Year: 1868

No lost traveller in the deep SHOWS Of the
Alps or the Sierra Nevada was ever more
bewildered than Congress is, both with regard
As to the former, the radical majority know
not which way to turn. They have devoted
the time which should have been spent in
legislating for the welfare Of the country to
measures for perpetuating their party power.
The whole scope of their legislation in the
Reconstruction acts, in imposing disabilities
on the white people Of the South, in elevating
the semi barbarous negroes to political supre-
macy, in stripping the Executive of all power,
in establishing a military despotism over the
Southern States, in the impeachment Of the
President, and in all their other acts, there has
been but one object, and that is, to seize and
hold all the powers and spoils of govern
ment-to perpetuate the rule of radical
faction in spite of the will Of the people. But
they see by the elections that have been taking
place in every section of the country for some
time past that public sentiment is against them,
and they are greatly perplexed. They cannot
recede, for they have gone too far, and,
though afraid Of the consequences of proceed
ing farther in their revolutionary course, they
plunge into the most desperate measures as the
last and only hope Of saving themselves. To
stop will be ruin and to go on will be ruin.
The conservative portion of the dominant party
is disposed to go no farther, and would rather
retrace its steps; the ultra radicals are deter
mined and desperate, and are making every
effort to drive their timid colleagues to ex-
tremes; while the democratic members are
powerless. Such is the deadlock in political
matters at which Congress has arrived.


The situation with regard to financial ques


tions is much the same, only they have no party
character; parties have not taken ground upon
them. Indeed, Congress and the parties in
Congress are all at sea about the finances, cur
rency, banks and debt Hardly day passes
that some proposition is not made in the Senate
or House of Representatives to doctor the
finances, but the greater part of them are but
quack prescriptions. Almost every member
deems it necessary to offer his nostrums, yet
scarcely one knows anything about either the
disease or the nature Of the remedy pro-
posed. Never before was the legislative
body Of great nation SO divided and
bewildered on such questions. Up to
the present time these questions have assumed
more of a sectional than party character, and
yet not altogether sectional; for we see such
great leaders of the dominant party as Thad
Stevens and Ben Butler from the Atlantic
States taking as broad ground on the currency
question and the payment of the debt in green
backs as the Western members of both parties
Still, in general way, both the democrats and
republicans of the Eastern and Central States,
where capital is mostly concentrated, are in
favor of contraction of the currency, of
forcing specie payments, of paying the five
twenties in gold, and of the bondholding and
national bank interests, while generally both
parties in the West are for an expanded cur
rency and payment Of the debt in legal tenders.
There is, in fact, a perfect deadlock among
the representatives in Congress on all the ques


tions pertaining to the national finances. There
are no leading minds, no statesmen of compre


hensive financial views to propose such
measures as any party can rally on or upon
which the majority could agree.


The tendency is, however, to the broadest
and most liberal measures, so far as the inte
rests of the taxpaying masses are concerned.
The premature and Shylock demand
of the bondholders to be paid the full
face of their bonds in gold whether SO
expressed or not, has aroused widespread
opposition. The efforts Of these bondholders
to contract the currency and force specie pay
ments, in order to increase their own wealth
thirty to forty per cent and to keep up for all
time to come the burden Of an enormous debt
on the productive industry of the working
classes, have alarmed the people, They natu-
rally look to the amount given for these bonds,
not on the whole more than fifty to sixty per
cent in gold, perhaps, and ask why they should
be called to pay hundred. They want TO
know why there should be one rule of pay
ment for the bondholders and another for all
The rest Of the community Let these bond
holding Shylocks demand their pound Of flesh,
let them demand the full face of their bonds,
no matter how their victims bleed; but let
them beware of the fate of Shylock, who lost
all his money. The significant vote in the
House of Representatives on Monday on Mr.


Burr's resolution declaring "that sound finan-
cal policy requires the gradual withdrawal of
the intercst-bearing bonds and the substitution
therefor of greenbacks' ought to be warning
10 the exacting bondholders. When Mr.. Spald-
ing moved to lay this resolution on the table
the vote stood sixty-fve to ffty-fve against
tabling it; that is, there was a majority Of ten
against the bondholders attempt to smother
the resolution. But this is only one Of
many Incidents in Congress, significant
as it is, showing the growing tendency
to repudiate the greedy claims Of the bond
holders. Let them beware how they act leg!