The National tribune., 1892-04-07
so

500 ........s.....-..--..-....... olS,uoSZuu W
| Total..................,.--..S 91o,2f.ooo oo
This amounted to about $163 per head OF
the white population of the seeded States
OF S815 for every family of i've persons Ii
was about eight times as much per capita as
the issue of greenbacks by the United States
This was only the beginning of the rebel
! debt The Central Government OF Rich
mond issued unknown hundreds of millions
of dollars worth of bonds. Probably these
ran up into billions. Then there were hun
dreds OF millions Of Certificates of indebted
ness issued to railroads for the transporta-
tion of troops aud supplies, to contractors
for food, clothing, arms and ammunition,
etc, etc. Besides, each State exhausted its
credit in tens millions of bonds to fit out
troops, build gunboats, cast cannon, buy
arms, feed troops, ETC., etc. Taken per
capita, the total debt of the would-be Sc
ceders was probably 10 times that incurred
by the Unionists, without more than
quarter their wealth.
Therefore, if the Southern Confederacy
had been established, the people in it would
have been burdened with mountain OF
debt beyond the Imagination of man to
grasp. There would have been but two
alternatives for the overladen people.
Either they could have attempted to pay
the debt, which would have resulted in in
tolerable taxation for generations, driven
out all form Of investments, all manufactur-
ing and industrial enterprises, prevented all
improvements, and condemned the country
to grinding serfdom to the bondholders, or
they could have repudiated it, which would
have destroyed forever the credit of the new
Government, and every State, County, and
town in it, which would have had quite as
disastrous effect as the other course.
Both these calamities were averted by the
splendid valor and persistency of the Union
soldiers, who insisted on fighting the war
through to an unconditional surrender and
destroying every legal vestige of the iniqui-
tously-conceived and sinfully-born Southern
Confederacy. This passed a wet sponge over
the whole account Of Indebtedness in sup
port of the rebellion, and enabled the
debtors to start afresh in the world without
a cent of obligations on account Of their
costly mistake.
The people of the South ought to be
sufficiently grateful for this relief to be glad
to pay every dollar of pensions to Union sol.
diers themselves. They would get off
cheaply by paying the Union soldiers who
forced so advantageous peace double as
much as the Government has already ex-
pended for pensions.
Had The Union soldiers, the men who are
now On the pension roll, or are represented
there by widows and dependent parents, be-
come wearied-as they might well have
been-with the awful slaughter of the Wild
erness and the Atlanta campaigns, and said:
"We have done all and more than all that
can be expected of soldiers, you must COM
promise" the people of the South would
have been crushed with debt that their
great-grandchildren would not have seen
paid. They would have been in the condition
that Egypt is to-day, where every acre of
land is mortgaged beyond hope of redemp-
ton TO foreign bondholders, and every dol
lars worth that the soil produces and
above meager remnant to keep the tillers
of the earth alive-is garnered by the re-
morseless tax-gatherers, backed by British
bayonets.
The people of the South should rise up
and call the Union soldiers blessed for res
cuing them from the awful consequences of
their own folly.