The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1872-10-18

Deen lnulcted, Without any Nleipio Puolic
return, and principally since this Admins
tration was inaugurated, $l6S,OOO,OOO oil
debt"
And in his speech at Springfield be charges
that this increase of debt was in every
part q theft and robbery by the scound-els
placed in charge of the State Governments,
as he alleges, by the direct influence and
connivance of the Republican party. The
whole statement of Gov. Brown fills me
with amazement, and am wholly at loss
to understand how any gentleman in his
position dares to make such declarations.
now SOUTHERN DEBTS WERE coSTRAcrED.
In the FIRST place, the men having con-
troll of the State Governments of the South
were not placed there by the administration
of Gen. Grant or the Republican party of
the nation, but were elected by the people
of these States.
In the next place he overstates the amount
of Indebtedness contracted by the eleven
Southern States since reconstruction to the
extent of $37, 900 900. The detailed staten mt
embraced in the report of the Ku Klux Com
mittee to the Senate, page 2l4, shows In
crease OF debt and all liabilities, contingent
and prospective, since the reconstruction,
1871, Tl7777.Sl.
In the third place Gov. Brown suppresses the
important and all-controlling fact that all
OO,, has been contracted for the purpose of
building railroads in those States. When
they were reconstructed the first great want
experienced was railroads. The South had
few before the war. Some Of them had been
destroyed during the war, or were utterly
out of repair and the companies bankrupt.
There was no capital in the country with
which to build new railroads, and as men of
capital in other States would northwest their
LII Il
unsettled condition, there was no way to in
tia e the construction of new roads but ~
pledging the credit of the States and raising
it on their bonds. This was a dangerous
experiment, as has been shown by the ex-
perience of other States, but it was all that
could be done under the circumstances.
Nearly all the bonds embraced in the cor
rect statement of the debt were authorized
for that purpose; many of them have never
yet been issued. the conditions upon which
they were to be issued and disposed of not
having occurred d. Some of those issued have
been improvidently disposed of, and others
wasted in frauds and extravaganza, for
which no defense is to be made but the
amount Of bonds thus lost is very small COM
pared with the whole amount embraced in
the statement.
TEE EVIL NOT CONFINED TO SOUTHERN STATES.
| said the system was a dangerous one, as
had been hown by the experience of other
States. Missouri, for example, at the end OF
the war, h ad an old debt of nearly $3s, 000,-
600, contracted before the war, for the pur-
pose of building railroads and other internal
improvements, for which she had very little
| to show.
Illinois embarked in the same system, and
sacrificed bonds to the amount of near
twenty millions, failed to pay the interest
on them, and for time her credit was pros
trated but it has now wholly recovered
| Indiana, in 1887, took the same course, dis
posed of her bonds to the amount of I'll ,000,-
900 and upward, and after the expenditure
of all the proceeds, some being stolen, some
squandered, and the rest expended with a
prohigscy or without wisdom, she had moth
ing to show for it hut two pieces of canal
| forty miles OF railroad and two or three un-
fin.shed turnpikes. Ohio suffered largely in
the same way. Pennsylvania at one time
had debt of $40 900 900 created for like
purposes, part of which was paid by the
sale of Ler public works. Old Virginia to-
day has debt of more than $50, 900, 900
which it is doubtful whether she can ever
pay, which was contracted before the war
VIXEN there was not Republican within bel
borders, and for which she has very little &c
show.
But the prospect now is that the Southern
States will come out better with this expert
ment than the Northern ones did, for sore
Of the works have been completed others
are in progress, and in several States the in
vestment may yet prove to have been wise
and statesmanlike. Had Gov. Brown stated
that the great bulk of his indebtedness wa,
contracted for railroad purposes, it would
have destroyed the force of his argument
and left him with lame and impotent con
clusion. Had he stated another fact, which
he ought TO have given to have vindIcateC
the truth of history-that when these various
railroad bills passed, with scarcely an ex
ception, they were supported by men of al
parties that they were in no sense party
measures that the corporations were organ
lied in great part by Democrats, and that o
the fra ds actually committed Southern
Democrats, to the manor born, had their full
shsre-his charges atainst the Republican
party would have dwindled TO small sun
of beggsrly complaints.
One word further upon this subject, and
am done Scarcely q railroad has been con
structed in the Southern States since the wal
or is now in progress of construction, tina
was not inaugurated, and is now in grea
part being conducted and managed by the
much abused carpet bsggers; and the South
to-day owes to them large part of her pro
gress and enterprise. Southern abstraction
lists. States rights philosophers, and thu
bowling Dervishes of politics who spenC
their lives in lamenting the corruptions o
others, hardly ever build railroads or d.
other useful things. They are the drone
of the political hives, whom "God for som,
inscrutable providence" permits to vex tn,
public ear
THE TARIFF QUESTION.
In his speech in this city, Gov. Brown con
graduated the country upon the final solu
ton and disposition of the tariff question by
renting it to the people in the various Con
gressional Districts, thus taking it out o
stional politics ard relieving the countr,
from all embarrassment. One would sup
pose from his speech that the tariff for tn
first time had been placed within the reacl
} and control of the people, by the especial ia
vor and grace of the coalition. The pretens
OF taking the question out of national polite
and RENTING il as a new thing to the Con
gressionsl Districts is q most Transparent
, dodge and humbug, and worthy only of tn
contempt Of intelligent people. 1t will de-
J ceive nobody. Gov. Brown had for year
been an ultra free-trader, and the Missouri
, Cincinnati movement WAS started upon tina
basis, but afterward, when the coalition wa
formed of men Of all principles and none 70
J the lake Of power and plumber, and Horac
Greeley, protective tariff man, piaced,at il
head, is became necessary TO strsnge tn
, tariff question and huddle it out of Ssh
| They, astute managers, thought they la