New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-10-10
REBEL AND LOYAL CLAIMS,

/ Inc CQ1cagO tunes Is duOTOl0g vas
deal of comfort to the Confederate Dem
ocracy of the South by showing that a.
many claims for war losses have been pre-.
sented by loyal men as by rebels. This
is urged as an evidence of the inconsist-
ency of the Republican party. Those
who fall into the trap forget there is a
wide and yawning gulf between the two
classes Of claims. The one is recognized
by the government and the common
sense of the people as valid and to be
paid when proof is made. They ought to
be paid with interest. The loyal man
| during the war was under the protection
Of the law everywhere, on the land as
we'll as the sea, and he frequently gave
up his property to save his country.
The rebels, on the contrary, were legally
outlaws, whose life and property were
justly forfeited to the offended majesty Of
the nation. They themselves declared a
war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt,
but it seems it was never their expecta-
ton that the point would come their way.
When the overthrow came at Appomattox,
there was great rejoicing at the unex-
pected clemency extended to them by
General Grant and President Lincoln.
Then came amnesty, undeserved, per-
haps, but still ungrudgingly given. In
stead of showing gratitude for these great
boons, the recipients soon began to think
they should be Unidentified for the property
they had recklessly thrown away in the
prosecution of their great crime against
their country, and afterward to watch
with envious eyes the occasional payments
of claims to legal owners Because Mr..
Frye proposes to pay the owners of the
ship John Garner, destroyed by the Con-
federates, it is as good as limited that we
ought also to pay for the Alabama, sunk
by the Kearsarge, and sundry blockade
runners which were captured in fagrante
delicto. A band of rebel raiders from
Canada captured $2S,65O from the First
National Bank of St. Adams, Vermont,
and bill to refund the money is paraded
as Republican enormity. At this rate
it will not be long before demand will
be made that Confederate soldiers be
allowed the same rate Of pay while serv-
ing against the Union as our troops re-
ceived tor maintaining it. The constitu-
tional amendment and common sense are
and ideas of right and wrong
are confused and merged in q very be-
manner. Were the misfortune
now to overtake US of the success of |
"Tilden, Hendricks and REFORM" we
should soon be made to feel that the latter |
embraced placing all the losses by the |
war upon an equal footing without re-
gard to the character of the property or
The status of the claimants.
There is no doubt great many more
claims have been made out and pre-
sented by pretended loyal men from
he South than ought to be or will
be allowed. 1t is by no means clearly es-
that the claimants were actually
oval. Some of them pretend to have lost
they never owned, and nearly
III of them have put too high price on
hings A demand for payment, being
'nly preliminary, can not be taken as con-
'lusive that it will be granted. Nor can the
allowance of a supposititious claim in any
manner authorize compensation to own
rs who are barred by the constitution.
The Times and Picayune have found
'ut an impostor whom it is safe, finan-
tally speaking, to expose, and they are
over the credit of the discovery.
There is no necessity for jealousy. There
re plenty of other impostors quite as bad
8 Ryan possibly can be. Why not drop
i'm and take two others instead. Lou
lana will never be redeemed from thral-
om if her stoutest redeemers quarrel
bus by the wayside And journalists,
90! Fie, on you; you do not behave
luch better than a couple of parsons
uarreling over the only original means of