Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-09-30
$2,9S5.554,S27

These figures are from tables compiled
at Washington, and are authentic. 1t
will be observed that the total is about
one thousand million dollars more than
the present public debt of the United
States. This is the load old man Secesh
proposes to put upon the people of the
North when he gets hold of the reins, as
a punishment for licking him when he
undertook to set up government of his
own and to destroy the Union. -..
The intelligent reader will remember
that determined effort was made in
February, 1878, to rush through pay.
ment of the last item, that providing fol
payment of rebel mail contractors. Sec
retary Sherman believed it was an in.
iquitous fraud, and fought it sturdily
Mr.. Reagan, of Texas, democrat and
ex-rebel Postmaster-GeneraD sought tC
hasten payment, and with that view in
troduced in the House joint resolution
directing the Secretary to begin at onct
to pay in full to the late mail contrac
tors of the States of Alabama" &c.
naming all the Southern States, this sum
Mr.. Reagan and his rebel claimants were
in an impatient and mandatory mood
"The Secretary shall begin at once to pay
in tuM," &c. The Secretary believed the
claimants had been paid once by the So
called Confederate government. This
the ex-Confederate Postmaster-General
stoutly denied. Representatives Conger
and Willets, of Michigan, dived into the
rebel archives, which are preserved in
the War Department at Washington
and found that in proclamations dated
respectively Montgomery, Alabama, May
13 and 20, 1861, and signed by John II
Reagan, POstmaster-G General" all post
masters, route and special agents, all
mail contractors, mail messengers, and
special contractors are required to retain
in their possession and turn over to the
Confederate PostmaSter-General, the
same Reagan who attempted this $685.
900 fraud, "all revenues or moneys
which shall have accrued from the pos
TIL service of the United States prior to
June l, 1861, and all mail bags, locks
and keys, marking and other stamps
blanks for quarterly returns of postmas-
ters, and all other property belonging to
or connected with the postal service
1t was found, further, that in state
ment of Auditor Baker, of the Confed-
crate Post-otfice Department, dated Oc-
tOber 1, 1862, these claims were assumed
and paid by the Confederate govern
ment, and that contractors were requir-
ed to agree that if the United States
should ever pay them anything on this
account they would refund it to the
Confederate government. Newspaper
readers have surely not forgotten this
circumstance. 1t created a great sensa-
tion in the House and startled the en-
tire North, yet Notwithstanding the ex-
pose made by MeSsrs. Conger and Will
lets, rs Democrats voted to pay these
mOnStrouS claims out of the United
States Treasury, and but 2S voted nav.
The monStrous wrong of again paving
these rebel contractors, after they and
their agents had stolen everything in
their hands, was prevented by the votes
of 102 Republicans.
In 1877 Representative GOOde, of Vir-
ginia, undertook to crowd through the
House bill giving William and Mary
College, in Virginia, S65,00C for the de-
structiOn of its buildings by United
States troops. Representative Bragg, of
Wisconsin, who had been an officer in
the Union army, showed conclusively
that the damage was done by Confeder-
ate soldiers, that losses and ravares
by war have never been compensated i,y
this or any other government, and that,
i'll any event, "the College of William
and Mary forfeited any right which she
may have had rs an educational institu-
tiUn saved from the touch of war by be-
coming herself an engine of war, an
active participant in the rebellion. She
not only sent her pupils to the red field
of battle with words of encouragement
and blessing, but she baniShed the
muses. from her groves, threw wide open
her gates, and made her venerable halls
barracks for soldiery to destroy the gov
from which now in all humil-
ity she asks recOmpense. That
before the footsteps of northern sol
der darkened her halls they had been
into barracks and hospital
in aid of the rebellion" Mr.. Bragg is
Democrat, and Mr.. GoOde, taking alarm
moved that the bill be passed over, and
after persistent questioning stated that ;
ne did not expect to press the bill any
further ut that session.
The so-called Democrats of the South