Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1874-08-13
THE ADDRESS
Of the Union Republican Con-
gressionaI Committee.
To the People Of the United States

You will soon proceed to elect your
representatives for new Congress.
The occasion invites US to submit for
yourinspction the record of Republican
achievements since that party was
called to the administration of national
affairs We seize the obbortunity to
avow that record, not TO Apologize for
it. We challenge your approval, not
your pardon.
The obligations of government and
people, like the obligations of servaent
and master are mutual.
The government, like the servant,
owes faithful service. But the people,
like the master, owe honest recognition
of faithful service. Every thoughtful
employer knows that he can not with
impunity decry faithful labor. He who
does so habtually will soon have no
faithful lOborers. The faithful servant
will not submit 10 be treated as faith
less one. If so treated he himself will
become faithless, or he will give place
to one who is faithless.
DEMOCRATIC sTATESMANsH P.
1t is thirteen years since the Repub~
lican party was first called to the ad-
ministration of the National Govern
ment, For more than thirty years
previously the Government had been
almost uniuterruptedly under Den o.
cratic control. Ofthat control there il
hardly memory left at which the
nation should not blush. Seemingly,
it was inspired by but one ambition
the bad ambition to make our
foreign policy as lgnoble as
our home policy was shameless.
Our intercourse with powers weaker
than ourselves was spirited enough.
e -
refugee We despOiled Mexico of a
portion of her territory. We demOlish-
ed Greytown. We jing,ed millions ir
the ears of Spain as a Lure for Cuba and
the bribe was spurned.
In 1884 three of our Ministers abroad
assem- bled at Ostend and issued a mani
festo, in which they declared After
we shall have offered Spain price for
Cubs far beyond its present value, and
this shall have been refused, then it
will be time - consider the ques-
tion Does Cuba in the posses
sion OF Spain seriously eudanger orr
iaternoI Deuce and the existence of oar
cherished Union? Should this question
be answered in the affirmative, then by
ever NV 5fttmalf and divine wN-@sIlalI be
justified in wrestling it from Spain if we
possess the power
1t adds piquacy to that extract to know
that two of the ambassadors who in 1854
could think Of no way of saving . our cher
ished Union, but to wrest Cuba from Spain
were Pierre Soule and John Y. Manst
The third was James Buchanan.
But during all that time and in spite of
all that gasconade, there was not single
naturalized citizen who could safely revisit
his birthplace, for there was not one whose
citizenship was not absolutely denied by
the sovereign under whose dominion he was
born.
No American, native or naturalized could
send a letter abroad except upon onerous
conditions. We had then formed rostal
conventions with but seven foreign cOun>
tries.
The lowest rate of postage stipulated in
those conventions was ten cents for 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
portion of our territory in the northeast:
another and larger portion in the north
west We described the line agreed upon in
the northwest so loosel ly that Great Britain
Immediately laid claim to large islands on
our side of it.That insulting claim was neith-
er resisted nor admitted. 1t was cOmpro-
missed by permitting the claimant to hold
armed possession of one end of SanIJ uan, the
most valuable of those islands, while we
quietly squatted on the other end. And
while, by successive concessions, we were
constantly adding to the area of the Cana
das, we stupidity relinquished to their pro-
ducts free access to our markets. as the
equivalent of being allowed to send similar
products from the n orthwest, through Can
adian channels, to such precarious markets
as they could find on the other side of the
Atlantic
Such were the achievements of our di-
plomacv, during those years o. Democratic
supremacy.
CHEAP GOVERNMENT.
The story of our home rule would be
sadder still, if anything sadder 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 proba-
bly, the most profigate the world ever saw
They cost the people from fifty to seventy
five millions per annum. Those millions
maintained for us the empty pageant we
called Government. 1t was the most worth
less pageant that could be contrived 1t was
not even snowy: it was vulgar 1t had
all the features of government, but wi r
out its faculties. There were the three log
ular Organs-legislative, executive, idhe
cial. There was constant successioneutf
Congresses, Presidents and courts. hT-
courts of course were useful in hearing and
determining private controversies But what
is there to show from the labors of the po-
litical departments? 1t 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 dong
that, as many loan bills enacted in times of
profound peace still bear witness. Indeed,
that party was peculiarly embarrassed in
the collection of revenue. 1t dared rot
levy a tax except on the importation of a
foreign commodity; and it always dread
ed to tax the importation Of a foreign COM
modify lest it might unwittingly promote
some domestic industry. No we'll educated
Democrat could tolerate such result. So,
deficient revenues were, from time to time,
aided by loans. Such was the case in 1841,
1912 and 1916.