The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-09-11
Southern Reputation.

The tree is known by its fruit. What
the Solid South has shown itself in re-
spect to all local obligations, the partial
record tells which we print to-day. 1t
is not a short story, for, unhappily, the
deeds of dishonor have not been few.
1t is not a pleasant story, for no Amer
lean citizen can road it without shame.
But it is better to know how the South
treats financial obligations, before put
ting it in the power of the politicians
and people of that section to ruin and
dishonor the Nation. For generations
they have professed q lofty and chival-
ric pride in their States; fidelity to their
States they have held quite enough to
justify treason to the Republic. But
those same States, by their own hands,
are befouled and besmirched with dis
honor. Not by Northern men, not by
neighbors, or friends or aliens, has the
honor of Southern communities been
dragged in the mud, but bv the very
men who professed a willingness to die
for their welfare. If they have more
veneration and love for their States, as
these men boast that they have, than
for the Federal Union. can it be expect
ed that the credit and honor of the Ma
ton would be safe in the hands of those
who repudiate State and local debts so
freelyP If these men have an honorable
or manly sentiment of any kind, surely
it clings around the State flags for which
they risked their lives in rebellion. And
yet, since peace came, these same
knights of fSouthernIhonor have dragged
those flags through the slime of repu-
diation. That they love their States,
their speeches assert. That they defile
and polute their States, their acts for
ten years have proved.
The record is long, but it is worth
reading and preserving. 1t proves that
the solid South, though it has been
getting rich by successful industry since
the war, has repudiated State and
Municipal debts amounting to more
than $500, 900, 900. 1t proves that the
excuses given are false; that debts of
unquestioned validity and honesty of
origin have been :repudiated quite as
wantonly as debts of corrupt origin or
doubtful validity. 1t proves that the
South has not only repudiated debts
contracted under Republican Govern
ments, but debts which existed long be-
fore there was a Republican party at
the South, and which were contracted
by Democratic Governments. Debts
old and new, debts honest and dishon-
est, debts large and small, debts bur-
densome and insignificant, have alike
fallen before the spirit of repudiation,
as grain and weeds alike go down be-
fore the scythe of the mower. Nor can
it be claimed that the burdens of the re-
pudiating communities were really
heavy. Many Northern communities
carry honorably and without difficulty
much larger debts, in proportion to the
assessed valuation of property, and it
must also be remembered that as a rule
the property at the South has been dis
honestly undervalued in assessment, for
the purpose of robbing public creditors.
The exhibition would not be of Ma
tional importance, if the instances of
reputation were relatively few. The
trouble is that they are very numerous,
so that the whole population of the
solid South, whether in one State or
another, in city or country, seems to be
infected with this moral plague of dis
honesty. At the North, we find here
and there disgraced city, or a State
with a stained flag and dishonored
name. But such cases here are partic-
ularly noted because they are excep-
tional. At the South, there would be
particular cause for surprise and rejoic-
ing if any political community should
even try to pay debt which it had
power to repudiate. The spirit is al.
most co-extensive with the recent re-.
bellion, and it might be said with
truth that, whenever the broken
fetters of an emancipated slave
had fallen, there repudiation had sprung
Indigenous from the soil. The plea il
indeed raised that vindictive feeling is
at the bottom of the refusal to pay
debts, in many cases. In Tennessee
for example, men say that .'the North
destroyed their property in slaves, and
may now stand its share of the loss in
the destruction of bonds chiefly held NJ
the North. But this, too, is only pre-