded So common is this that every
official act is believed to be in the IN
terest of job, and there is not in the
Government character so pure as not
to be suspected of participating in its
profits. He said that the President,
when he desired the annexation Of San
Domingo, did not hecitate to take
money from the Treasury, in defiance
of the law, and pay it out in advance
Of the submission of the treaty, to the
Senate. He did not hesitate to stipu-
late that he would keep its existence
secret until he had by
personal and official influence secured
it's ratification by the Senate. When
Sumner stood in his way he did not hes
ltate to eject him from the committee
on Foreign Relations, and now while
the Senate is considering the treaty, he
secures from private persons the money
and pays a second installment on the
purchase. There is party in San Do
mingo opposed to annexation; it begins
to make head there; whereupon Gen
eral Grant uses the army and navy OF
the United Statee for the protection
Of his vendor in power. All this
has been done by the kingly pre-
rogative, without the authority Of an
act of Congress. If such transactions
can escape Judgment, it is difficult to
saw what securities remain. My chief
quarrel with the Republicans is that
thev have so belittled our State govern.
ments, and so employed the Federal
Government, that all questions of State
policy are swallowed up in national
issues. Put the Democratic party IN
power and it will reform these abuses,
punish corruption, restore selfgovern-
ment to all the States, and bring about
an era of harmony, and the union OF
real prosperity and true liberty.