Year: 1868

The Rebel leaders are telling the people that
the taxes under the new Constitution will
be eight dollars on the poll, and so high on
the land that it viii. amount to confiscation.
They know they lie when they say this, for
the new Constitution, which they have be-
fore them, expressly, provides that the
tax on the poll shall never exceed two dol
lars, and that the tax on land shall never 60
in proportion beyond the tax on the poll;
that is, when the poll is taxed two dollars
the tax on three hundred dollars worth of
land shall be two dollals. The members of
the Legislature will be sworn to support the
Constitution which contains this provision,
and therefore they can not, in any event,
levy high taxes. Ii the people want the
proof OF what We say, let them examine the
Constitution for themselves. The Rebel
leaders are afraid to let them see the Con-
stitution. They will not publish it in their
papers, and they destroy every copy of it
which they can put their hands upon.


These R, cl hypocrites prate about high
taxes! In 1860 we were the happiest peo-
pie on the face of the earth. No man felt
his taxes. The State was prospering, and
we had the cheapest government in the
world We had a School Fund of two mil
lions of dollars. We had surplus in the
Treasury, and our bonds were selling above
par But the Demon of Secession stepped
in, as the Devil did into Paradise, and what
was the result? Month by month and year
by year our taxes were increased. Such
men as Vance, Mordecai and Pell invested
the School Fund in Rebel State bonds, and
it was lost. They taxed US on every thing.
They took the tenth of all the farmers made
to rot in warehouses, or to fatten and up
hold the slaves of power, for but little of it
went to the soldiers. They ISSUED Con-
federate money by the cart load, and then,
to reduce the volume of currency, they repu
dated one-third of it. They sent their tith-
ing men and their press-masters to every
mans smoke-house, corn-crib and barn, and
plundrred our people of their corn, their
bacon, their cattle and their horses. They
sent their conscript officers to every hill and
dale, and in every house in the State they
laid their bloody hands on brothers, sons
and husbands, and forced them to the battle
to die to keep them in Office and to uphold
human slavery. They pursued and scourg
ed women and shot old men and little boys,
| in order to add to their armies and sustain
their internal rebellion. They made them
selves names of infamy and horror, at which
all good people shuddered. They taxed this
people in their houses, in their lands, in their
money at interest, on their heads, and then
they drained them of their blood from the
poor, pale boy of seventeen tc the man
OF fifty years of age. Such men as Gra-
ham, Bragg and Vance did this up to the
last moment, to keep themselves in of
ffice, and to retain their grip on their
slaves. These leaders fought, or rather they
put the poor white men in the army to
fight for them, when they knew success was
impossible. They thus murdered thousands
of their countrymen, whose gibbering ghosts
will meet their guilty souls and call for ven
geance at the bar of the Great Eternal.


And yet these hypocrites, covered with
blood, having taxed and ridden this people
to their ruin, talk about taxes! They want
no taxes unless they can enjoy them. They
want no civil government unless they are to
rule. They want no reconstructed govern
mem unless they, as members of Congress,
are to be allowed to stalk into that body
fresh from the oppression of their own race
here in North Carolina, and reeking with
the blood and the crime of treason.


Heavy taxes have recently been imposed
on the people of this State by these same
Rebel rulers for be it said in sadness and
sorrow. the nation has permitted Rebels to
rule us ever since December, 1865. What has
become of the millions levied for the State,
for the Counties and for the towns during
this period9 Where is this money? 1t has
gone to pamper and enrich Rebels and trai-
tors. What has been done with this money
while in the State Trcasury2 Has any of it
been invested Z? Fso, has the State got the
interest What has been done with the
funds in the State Bank? Have they been
honestly used


The new Constitution provides for only
moderate and just taxation. The Republi-
can party is the party of cheap, simple, Just
government. Then let the people go the
polls and ratify the Constitution. They
will escape, by so doing, not only the
bad men who involved them in rebellion
but the high taxes which must follow if the
Constitution is rejected and Rebel rule con.
tinued.


|