The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-08-23
The Country NOT Prosperous Under
Grant.
From the Lou. .ville Courier Journal.

4
l. Grant.
From the Lou sville Courier Journal.
The country has not, as whole, beer
prosperous under the present Admins
tration. In one section of it business
has been almost completely paralyzied
and in the rest whatever, prosperity,
exists is in spite of the baleful policy OF
Grant and his party. The Southern
States, which formerly paid large part
of the expenses of the Government, and
would be doing it now under wiser and
juster rule, are pauperized and made a
burden rather than help to the rest OF
the Union. The people of all the States
are GENEROUSLY taxed, and instead of the
proceeds being exclusively applied to
legitimate purposes, vast sums are
squandered in extravagance, corruptly
applied to partisan and personal pur-
poses or stolen outright by dishonest
officials. One day President Grant, or,
what is the same thing, his man Bout
well, puts his hand into the Treasury
and takes out many thousands of dollars
extorted from the people by taxation,
direct and indirect, and pays it for a
camp aign document, and a very poor
one at that. The next, under pretense
of defraying judicial expenses in North
Carolina, he hands over many more to a
United States Marshal. So it goes. If
the vast sums collected had been legiti-
mately applied we should have had by
this time reduction of the national debt
worth talking about.
The administration of President
Grant, instead of conducting to the pros
perity of the country, has proved pos
| tive curse. There isabsolutely nothing
to redeem it in the estimation of the
| people. For more than three years
extravaganza, corruption and fraud have
run riot among the public Offices. Mis-
management and malfeasance have been
the rule, and capable and faithful dis
charge of duty the exception. During
President Grants administration the
policy has been to ALLEVIATE the sections
by contantly keeping alive the passions
and resentments that should have ceased
with the cessation of the war seven
years ago. During President Grants
administration the people of the South
cru States have been dealt with as sub
ugated but still hostile enemies. and
adventurers have been let loose onthem
to plumber and despoil in the name Of
the Federal Government During
President Grants administration hb-
erty has lain PROSTATE at the feet of the
carpet-baggerin States which, according
to the Constitution, are coequal with
the others, and in those States taxation
without representation, which was
chief cause of the American Revolution,
has been the order of the day. During
the period of President Grants power
the rights of the people of the States,
and of the other departments of the
Federal Government, have been usurped
by the Executive. During that admin>
istration the work of centralization has
gone steadily on, constant and increas>
ing peril to the duration of constitu>
tiOnal republican government. In all
this there is little evidence of political
prosperity. Were the material prosper
ity of part of the country q thousand
times greater than it is, it would not
compensate for the ruin of the other
part, for the usurpations and oppres>
sions of the Administration and the
peril in which the very existence of the
government is placed. Let not the
Radicals claim for their Administration
anything in the nature of prosperity.
The Grant policy is more fatal to agri>
culture than the breath of the simeon,
more disastrous to commerce than all
the storms that ever followed in the
wake of the Flying Dutchman, more
depressing to finance than a thousand
crisises, and more threatening to the
liberties of the people than any number
of open rebelliOns. The administration
of President Grant has been prosperous
for the rich that it has made richer.
but not for the poor that it has made |
poorer. Grants administration has been |
prosperous for the Grants aud the !
Dents and their favorites and friends, |
but not for the people. Within the last |
few years President Grant has from |
poverty somehow attained vast wealth. |
As all the world knows, his labors have |
been very light; but he has found gift
taking, speculations, ana other means !
that were open to him exceedingly |
profitable. He entered upon public life
a pauper, and will retire from it mil~ |
ionairc. To his relatives and friends,
too, he has given wealth through official
position. wonder is not that Grants
followers, the members of
the Washington ring and the recipients
of the public patronage generally,
should insist that his is prosperous
Many large fortunes
have been made within the last three or
four years very much the reverse of
legitimate. These fortunes have been
made at the expense of the people.
The country has not been as prosper
Gus as it ought to have been during the
PRESENT Administration, but We predict
that it will prosper as it scarcely ever
prospered before for the four years
with the 4th of March next.
Then Liberal Administration will be
in power, with Horace Greeley at its
head-an Administration under which
The national finances will be carefully
looked after and faithfully managed,
under which the honest canduct of
rublIc affairs will at once diminish the
lakes and decrease the public debt, and
under the benign policy of which there
will be perfect reconciliation and peace.