Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-11-03

A
Of dollars. The almighty dollar" is q
proverb. We do not refer to their use as {
means of bribery and corruption, or for tht
purchase ot,voters. To greater or less de
gree, for these, and for other and different
and quite lsudable purposes, they have
always been used in popular elections. But
in these great affairs, the dollar has come
to play another and more important part
Il is not the merchantable movement OIL
comparatively few thousand dollars, but
the els inertio-the force at rest-of many
millions lying in Golfers whose weight Of
influence is now to be tested.
The case is this: the people are required
to decide whether an administration of
their government which has been lagranty
and conspicuously mischieyous in every
essentiaI-foreign and domestic; grasping,
clustering and pusillanimous in the former,
and despotic, extravagsnt and corrupt in
the latter; whose personal head lacks equal
ly the civil qualifications and the requisite
quantum of native ability for his exalted
trust, and whose unofficial habits and tastes
snobbishly displayed, are defensible only
by bis most slavish and profigate partissns,
and whose type is found and whose exam
pie is initiated in the great mass of his
myriad subordinates; an administration,
indeed, SO glaringiy evil and SO willfully
bad in every principle and particular,
that scores of the most able and influential
leaders of the party which placed it npower,
and whose interests inclined them to sup
port it, were, by its eminent viciousness,
compelled to condemn and repudiate it
shall be retained in Office for another term.
The government under Grant cannot be
successfully defended before virtuous and
intelligent paople. From the date of the
Philadelphia Convention, no trained pen in
its press, whether respectable or venal, no
orator on the platform, whether in its Off
cial pay or hoping to be, or however flip
pant in figures ofspeech or of arithmetic, has
done more than to varnish its hideous
faults, to eXtenIate its numberless errors,
and to glaze over its gigantic and all-per-
meating corruption. Take it for sll-in all,
with the great opportunities before it four
years ago, it would be utterly contemplate
in the eyes Of the country, if it we're not
fearful in the fact that it msy reproduce
itself.
But how? Simply in the sordid timidity
of the immense capital of dollars invested
in the bonds of The government whose val
ne may be comfortable by the operations
of the machinery Of the government.
This capital feels secure where it is and as
it lis, and is sensitive at any possibility of
change, and trembles like the miser's box
under his clutch at any footstep. The clip
psrs Of semi-annual coupons catch their
breath at the bare idea, that, with another
administration, something might be done
under the name of reform that would make
their pillows uneasy. The ''nati0nal vsecuri-
ties" as they are unctiously called in finan-
cial language, are thus, possibly, to be made
the efficient instruments of perpstuating ma
tional misfortune IN the prolonged rule of
Grant. The influence Of the bonded cap
ital is as immense as it is selfish. The
intelligence of men who know that the ex-
trusion Of Grant from the Presidency and
the Inauguration of the reign Of reform and
reconciliation under Greeley, would render
every interest: more secure, because fixed
on honest and enduring principles, and
more stable because it would afford general
satisfaction and inaugurate more parma-
nent prosperity and thus escape cOnyulsive
efforts at change which they so much dread,
is not proof against this anxious feeling.
All directly interested in bonds are not so
affected, but, by Law of our imperfect ma
lures, the vast majority are.
The curious experience to which we have
adverted as an incidental issue in this cleo
ton, is the knowledgeto be attained of the
value of the dollar as permanent power
In the Ssate-whether or not its inevitable,
miserable influence is to become q fixed
quantity in all our future political calcula-
tons. For, if in this, the incpiency of
the bonded debt epoch, whose limitation 10
man can foretell, the fears Of capitalists
compel the eondonatiol of such frightful
mal-administration as is now upon the
what fragrant RIGHTEOUSNESS and
abuse may not in time come to be upheld |
lnder the same constrain {? If these things |
be done in the green tree, what will not be
done in the dry? The cry of "Grant for
1876" already. blazoned on
he banners of his henchmen, even If
ne were altogether different character,
s Of fearful importance. This idea, that
he administration of the government Of a |
rec people must not be changed, lest it az
ec5 the Value OF SECURITIES" is a virtual |
oss of liberty, and is a passing under the |
,ilded yoke Of monied aIistocracy. Let |
10 one esteem Us Tepudiatcr or agrarian,
,r as intimating the faintest breach in the |
public faith. Not SO; but in estimating the
,auses which, in the great financial centres,
nay sensibly affect the result Of Tuesday |
lext, these considerations naturally arise. |
Under the election of Greeley, confidence
n the public debt need feel no shock, but,
yhen in.eliigently viewed, rather a renew
ID sense Of security; but, in general vii
lis shrinking, sensitive, sordid thing
allied capital, so see it?
Nicholas Biddls and the Bank of the
Jcited States did no!, perhaps, really es-
ay to be The arbiter of political destiny,
s was charged, but, under the fercely
aalous eye Of Andrew Jackson, the peo-
lie promptly shore it of its strength.
What, however, when the public revenues
we're only fifty or sixty millions, and Bid
les Bank bad but . limited capital, were
he favoring discounts to few friendly
resses, compared with Boutwell, and his
imitless control of the financial interests
f the country? Why, by a click of the
elegraph be can shake the temples of
lammon from turret to f5undation-stone;
le can to-day shed deluge Of greenb2cks,