The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1905-09-08
THE SOUTH'S PAYMENT
OF BIG WAR INDEMNITY.

A great many very good and patri-
otto people entertain the idea that
the south was not required to pay
any indemnity when it lay down its
arms and again became an integral
part of the federal union
But this is altogether an erroneous
idea
The south was required to give up
her slave property, sacredly guaran-
teed to her by the constitution, with
out compensation.
The census of 1860 showed that there
were four million slaves in the south
at that time and in 1865 they must
have reached the number of five mill
lions.
State convicts-men, women and
children, the sick. crippled, aged and
infirm-have recently been sub-leased
for 1925 per head per annum, and the
lessees are to pay the cost from the
various places of conviction to the
various places of destination.
These convicts bring these prices
because they are restrained of their
liberty and are more in the nature of
slave property, hence are the more
easily and readily controlled.
If the rental value of a convict be
1925 per annum, a slave may be well
estimated to have been worth at least
two and half times the value of a
thousand dollar government bond.
So, estimating the value of her
slave property at these figures, the
south paid on this one item of prop
erty alone the enormous sum of fif-
teen billions of dollars.
Besides this sum, her money and
her bonds were declared void.
How many billions of dollars these
sums amount to cannot be accurately
estimated, but they were many times
more than her slave property.
We knew great many families, or
phan children and widows, who had
sold their slaves, personal property
and holdings in lands, and invested
the entire proceeds in Confederate
bonds and money, and when the same
were declared void, were left wholly
and absolutely penniless.
The abnormal condition of affairs
that followed in the wake of the
manumision of her slaves and the
destruction of her money and her
bonds made her lands almost, if not
entirely, valueless, and left the peo-
pie of the south prone upon their
backs almost unable to move hand or
foot.
Men with large holdings in lands
became land poor and the payment
Of their annual taxes was the worry
of their lives.
Not only was the south required to
lose her property in her slaves and in
her bon Is and money, but she was
required and is required to this day
to pay her proportion, aud a very
large proportion, of quarterly pen
sions to her conouerors, but no Con-
federate soldier is allowed to reach
the federal treasury, even to the tips
of his fingers
When France was required to pay
her indemnity of a billion dollars to
Germany, a mere pittance COM
pared with the South's requirement.,
her labor system and the integrity of
her money and her bonds were left
undisturbed and every dollar of her
money was worth dollar in all the
markets of the world, So the payment
of her indemnity did not produce the
mental worry and physical strain that
was imposed upon the people Of the
South.
Yet the south heroicalIy faced the
changed conditions and requirements,
beat her implements of war into i'm
plements of peace, and successfully
paid the greatest indemnity ever ex-
acted in the worlds history, and
h;