National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-01-08
Financial Honesty in Virginia.


The lucid and satisfactory presentation
by General Malone of the debt question
of Virginia, to which we give SO large a
space of our paper this morning, cannot
fail to convince all who read it that it
| bears us out in the statements we have
frequently made that the Readjusters of
Virginia are the real debt-payers, while
the promise-breaki self-styled Debt
payers are the .upholders of Jeremy
Diddler policy, ruinous to the State and
destructive of the rights of her creditors.
The term "Readjustment" is greatly
misunderstood. People suppose it to
mean an arbitrary reduction of the debt
by the debtor Instead of this, it is the
offer of one of the two fragments into
which the debtor State was broken dur
ing the war as to the proportion of the
old debt which that fragment finds itself
in duty bound TO pay. The erection of
the State Of West Virginia created an
obligation on the part of that State to
assume some part of the Indebtedness OF
that Virginia of which she had been a
part. Utterly refusing to confer with Viz
ginia on the subject, the latter must fix
the proportion for which she considers
herself bound. All parties have decided
that proportion to be two-thirds. The
manipulations of the State Legislature by
Adventures who have visited Virginia
for purposes of gain are given by General
Malone in minute detail, as are their
operations under the laws they pro-
cured to be passed. 1t is only wonder
that, after all the deyilment and indirec-
ton, the scheming and plundering to
which the Old Dominion has been sub
jected, man capable Of leading a
majority of the people should be found
equal to the task of keeping them
squarely upon platform SO just as that
advocated by the Readiuster leader.
This document will teach our Republi-
cans in the North not to believe Bourbon
testimony against brave and patriotic ex-
confederates who refuse to aid in
reactionary schemes. The courageous
devotion of General Malone and
his followers to a free ballot, and
their contempt for a white-line policy
in the face of the Fifteenth Amendment,
their support of free schools for the
children of both races, and their oppo-
sition to the onerous tax on the right to
vote-these are hateful to the BourOons.
have the hearty cooperation of Republi-
cans. To prevent this, history has been
perverted, facts ignored, and every effort
has been made to defame the Readjusters
by charging them with being repudiators.
The only men who have any project for
paying the debt of Virginia are these
same Readjusters. They have confined
their discussions hitherto to Virginia.
Northern opinion, based on ignorance
of facts, has operated unfavorably On
them, by keeping portion of the Repub-
lcans of Virginia in sympathy with the
Bourbon Funders on the debt question.
General Malone has made clean state
ment, which we believe will have the
effect to secure for him and his just and
reasonable plan the approval of the great
body of the people of the country. This
result attained, and there will be no STUN
bling block in the way of Virginia Repub-
icans coming to the support of his party
in the coming State campaign. The strug-
gle will be between the Bourbon Funders
and the Readjusters. Republicans at the
North who read General Mahone's views
cannot hesitate what action to advise on
the part of the Republicans of Virginia.