The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1877-05-09
HOW THE MONEY POWER RoBs
THE PEOPLE
How the People can Assert their Rights
and Protect their Interests.

To the Editors Of The Argus:
The national debt may be safely esti-
mated at $4,000, 900 600, These u. s
bonds, by the law Of congress passed in
1862, we're TO be paid in greenbacks The
advocates of paying these bonds, principal
and interest, in gold. base this claim on
the law of congress changing the payment
from greenbacks to gold. They assert
that the power to enact the first law was
the power 10 repeal it, and TO pass the
second law. This second law was q fraud
on the taxpayers, and it was passed in the
interest OF the uutaxed bondholders And
yet the government paid the soldiers and
sailors in greenbacks. | grant that con-
gress had the power to repeal the first law
and to en2ct the second law, had it not
been fraud. Hence, it is a fact, as the
bondholders claim, that If congress had the
power to repeal the first, by which the
bonds were TO be- paid in greeubacks, ana
enact the second law TO pay them in gold
il follows as an irrcfutable tact that
congress has yet the power to repeal the
law 10 pay the bonds in gold, aud t. enact
a law to pay them in Ereenbacks. 1t is
not the mere transactions between the
congress, the agent Of the people, aud the
bOndhOders, that we are to examine, but
the nature of the transactions The first
law, though close shave on the govern
ment, will be let pass The second law,
passed after the war, to pay gold instead
Of greenbacks, was fraud to rob the peo-
pie, concocted by the bOndholders and the
corrupt members Of congress tor the es-
pecial benefit of the former. This was
fraudulent transaction, and thOugh the
parties to it call it a contract, it was, if ii
contract at best, a fraudulent one; and as
fraud vitiates contracts and jury verdicts,
it is void at the option of the party
wronged-the tax payers The members
OF congress are the mere trust agents for
the people, who, as principals, are not, 10
law or justice, bound by their fraudulent
or unauthorized acts. The above are set
tied maxims of equity, justice and common
law Vice President Wheeler in his letter
OF acceptance said: The just obligations
to the public creditors, created when the
government was in the throes of threat
ened dissolution, and as an Indispensable
condition OF its salvation, guaranteed by
the lives and blood of thousands of its
defenders-are TO be kept with religious
faith, las subsidiary thereto and confirmative
thereof. Exactly, Mr.. Wheeler. We
will keep vita religious faith the Just
obligations to the bondholders. promised
in the law OF 1862 during the throes OF
dissolution. We will pay them in green
backs according to promise, just as we
paid the soldiers and sailors. But the
fraud practiced on the taxpayers, and
especially on the soldiers and sailors, by
the promise to pay the boDdholders 10
gold, long after the war, never will be e.
deemed Common honesty, morality and
religion forbid the preparation of such a
criminal aud wholesale robbery of the pro-
duclng classes to fill the Golfers of the
puTse-proud banded aristocracy of Europe
and America.
Mr.. w heller continues: In my iudg-
ment the pledge OF congress, of Jan. IA,