Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1874-10-01
supplement.
ADDRESS
-OF rHz-
UNION REPUBLICAN
Congressional Committee.
ITO the Rsople-of the r5oite1 g,otea.

The occasion invites US to submit for
your inspection the record of Repub-
lcan achievements since that party
was called to the administration of
national affairs. We seize the oppor-
tnnfty to aVoW that record not to
apologize for 1t. We challenge your
approval; not your pardon.
The obligations of government and
people, like the obligations of servant
and master, are mutual.
The government, like the servant,
owes faithful service. But the people,
like the master, owe honest reeogni-
ton of faithful service. Every
thoughtful employer knows that he
cannot with impunity decry faithful
labor He who does so habitualIy
will soon have no faithful
Iaborers. The faithful servant will
not submit to be treated as a faithIess
one. If so treated, he himself will
become faithless, or he viii give place
to one who is faithless.
DEMOCRATIC CRAFTSMANSHIP.
It is thirteen years since the Repub-
Hcan party was first called to the ad-
ministration of the National Govern
ment. For more than thirty years
previously the Government had been
almost uninterruptedly under Demo
cratic control. OF that control there
is hardly a memory left at which the
nation should not blush. Seemingly,
it was inspired by but one ambition
the bad ambition to make our for
eign policy as ignoble as our home
policy was shameless. Our inter-
course with Powers weaker than our
selves was spirited enough. We bull
lied Austria out of Hungarian refu-
gee. We despoiled Mexico of a por-
ton of her territory. We demolished
GreytOWn. We jingled millions in
the ears of Spain as a lure for Cuba,
and the bribe was spurned.
In 1854 three of our Ministers
abroad assem- bled at Ostend and is
sued manifesto in which they de-
clared, "After we shall have offered
Spain a price for Cuba far beyond its
present value, and this shall have
been refused, then it will be time
to consider the question Does Cuba
in the possession of Spain seriously
endanger our Internal peace and the
existence of our cherished Union!
Should this question be answered in
the affirmative, then by every law
human and divine we shall be justi-
fed in wrestling it from Spain if we
possess the power" aa
1t adds piquancy to that extract to
know that two of the ambassadors
who in 1854 could think of no way oi
saving {" our cherished Union" but tC
wrest Cuba from Spain were Pierre
Soule and John Y Mason. The third
was James Buchanan.
But during all that time, and in
- al
not single naturalized citizen who
could safely revisit his birthplace, for
there was not one whose citizenship
was not absolutely denied by the SOW
ereign under whose dominion he was
born.
No American, native or ns Allied
could send a letterabrOad except upon
OnerOus conditions. WG had then
formed postal conventions with bat
seven foreign countries,
The lowest rate of postage stipu-
lated in those conventions was ten
cents for a letter weighing not more
than one-half ounce. The highest
rate Of postage on the same letter
was thirty cents.
We tamely relinquished to Great
Britain a portion of our territory in
the northeast; another and larger
+
portion in the northwest. We de-
scribed the line agreed upon in the
northwest so loosely that Great Brit
tain Immediately laid claim to large
islands on our side of it. That insult
ing claim was neither resisted nor ad-
mitted. 1t was compromised by per-
mitting the claimant to hold armed
possession of one end of San Juan,
the most valuable of those islands,
while we quietly squatted on the
other end. And while, by successive
concessions, we were constantly add
ing to the area of the Canadas, we
stupidity relinquished to their products
free access to our markets as the
equivalent of being allowed to send
similar products from the Northwest
through Canadian channels, to such
precaTious markets as they could find
on the other side of the Atlantic.
Such, were the achievements of oul
diplomacy during those years of Dem
ocratie supremacy. s
.45 al CHEAP GOVERNMENT.
The story of our home rule would
be sadder still, if anything saddel
could be.
1t has been loudly vaunted that
those were cheap administrations
Compared with the expenditures OF
these times they were cheap, very
cheap. Compared with their worth
to the country, they were probably
the most profligate the world ever
saw. They cost the people from fifty
to seventy-fve millions per annum.
Those millions maintained for us the
empty pageant we called Govern
ment. It was the most worthless pa
geant that could be contrived. It was
not even showy it was vulgar. II
had all the features of a government,
but without its faculties. There were
the three regular organs-legislatiV
& executive, Judicial. There was a con-
slant succession of Congresses, Presi-
dents, and courts. The courts, OF
course, were useful In hearing and
determining private controversies.
But what is there to show from the
labors of the political departments
It seemed to be the sole end, if not
the sole aim, of Government to collect
money enough yearly to pay itself.
1t did not always succeed in doing
that, as many loan bills enacted in
times of profound peace still bear
witness. Indeed, that party was pc
culiarly embarrassed in the collection
Of revenue. it dared not levy q tax
except on the importation of a foreign
commodity; and it always dreaded to
tax the importation of foreign COM
modify lest 1t might unwittingly pro-
mote some domestic industry. No
well-educated Democrat could toler-
ate such a result. So, deficient rev.
enues were, from time to time, aided
by loans. Such was the case in 1841,
lS42, and 1946.
The first act passed at the first ses-
sion Of the Thirty-fifth Congress au-
thorized the issue of Treasury
and almost the last act of the same
session authorized a loan. In June,
millions was authorized, and onsthe
Sth Of February, 1851, an appeal was
made to the market for twenty-five
millions more.
Through all those years Congress