Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1876-02-19
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND
STATE CREDIT.

property of about 81. 1500O0 with a
tax on dogs amounting to 100000; a
privilege tax amounting to above $780,
600; revenue from railroads amount
ing to more than 100000; revenue
from Clerks of Courts, Banks, Insur-
ance Companies, &C., of sos, 900, and
a rental from the Penitentiary of S30.-
0O0-aggregating above 81 500, 000*-is
declared to be unable to pay the cur
rent expenses of the State and interest
on its debt, the two aggregating about
the same amount, to-wit, 81 100000.
Aud we are further told that the pub
lie debt is increasing at the rate of
nearly three-fourths of million an
nually-ber bonds are hawked and
peddled about the country and go beg
giDg at about forty cents on the dol
lar. less than the paper Of an ordinary
merchant Of doubtful solyency could
be bought in any community. Rich in
resources. amply able to pay as she is
proud of their State as her people have
ever been. she stands now discredited
and disgraced before the country
proclaimed over the State and the
country to be the victim of specula-
tors and rings-her people the victims
of misplaced confidence. For six
years the Democratic party has had in
charge her interests. Two years since
its representatives met in convention
at Nashville and, as they had done in
the two preceding State conventions,
denounced in the strongest terms re-
pudiatOrs and reputation in all its
forms, adopted platformunequivoeal-
ly pledging the party aud State to a
strict fulfllment of its obligations,
selected representative of the party
who, as a candidate for the chief Office
in the State, should go into every
county proclaim and renew these brave
pledges. In every county in the State
this same party selected candidates to
represent it and the State, in her leg
islative halls, and to provide for the
carrying out these thrice announced
pledges. When the time came for the
payers of the State, to reject or
endorse these creditable declarations,
they we're endorsed by nearly $4,000
majority. At the proper time these
trusted legislators made their appear
ance at the capitol of the State and,
sad to say, begun their work of main
tanning State credit and State honor
by taking from the executive the pow
er of unfolding either; and after thus
giving to the people of the State this
strongest proof, that majority of the
representatives of the party in power
in the State were untrue to the pledges
made by their party, left for their
homes-we trust to the enjoyment Of
the undisturbed luxury of private life
for the future. With this legislation
one might have supposed the measure
of Tennessee's modification and dis
grace to be full. but no, there was left
former, the open letter of the Governor,
he who had been nominated by the
convention, SO bravely speaking out
for State honor and State honesty, to
proclaim the principles and purposes
of his party from one end of the State
to the other, and endorsed in so doing
by so immense a majority, to intimate
that the people OF Tennessee are I'M
willing to pay their debts. To one in
formed as to the condition of the State,
its resources and its liabilities, it is of
course useless to say this disgraceful
position before the country is mex
cusable. The advocates of Reputation,
or of not paying the States obligations
which mean the same thing, in the
last legislature asserted that twenty
FIVE cents on the one hundred dollars
worth of property would be necessary
and sufficient to pay the current OK
penses of the State, and proposed that
rate, and to let the interest on the
bonded debt go unprovided for, on the
ground that the people were oppressed
with excessive taxation. The local
tax of counties and cities which really
constitute the burden by which we are
oppressed, when there is any oppression,
could not be interfered with by these
wise law makers, because the law
authorizing them to contract these
obligations provided way to compel
their payment The State tax was forty
cents-they proposed twenty-five cents,
by which the taxpayer would be re-
lieved of the payment of fifteen cents
on the hundred dollars worth of pro-
perty-or one dollar and fifty cents on
the one thousand dollars-one thou
sand dollars being exempt from tax
alton citizen worth two thousand
dollars, one-half in personally, would
by this splendid stroke of statesman
ship have been relieved of the OPP
pressive burden of one dollar and fifty
cents per annum, and by the same
judicious action the plighted faith of
the Democratic party would have been
violated, the interest of the State COM
promised and her good name sacrificed.
1t is needless to say this condition
of the State cannot last The great
majority of the people of the State are
true Democrats. To that party they
have looked with confidence for good
government, for honest government.
They entertain nothing but aversion
for the Radical party, and its career in
Tennessee. Yet, if the Democratic
party shall not set about a change in
its management of the affairs of the
State, the days of its power in Tenn
essee are, we predict, numbered. The
question of the financial condition of
the State, its credit and its honor, is
now the leading political question of
interest. All others are minorand over
Swallowed by this, and it will not be
ignored, ifone rate of taxation will not