Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1875-08-18

1 PRINTING OF ALL KINDS,
from Visiting Card 10 "a Mammoth roster ex.
duplicated.
had been picked by President Grant
for that purpose. And you will re-
member that. during the canvass of
1872, the charge of having packed the
Supreme Couft to procure decision
sustaining greeDbacks, in flagrant vic.
lation of the Constitution, was the
most persistent and clamorons made
! against General Grant and the Repub-
licsn party. Democratic leaders have
not cha lged their opinions upon that
| subject. Only the other day, at Cali.
polls, Mr.. Pendleton asserted in the
| strongest terms, that as . member OF
Congress he had opposed the issue OF
greenbacks in 1862, because they were
unconstitutional, that he had never
changed his opinion, and believed that
Congress had no such power. Mr..
| Thurman, Mr.. Bayard, and, 1 believe,
every Democratic member of the Sem
ate, have from time to time denied the
power Of Congress to make green.
backs legal tender, charged that the
Supreme Court. by which the decision
was made, was packed, although the
decision went no further than holding
that Congress had the power to pass
snch law in time of war. If the
Democratic leaders now believe that
greenbscks are unconstitutional, how
can we sufficiently condemn the by.
pocrisy of the demand for q new is
sue Of hundreds of millions to take
the place of national bank notes? II
they believe them to be constitutional
no condemnation can be severe
enough for their conduct during the
war, when they denied their constitu-
tionality and did all in their power to
dishonor them, at time when they
were necessary to preserve the life Of
the nation.
The question ~ to whether q Trea.
sury note can be made legal tender
in payment Of debts il purely ques-
tion Of law, to be decided finally by
the Supreme Court of the United
States, and there is not . respectable
Democratic lawyer now in the State
Of Ohio who does not believe that
new law creating . further issue of
greenbacks ~ Q substitute for nation
al bank notes, or for any other pur.
pose, would be declared by that court
unconstitutionsl and void.
REsToRATION OF STATE BANKS THE
ULTIHATUM.
This whole scheme of Q further issue
of greenbacks, In lieu of national bank
notes, arraign here to-day - hypo-
critical and treacherous, designed in
the first place to effect the destruction
of national banks, and then, by their
volume, and by tho decision Of the
courts, to destroy the greenbacks,
themselves, and pave the way for the
restoration of the old State bank sys-
tenn. The State sovereignty party will
never stop short of State banks. A
national currency, whether of green
backs or bank notea, 10 hateful to that
party which abhors the national idea
and declares that there is not one
nAtiop, but thirty-seven independent
and sovereign powers. The party
which clamors constantly about cen.
tralization and Federal assumption
can never be the friend of the green
back, which represents the highest
form Of national sovereignty. Every
year, the proposition has been brought
forward in Congress to repeal the law
taxing the notes of State banks, which
drove those banks out of existence,
and the repeal of which would again
open up the flood.gates for public and
private robbery by the establishment
of finnumerable kitipg and worthless
banks In al the Slater. Only last year
Mr.. Thurmsn and every Democratic
Senator voted for proposition to re-
peal that law which was offered as an
amendment to finance bill.
The restoration of the State bank
system means % many systems Of
banking - there are States, violent
expansions and contractions, hundreds
OF broken banks, aud millions of bank
note trash dying In the hands of the
people. 1t means the Western and
Southern States shall again pay mil
lions Of tribute to the Eastern States
in the form of exchange. It means
that the citizen of Ohio cannot ray
his hotel bills in New York or Boston
with Ohio money, without suffering .
shave or buying Eastern funds. II
means that no man can receive the
price of horse without examining
counterfeit detector to see that the
money is good or that the bank is not
broken. The old State bank system
is necessary to the State rights DEM
ocracy. The party that denies the
nation and hates everything national
turns with aversion from national
currency, State sovereignty and State
banks are twin relics of the times that
We fondly hope have passed away
forever.
THE CENTENNIAL.
The celebration ofthe centenary of
the Declaration of Independence on
the Fourth of July, 1876, will be pecu.
liarly grateful to the members of the
Republican party. That party had its
origin and development in the immor-
tai principles of that instrument, and
to its hauds, under divine providence,
was committed their final accomplish.
ment. The declaration that all men
are created equal; that they are en-
d0wed by their creator with certain
inalisnable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness that to secure these rights
governments are instituted among
men, deriving their just powers from
the consent Of the governed, 10 the
cornerstone Of the Republican party.
1t is the grand platform upon which
We stand to-day. upon which the
Union has been preserved and slavery
abolished, and the political and civil
equality of sll men before the law es-
tabliahed. 1t embodies the principles
OF civil aud religious liberty upon
which our government, after nearly
ono hundred years, now stands tri.
umphant, and which have been i'm
pressed to greater or less degree up
ON ati the civilized governments in the
world, by whatever name called. In
| its fret sentence 1t proclaims the grand
fact of the national unity, by describ-
ing the inhabitants of the thirteen COL
onies ~ one people about to dissolve
the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers Of the earth
the seperate and equal station to which
the laws of nature and OF natures
| God eutitle them. The existence OF