The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1873-03-13


What could have been more malaProPos
and cruel than the Introduction OF this
question at the present time by the har-
pies who are Preying on the substance q
our people? Nearly four score years
ago the credit of the State was employed
to secure loan for the benefit Of Bank
ing Corporation, III a manner wholly un-
warranted by the Constitution which her
people had set up for the protection OF
their rights and as limit to the authori-
ty oftheir agents and placing themselves
on this high and unassailable ground,
they refused to be bound by the illegal
transaction. They rightly and honestly
assumed that there was no moral obliga-
ton resting upon them to recognize debt
which was illegally incurred and that
the stock-gamblers who had risked their
means and entered into the transaction
with a full knowledge of the hazard
must look TO the corporation itself and
not to the innocent tax payers for return
of their investment. Time and again,
the question of payment was presented to
the people-to the same generation who
we're directly interested in the subject
and they as often pronounced their judg-
ment TO this effect.
No party in this State when put to the
test ever had the b0ldness to declare in
favor of levying direct tax on the peo-
pie to pay the Bonds, though there was
a vast deal of high-sounding profession.
And finally all parties virtually assumed
the attitude of non-payment. Long be-
fore the war, the intimatlon that either
of the organized parties would propose
snch measure if in power, was resented
as SANDER manufactured for political
uses. And thus two generations passed
away and with each revolution of the
wheel of time the space continued to
widen between the Bond Shylocks and
their chances of getting their pound Of
flesh. It is historical fact that from
1843 to the year 1860-no platform was
adopted by any party in Mississippi
pledging itself to the payment of the
bonds
| When the war was over all classes OF
the people except the Loyalists who held
in reserve large claims for damages
against the Federal Government-some
of which have been allowed-were utter.
ly bankrupt. Their property with the
exception of lands which had in most
cases gone to waste, had vanished The
property basis of the State was reduced
from 5000, 100000 to $4,000, 900.
There was scarcely man of any profes-
sion who was not loaded down with in
supportable debt, to say nothing of other
torturing and bedeviling harrassments
The soldiers had come from the wars,
many of them in broken health and clad
in tattered garments-with no worldly
comforts-though with undying laurels
wreathing their brows. A new class of
citizens poorer still, was admitted to the
body polite with the responsibilities of
citizenship, but without a knowledge of
| the way to bear them. Superadded to
these misfortunes, their local government
was seized and their State was thrown
open to adventures as an inviting field
for their thieving operations. How the
opportunity has been improved by these
human vultures is a thrice told tale.
How they have consumed the substance
of the people in extravagant and riotous
living is a familiar story. How they
have quintupled the expenses of the State
government, all well informed men
know. How they have collected four
times as much taxes on one hundred and
fifty millions of property as was formerly
collected on six hundred millions, the
people are sadly advised How a float
ing debt of two millions of dollars have
been created in spite of this enormous
increase of taxation, to defray the cur
rent expenses of the State Administers
ton, need not be told over again.
In the extremity of this torture, while
these wrongs are crying to high Heaven
for redress clamor for the payment of
the twenty millions of unconstitutional,
repudiated Bonds, is raised? We repeat
the inquiry with which we commenced,
could anything have been more cruel
and untimely? The issue has been
raised; and it must be met.
In his recent speech Butler said 81